The Scarecrow's Hat and Clouds

In class today, I read The Scarecrow's Hat by Ken Brown. It was such a cute fall story about a chicken who admired Scarecrow's straw hat. The Scarecrow would have gladly traded his hat for a walking stick because he really wanted to rest his tired arms. Chicken didn't have a walking stick to trade—but she knew someone who did. It was a cute story of how a chicken walked through the story trying to trade one thing an animal had for another so that the scarecrow could have a walking stick to rest his arms. In the end, there was a cute surprise for the chicken. To go along with this adorable story, I did a directed draw scarecrow with the class. This is where they watch me and draw it on their own paper step-by-step until the whole scarecrow was completely drawn. They did a FABULOUS job following my directions in drawing their own! They turned out AMAZING! Next, I asked them to color specific parts of the scarecrow specific colors. They did a great job following my directions. When we were done adding some color with crayon, I showed them how to use watercolor paints to paint their hat, shirt and background around the scarecrow. They LOVED painting today and they thought it was so neat that they could paint over the crayon and it didn't mix. I explained to them how crayons are made of wax and it repells the watercolor paint. Last, I gave them a slip of paper where they had to fill in the sentences with what color their hat was and what two things they would swap. I LOVED hearing all their creative ideas and seeing how wonderful they did sounding out the words they wanted to write with their "brave spelling." Way to go, K-1! Here are some pictures of my friends making their adorable scarecrows:

The scarecrows were so cute that I had to hang them in the hall for all of Olive to see!

In science today, I taught them all about clouds and I think that after today my kinder friends may officially be cloud experts! We learned about the three different clouds (cirrus,cumulus and stratus) and how you can tell they are a specific kind. We learned how clouds are made of of water and some are made of ice. We learned that clouds can make the temperature cooler and we also learned some cool facts about clouds. Did you know that some clouds can travel as fast as 100 mph? We had so much fun learning about clouds today! To go along with this lesson, I asked them to draw a fall cloud picture and label it. THey had so much fun drawing their pictures and learning about the weather today!

In math, we finished up a chapter and did a review to see how well they learned what I taught them. They did a great job! Tomorrow we will be starting a new unit about shapes. This is one of my favorite math units to teach and I am excited to start it tomorrow! In literacy, we are continuing to study different kinds of books and have been learning more letters and sounds. We have also been working hard on our handwriting and ensure they are forming their letters and words on the lines the correct way! We have been learning A LOT and I am so proud of how much they are all growing as learners! This week has been so much fun!