Learning about Community

     As part of our unit on "Community Helpers" this year, we made this bulletin board town.  We had some small boxes left over and re-purposed them to be buildings.  Our children painted them, then added construction paper to make buildings for our town.  I was surprised when they asked each other what they were making and tried to make a great variety.  Our town ended up with:

• a few houses
• an airport
• a school
• a doctor's office
• a store
• a zoo
• a hotel
• a bank

  

  

Enjoy!   Molly & Laura

There Was a Little Turtle

     This week, we used the song "There Was a Little Turtle" as a basis for literacy learning.  First, we learned the song:

There was a little turtle,

Who lived in a box,

He swam in a puddle 

and climbed on the rocks.

He snapped at a mosquito,

He snapped at a flea,

He snapped at a minnow,

and he snapped at me.

He caught the mosquito,

He caught the flea,

He caught the minnow,

but he didn't catch me.

     Then, we thought about how we could change the song to make it our own.  Where else could the turtle live?  What else could he climb on?  What could he snap? catch?  Not catch?

     We had a lot of fun with the possibilities and sang a few of them.  We then talked about writing our song in a song book with illustrations that match the words and help the reader understand the song/story.  We began working on the books by putting the title on the front cover, illustration, and author's name, decorating the back cover, and numbering the inside pages.  This helped get us thinking about our own versions.

     Over the next few days we worked on the other parts of our song books.  We have a free lesson plan and templates to print labels (30 per page) for the beginning part of the stanza. Children complete the stanza with their own word and illustrate the page to compliment the words. You can download this free lesson at our store: 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Kindergarten-Literacy-Lesson-The-Little-Turtle-Song-1152041  

     We also worked on making a turtle puppet.  I cut an opening out of opposite sides of a paper bowl.  We stapled it to a paper plate of the same diameter and placed turtle feet where it was stapled.  Children then glued tissue paper squares on the shell using a paintbrush and liquid starch.

     When our books were complete and our puppets dry, we used our puppets to read and sing our songs!  

Enjoy!

     Molly and Laura