The Zoo!

We loved learning about the zoo! I used Julie Lee and Deanna Jump's zoo unit. I think the zoo animal faces created by Julie are so adorable. The kids loved making them and researching about each animal. The zoo keeper patterns are from my zoo unit.

 

Here are a few of my chit-char messages I wrote.

 

We brainstormed animal adjectives.

The math journal prompts are from Deanna Jump.

Have you started your summer countdown yet? I have!



the zoo

We finished up learning about the zoo over here. We started off learning about the zoo keeper and what they do. Then we made zoo keepers and attached the sentence,

"A zoo keeper feeds and cleans the animals."

I used Deanna Jump's zoo unit to teach alligators. We made alligator pie and wrote a how to using interactive writing. Then they wrote their own how to make alligator pie.

We made a bubble map to chart our new learning. They used this resource to help them write to inform about alligators.

We made alligators and wrote about them.

We practiced making mental images using the poem my neighbor's dog is purple. We made mental images at the beginning and again at the end.

This recording sheet for mental images is from Deanna Jump.

We compared giraffes and zebras. We made giraffes and zebras from Julie Lee's faces of the zoo unit. I am loving the long blue tongues. All of the animals below are from her unit.

We also learned about cheetahs. We used our thumbprints for the spots.

We learned about elephants.

At the end of our unit I asked the question,

"Would you rather work on a farm or in the zoo?" This came from Kim Adsit. If they wanted to work on both they got a bandana and hat. We made a double bubble thinking map to record their answers.

This is my zoo word wall to help them with their writing.

Here are a few fun fiction books about the zoo.

more zoo animals

Happy Monday!

Today we brainstormed animal adjectives. Then they compeleted the little rhyme below using an animal of their choice and two adjectives. This one says, "Fat lions, bad lions, we like you!" This activity is from Deanna Jump's zoo unit.

Friday we learned about lions. We created a bubble map with all our new learning. Then we made lions and wrote about lions.

I intoduced the monkey with the mystery box. They thought this was so cool and keep asking when we can use the mystery box again. The mystery box is from Babbling Abby over at The Inspired Apple. And my kids guessed the mystery.

More to come!

Hippos and other things

Over here we are working on Deanna Jump's Zoo unit. All of the animals we create are so darling! This is by far one of my favorites. The first animal we learned about was the hippopotamus. Did you know they can open their mouth 4 feet wide! Oh, the things we learn teaching kindergarten.

After reading non-fiction books about the hippo we completed the question web. This is a great tool to get your kids asking questions and wanting to learn more about a topic. I write down their questions on sticky notes and post them to the web. This was posted on Growing kinders. I love it so much and use it all the time.

I finally made my mystery box from The Inspired Apple. I am excited to use it with my class. I think I will intoduce our next zoo animal with the mystery box.

We are also munching on cheese balls. And I'll have you know this container is almost empty. I am making Deanna Jump's a barrel of monkeys game.