We took a field trip to the local post office a couple weeks ago. Here are some of the pictures. Luckily, we were able to see the distribution center instead of just the post office itself. It was really cool to see how they sort the mail and get it ready for the mail carriers. I think the kids learned a lot.
She was showing us all of the gear they have to wear in the winter to keep warm.
All the bins where the packages (presents) get sorted.
Our "tour guide" mail carrier was very friendly and so good with the kids. She made it exciting and let the kids ask questions. She was very patient as well. She really made it a great field trip for all!
As a follow-up activity, we turned our writing area into a mail center where the kids can write a letter to a friend and put it in the mailbox. There is even a place to write the friend's name and address on the cards.
This was a very informative lesson and I would recommend a field trip to your local post office to any preschool age classroom!
Another one of our small groups for "All About Me." We had the children spell their names with these puzzle alphabet stickers identifying each letter as they go. We had their name strips with each child's name pre-written on it for them to look at to help them find the letters. Some of the younger children just wanted to stick random letters everywhere, so we let them do their thing. When they are more ready for this activity, we will try again.
Then we had them count how many letters in their name. As an extension of this, you can have the children graph how many letters their names have and compare whose name has more or less.
Here are just a few dollar items I found this weekend. They are all from Target except the sorting tray which I got at Dollar Tree. There were so many more things I wanted to get from Target (mostly Seuss stuff), but I decided to put most of it back when I found a rug with streets on it for my son's room. I have been looking for one that he can drive his cars around on.
Anyway, The Lorax bag is an addition to my collection of Seuss bags I bought last year. The idea is to put in the book that goes along with each bag and some other various items that also relate to the book such as stickers, word cards, etc. Then there are the Seuss number flash cards. I already have the shapes and colors cards that I divided among the other bags.
Then just some dry erase markers and dry erase cards to practice writing the alphabet.
Hello, this is Beth Ann from Taming My Flock of Firsties.
I wanted to thank Lori for letting me guest blog on Tutorial Tuesday. What a great idea!
Words Their Way came into our classrooms one Monday morning. "This is what you are going to use for your Spelling program." Hmmmm?
The first and second grade teachers all got together and "learned" what this program was about. Some teachers took the initiative to dive right in so that others could learn from their expertise. It's a good thing we have some penguins in our school. :)
Now that we have been using it for two years, we have all embraced it.
Once you get into it, you will LOVE it!
One of my colleagues developed a system for each day. We pretty much followed by the book but we tweaked some things to make it our own.
Monday: Hand out sorts.
Discuss with groups.
This is the part they love.
NAME
SCRIBBLE
HIGHLIGHT
CUT
SORT
Name: They write their names REALLY BIG on the back of their sorts.
Scribble: They scribble...really, on the back (this is usually a lighter color than their name).
Highlight: They highlight their features.
Cut: They cut out their sorts.
Sort: They sort their sorts.
There is usually a lot of discussion going on about connections and other things they have found.
After they have sorted they put their sorts into their baggies and off they go to Daily 5.
They are given two copies (one for home and one for school).
I send home a little note each day in the beginning to explain what the parents should be doing each day.
Tuesday: Speed Sort
I have found that my firsties have a really hard time reading the clock in our room...really???
I put a timer on the Smart Board and we all do the speed sort together.
The timer counts up and when they are finished they record their time on their sheet.
Click on the image to download a copy for you.
I have to explain to them that their sorts are not the same. They are comparing their time from before and not to compare other students with their time. It worked pretty well for me this year. If they beat their time from before, they get a sticker on their page. :) I LOVE stickers!
Wednesday: Buddy Sort
They find someone in their sorting group.
I broke their groups up into berries this year (blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, etc.). When they find someone, they work together to "quiz" each other. "What word would go in this feature?" "Where does this word belong?"
Thursday: Word Hunt
Using their Daily 5Read to Self bags, they have to find words that go along with their features. I started out with trying to find 10 of each. Boy, was that a nightmare! I finally figured out that what worked best for the students and me was to go through all the books (there are only eight) and try to find some words that fit in the features. If they cannot find any (which happens a lot), they can look at the word wall or try to think of some words that would go with that feature.
Friday: Test
The students sort their words and then glue them into their Spelling Journals. After the entire group was finished with this I would call them back for some extra testing.
I would give them 5 words to spell (from their features) and a bonus word (maybe an oddball word).
The kids really looked forward to Spelling.
They made some great progress.
We have them take a pre-test to see where they fit in groups and then a post-test to see how much they have grown.
I enjoy this program so much!
If you have any questions or suggestions, please email me at bakteach16@gmail.com.
We just wrapped up our plant study that lasted about a month. Some of the topics we covered included:
Where can plants grow?
What are the parts of a plant?
Does a plant need soil to grow?
What do you need to do to plant a garden?
Here is my original post about our garden center. We have done so much since then! Here are 10 of our favorite activities.
1. Tracking the growth of our plants.
The different seeds we planted included pinto beans, sunflowers, marigolds, and forget-me-nots. As you can see, some starting growing much faster than others. Each day the children looked to see if their plant was coming up yet and we made a list.
Here is a closeup of what they looked like toward the end of the study when we sent them home.
2. Writing nature words.
3. Nature walk at our living habitat.
The children pointed out lots of things they saw growing. This was also one of the ways we investigated our study question: Where can plants grow?
They documented what they saw on mini clipboards.
We discussed different environments including wetlands.
4. We used the felt board to sort some laminated photos of plants growing in different types of habitats.
5. We talked about how fruits grow on plants and graphed our favorite one by writing names.
6. We did a chart of different questions relating to our previous experiences such as:
Have you ever made a bouquet of flowers?
Have you ever seen a plant growing in snow?
Have you ever been to a greenhouse?
Then we counted the amount of each answer to see which was the most and which was the least.
7. We filled our sensory table with water beads.
8. We filled our sensory table with sand and soil.
9. Gluing seeds in the center of a sunflower. I can't honestly take credit for this one, it's my nephew's artwork from preschool. But it is a great idea and if I would've seen this sooner, we would have done it as well.
10. We read some great picture books about plants and gardens which you will definitely want to check out if you are doing a plant study.
