Purple Crayon Craft and Freebie

We wrapped up our first week of kindergarten (half-day transition schedule) yesterday with one of my favorite storybook characters, Harold:

For the first week of school, I assign a color to each day, encouraging my students to wear and/or bring an object from home that matches.  Friday was PURPLE Day.  

On Tuesday, RED Day, I observed how my Stars held their crayons and pencils, and noted if they were righties, lefties, or were still in the process of developing hand dominance.  I took notes on who applied appropriate pressure when coloring, and who knew how to write their names.

On BLUE Day I introduced scissor skills and glue stick usage, and observed who was familiar with cutting and gluing.  Several students exclaimed that they loved school because "Mom never lets me have scissors at home!"  I also made a mental note: next Thursday is School Picture Day. NO CUTTING ACTIVITY ON WEDNESDAY.  Veteran teachers will know why.

YELLOW Day saw a repeat of our scissor and glue stick skills lesson.  Each student made sure his or her thumb was in the smaller hole of the scissor handles, and that the small hole was held above the larger.  Three rectangles were cut out and then glued to a page. The rectangles were smallish.

For PURPLE Day, I thought we'd use larger pieces of paper to help students determine how much glue would be needed, and to help them slide their glue stick around the edges of each component.  It was also time to introduce a slight curve for cutting:

I created a large oval with the word "purple" in dashed font for tracing.  It's a freebie for you over in my TPT store. 

I used a 6 X 18 piece of dark purple paper, a 6 X 14 piece of light purple paper, and a 4 1/2 inch wide piece of dark purple paper cut to resemble a crayon tip.  My Super Stars traced each letter on the printable, and then cut out the oval and added it to the assembled crayon.

Once dry, the Stars enjoyed walking through the classroom, pretending to draw pictures like Harold:

Aligned with curriculum?  Check.  Developmentally appropriate?  Check.  Skill building?  Check.  Fun?  CHECK!

*****

What are your favorite first-week-of-kindergarten activities? We'll continue with scissor and gluing practice next week when we begin our literacy unit, Colors All Around (Houghton Mifflin Reading), focusing on letters Ss, Mm, and Rr.  You can find initial sound, trace, cut and glue pages in the HM reading series order in my TPT store here.  They're perfect for beginning cutters, students who need OT intervention, initial sound phonics practice, and ELA journal activities.

~Michaele~

Gobble Gobble Headbands

My school hosts a wonderful Thanksgiving Luncheon for students and families each year, and the meal is always followed by recess.

With four classes of kindergartners on the field, playground, and blacktop, it can be difficult to keep track of my Super Stars, unless...

They're wearing turkey crowns!

Here's what you'll need for each headband:

(1) 2 X 18 strip of brown construction paper
(1 each) 2 X 4 rectangles  for the red, beige, and orange feathers
(1) 1 X 4 rectangle in dark brown for the turkey's headband
(1) 4 inch diameter brown circle for the turkey's face
(1) small orange triangle for the beak
black marker to draw the eyes
1 X 1 inch squares in black, yellow, and red for the pattern

Several Stars decided that AB and ABC patterns were "too easy," so they decided to create ABB and AAB patterns across the long brown strip.

The orange beak and eyes were added to the brown circle, and then students glued on the turkey's headband and feathers.  Then the turkey's face was glued near(ish) the middle of the headband.

After fitting each headband onto its owner's head, my Stars insisted that I wear mine as well.

Ta da!  Er, ~gobble gobble~!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Where the Wild Things Are

"Mrs. Sommerville, can we make Wild Things for our craftivity this week?"

As we're listening for and writing Ww this week, I was happy to oblige.  Here's what we used (but a lighter tan for the 8 X 8 square and a darker brown for the 12 X 12 would work too):

I had my students cut the corners off of the white 8 X 8 piece of paper, and then told them to glue it to the center of the brown 12 X 12 piece.  I then modeled how to draw a large oval on the orange 2 X 3 rectangle for the nose, and a large circle on the yellow 3 X 3 squares.  We glued them to the middle of the white circle for the face.

Pupils were cut out of the black 1 X 1 squares, and we added some shine to the eyes with a white pencil, though a crayon would work nicely too.  We drew a smile with a black marker, and then used the 1.5 X 12 inch strip of paper to cut triangle teeth that we glued to touch the line of the mouth.  Students then cut zig zag lines around the whole face, trimming off some of the brown:

As you might have suspected, Kindergarten is Where the Wild Things Are!

Craft: Our Friend, Martin

Today, after learning some facts about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Stars asked if they could "do a Dr. King craft."  

Happy to oblige, I quickly dug through our scrap paper bin and put the paper cutter to use.

Here's what you'll need for each student:

1 four-inch diameter brown circle (head)

1 one-inch diameter brown circle (to be cut in half for ears)

1 5 X 4 black rectangle (body)

4 4 X 1.5 black rectangles (arms and legs)

1 white triangle (point down, for shirt)

2 small white triangles (for shirt collar)

1 2 X 2 brown square (fold in half and cut two ovals for hands)

1 2 X 2 gray square (fold in half and cut two ovals for shoes)

2 small white circles or wiggle eyes

blue crayon (tie)

black crayon (hair, eyes, nose, mustache, mouth)

I model assemblage projects like this at my desk step by step, sending the Stars back to their own for each part of the project:

Dr. King is holding a banner that reads " Our Friend, Martin, Had a Dream:"

A fact sheet was glued to the back.

Click here for the link to my Facts About Our Friend pdf.

Even pre-cut assemblage crafts such as this end up having their own character!

*****

Each January, it's always interesting to hear my students' interpretations and opinions of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and segregation. After a kindergarten-appropriate introduction and explanation of segregation (we listened to a retelling of Rosa Parks' story and Dr. King's subsequent involvement, and then sorted blocks by color, but ~kept~ sorted groups apart no matter what, even if one block piece was needed for our constructions), I eavesdropped while the Stars worked with partners at centers.  One pair re-enacted Rosa Parks' bus incident at our dollhouse.  After reaching the point where the police were called, the Stars stopped.

Student 1:  This is silly.  

Student 2:  I know, but it's just pretend.

Student 1:  No, I mean the police part.  The man had bad manners.  A man wouldn't ask a lady to move.  He was rude.

Student 2:  I wonder why the policeman didn't tell him that?

Student 1:  Maybe the policeman was rude too.

Student 2:  You know, if I had tired feet, and there were no more places to sit, I'd just ask someone to take turns with me.  She can sit for a few minutes, then I can sit for a few minutes.  Then she can sit for a few minutes, then I can sit for a few minutes.

Student 1:  Yeah, that would work.  

Student 2:  We solved the problem Mrs. Sommerville!

Another pair was trying to figure out ~why~ segregation happened.  Earlier, the Stars decided that segregation meant "sorting people by their skin color and not letting them be together no matter what."  

Student 1:  Did the brown people have bad germs?

Student 2:  Nope.

Student 1:  Did they have cooties?

Student 2:  Nope.

Student 1:  Were they going to get markers and color all of the peachy people brown?

Student 2:  That's funny!  But nope, they weren't going to make everyone else brown. 

Student 1:  Huh.  I don't get it.  What was the problem?

Student 2:  Maybe the peachy people thought the brown people DID have germs and cooties and WERE going to color everybody else.

Student 1:  Well that's just fiction.  It doesn't really happen.

Student 2:  I know. 

Student 1:  I mean, I colored my baby brother when I was in pre-k, but I used ALL of my markers, not just the brown one.  So coloring people can really happen, but EVERYBODY doesn't do it.

Student 2:  Uh huh.

*****

What have you heard lately from your students?

Making Star Crayons

Oh, the goodies you find when you clean and reorganize storage areas in the classroom!  Case in point, two large baggies of broken and old crayons.  I'd saved them in order to melt them down and make new crayons, swirled, chunky and fun, but they got shoved to the back bottom shelf on my art cart.

The abyss.

I brought them home and settled into a comfy position so I could use a craft knife to peel the paper off of most of the crayons.  Leaving peach, brown and black out of the mix, I only needed one band-aid after the wrapper-slicing adventure.  Murphy's Law being what it is, I found tips on soaking paper-wrapped crayons in water to make removal easy AND safe after I had finished.  I also made a mental note that ~this~ year I'd be sure to have my Super Stars peel the crayons themselves: let's hear it for fine motor development!  After chopping the crayons up into 1/4 inch pieces, I waited for my oven to preheat to 275 degrees as I loaded up my oven safe (check those labels!) silicone baking pan:

I did *not* use any vegetable spray on the pan, but I did set it on top of a cookie sheet for stability.  If you don't have a sheet devoted to non-food craft use, cover your pan with aluminum foil to protect its surface from spills or sloshes.

 

It takes twelve minutes in my oven to get the crayons softened in the center and melted around the edges, but watch yours carefully so you can adjust the time as needed.  You don't want the crayons to melt completely.  Using a toothpick, gently push the semi-solid pieces down so that the completely melted crayon soup covers them, but don't stir or swirl: you'll lose the color.

As I only have one star shaped mold to use, I put both it and the baking sheet in the fridge for fifteen minutes, and then pop the crayons out before starting the next batch.

I'm not sure if I'll mount these on cards to give as gifts to my newest Stars this August, or if I'll keep them in a tub for one of our first art projects and/or rainbow activities, but they're bound to be a hit!

(A gallon size plastic bag of crayon pieces made over thirty chunky crayons.)

*****

More melted crayon inspiration can be found at:

~ The Popsicle Blog: Homemade Earth Crayons

~  EmmmyLizzzy: DIY Crayon Valentines (with a great tip about using water to soak off crayon wrappers!)

~ Feathers and Sunshine: Candy Crayons?

Green Wilma

The Stars were asked to retell Green Wilma, and worked together to dictate sentences for a summary to accompany our art project:

Green Wilma had a dream.

In her dream, she was a little

girl who woke up green.

She hopped after flies.

She hopped everywhere.

In her dream, she caught a

fly near a pond.

She woke up splashing in

the water.

She was a sleeping frog on a log,

not a green girl who ate flies!

You'll need:

9 X 12 construction paper

circle drawn at the bottom of the page

green watercolor

black, red (hair bow) and yellow crayons

red 1 X 9 strip (curled)

white paper for eyes

Flower Power: A Recycling Project

As we learn about reducing, reusing and recycling, I've invited the Super Stars and their families to create spring flowers using materials found at home... materials that might otherwise be tossed out with the trash.  Take a peek at some of the creations brought to school so far:

Cardboard, plastic, scrap fabric...

Bottle caps and glass stones were added to a tough tote lid... 

Magazine pages, plastic lids and cardboard tubing filled a plastic bottle vase...

Plastic cups and a bottle were painted and then framed in a cardboard lid...

The flowers are sharing our hallway bulletin board with our Earth Day painting project.

Family collaboration makes this a fun activity for the weekend, but it would also be easy to add materials to a creative construction zone or other crafty center in the classroom as well.  Families can donate the materials that their students enjoy using:

~ cardboard

~ plastic lids

~ bottlecaps (decide in advance if you'd like to accept all bottle caps or only those from non-alcoholic items)

~ bottles

~ yarn

~ paint

~ newspaper or extra book order forms/ scratch paper

~ scrap fabric

~ cardboard tubes

~ cereal boxes or frozen food item boxes/ trays

~ plasticware

What kinds of artwork do your students enjoy creating using recyclable materials?

*****

Visit me again tomorrow when I'll show you our Earth Day painting project!

*****

Today being April 1, my Super Stars had fun fooling me!


Student 1: "Yeah, so Mrs. Sommerville? I can totally speak Dolphin now."

Student 2: "Mrs. Sommerville- today is my 18th birthday. I'm supposed to tell you I'm ready to move out and get a job."

Student 3: "School's been called off Mrs. Sommerville! You can leave right now and go shopping!"

Student 4: "Uh, Mrs. Sommerville, don't freak out. The world ran out of coffee."

Did your students try to ~fool~ you today? If so, share with us over on Twitter:

#kindergartenaprilfool