Howdy! Happy Year of The Snake! I hope that a slimy, slithery snake isn’t a bad omen for the year ahead! And I really don’t like snakes. That is all.
Today we celebrated Chinese New Year and had a blast! The monsters were so into it and loved learning about a different place! STORY TIME! When talking about China, one of my girls yelled out, “That’s me! China is in Asia!” (Her name is a continent!)
We kicked off our Snake day with the story, Ruby’s Wish! It’s a true story of a little girl who wants to go to university but only boys are allowed! At the end she gets to go and her wish comes true. We had a great time comparing ourselves to Ruby! This is a great story for anytime of the year! It’s perfect for compare and contrast and could be great for women’s history month or even as a tie in with black history month. You could compare Ruby Bridges to Ruby! Did you see how my brain made all of those connections just now?! Yep, that’s how I get it all done!
We also had a great tie in with math. Um, yeah, we learned about cultures and we met those Common Core standards. I whipped up this freebie yesterday and wasn’t sure how it would turn out. People, it was beyond my expectations!!!!
Check these out!
We practiced
adding from 0-10. We wrote the answers on the pieces of the snake. Then we assembled the snake by placing the answers in order! WOO! I was worried that this would be a nightmare, but nope. It went smoothly and the monsters were engaged and learning the entire time!
I mean really, tongue out means hard work and serious learning are occurring. Do not interfere! Here is a little insight into Mr. Greg. I do this a lot. People call me out on it frequently. If I am hard at work or concentrating, my tongue is out. And I don’t even know it! If the tongue is out, the brain is busy!
Here is how I organized this project to keep the sanity!
I printed the ovals with the equations onto yellow, black and red
paper for
Chinese New Year. I made a set of 0-10 for each child and paper clipped them together. Each child got a snake outline to glue their pieces onto.
If you want this (it can be a great addition activity or even a spring project for
animals!) you can get it on the freebies page! Just click on the picture!
We also used Google Earth to see how far China was from our school. People, if you haven’t used Google Earth with your kids, DO IT TOMORROW! They are amazed. It also has been updated recently to show 3D buildings! Even our school was in 3D. Seriously, do it tomorrow. You can thank me later!
We ended our day with an art project! This was simple and fun! The monsters loved it (isn’t that what matters?!) And they were so creative!
We used red and yellow paint to
paint a snake. But we were daring! Instead of a paintbrush, we used paper wads dipped in paint! PERFECT!
We also added glitter (duh!) to make our snakes shiny! This is another great project! I can see this painting technique being fun for flowers during a plant unit! Or planets during a space unit! Look at my mind go tonight!!
We ended our day with a Chinese feast of Ramen Noodles! There is nothing more amusing than 5 year olds and chopsticks! Honestly, they are much better with them than I ever will be! Maybe that’s why I don’t like any Asian food everywhere!
And of course, no day in the kindergarten smorgasboard is complete without silly hats!
And that is kicking off the year of the snake! HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!
In case you missed this yesterday (this is per request from a monster who was so insistent that we have I Have Who Has for Valentine’s Day!) here is a numbers to 20 game!
And here is what I have been working on! I am excited to roll these out into my classroom! Click on the pictures to check them out!
PS
My valentine’s day pack is on sale for HALF OFF!!!!!! Go check it out! It is full of last minute centers, a craftivity and writing projects!
And one more..I posted a new Donor’s Choose project! Check it out! And if you enter the code INSPIRE you get your donation matched!
