Seasonal Units (Part 1)

Last time I blogged, I mentioned I'd do some lessons on emotions as well as a fall seasonal one.  I am still going to share the "emotions" one, but for this post, I thought I would just throw all the seasonal ones I do together.

If you're like my district, you do have students that celebrate and don't celebrate certain holidays.  I tend to leave some of the traditional ones to the individual classrooms, but there are some that I do in the library that I feel are appropriate for everyone, no matter what you do or do not celebrate!

So let's go!

Book:  Monster Needs a Costume by Paul Czajak (October)

Who doesn't love monsters?  In this story, a boy and his monster want to dress up for trick or treating, however the "treating" isn't the main part of the story.  Monster sees things, such as cowboys and ballet, and wants to dress up as each one, changing his mind constantly. Finally at the end he does a combination of costumes.  It's a really cute story and like I said, you can downplay the end where they are trick or treating.

So the activity I chose to go with this was using some monster clip art I had, print out several different types of monsters (I suggest checking out Educlips or Creative Clips - they are two of my favorite).  The link takes you to the Educlips blog so you can either choose her website to buy from or Teachers Pay Teachers.  The Creative Clips takes you to the TPT site (since I don't know if she has a personal site to buy from).  

I printed out full size pages of each monster and instructed the children to create a costume for monster - they could do a mixed up one, like the end of the book, or create a brand new one.  They loved it!  I added a line at the top of each one that said, "My monster is a _____" and they (or I helped) wrote in what they chose!

    

Book:  Run Turkey Run by Diane Mayr and A Plump and Perky Turkey by Teresa Bateman (November)

Activity:  turkey calls 

Materials: "Solo" cups, twine, toothpick or qtip, turkey head/tail template

So several years back at my State Fair, I received a free Educators box from the National Wild Turkey Federation.  In it was a way to make turkey calls.  I know if you go to their site, it's a $50 box but if you plan on teaching turkeys to multiple levels each year, it's worth it.  However, the turkey calls are easy to assemble, for the most part, so I'll see if I can explain them here.  Side note: when I did this in my 4th grade classroom, one of my hunters used his call he made and it worked!

I pre-did my calls so that all my Kinders had to do were to color the head and tail, cut out, and glue or tape to the cup. (To make your own template, just use clip art with a turkey head and then tail feathers).

To create the call:  Take a "Solo" cup (or any off brand plastic cup that's like it) and using scissors or some sort of punch, make a hole at the bottom of the cup.  String twine through so it rests below the cup, kind of like a bell.  Tie the end of the twine to a toothpick or qtip so that the string won't go all the way through the hole, so it's resting on top of the cup.  A few quick tugs on the cup, and it sounds like a turkey making a "cutting" sound.  If you go to the NWTF site, you can actually play real turkey sounds for students!  I created a powerpoint with different wild turkey pictures that you can access {here}.  I play the turkey sounds in the background while they work (included in the box was a CD so it's continuous, but I'm sure you can look up turkey sounds on youtube for continuous).  

Book: Thanks for Thanksgiving by Julie Markes (November)

Activity:  Thankful turkeys

This year, I also added to my traditional "make the turkey calls and drive the teachers crazy" November lesson.  I also did a lesson using this book, Thanks for Thanksgiving.  I know in the classes they talk about the first Thanksgiving, but I wanted the students to understand WHY it's a time people celebrate being thankful for things.  Again, it doesn't have to necessarily be about the holiday (although in the book, it shows them gathering together).  If you have students who don't celebrate Thanksgiving, you can tell them it's a family meal.  After, I had a huge bulletin board turkey I used on the outside my library bulletin board, and the students wrote on feathers what they were thankful for or drew pictures.  I actually did this lesson with K-3 this year.  It turned out really cute!  If you don't have a bulletin board (I asked for one and actually got one!), then you could have students either fill out feathers or clip art turkeys to do the same thing.

Book: How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss (December)

Activity:  Spreading Kindness

I actually went the easy route and showed the original animated film (Boris Karloff) with this.  They were using my library for the "PTA Holiday Shop" and I wanted an activity where students who didn't bring money to buy trinkets would have more to do than just watch a movie.  I'll include a picture of the finished bulletin board, but we discussed how the Grinch grew kinder at the end of the story and each child decorated a heart and (at lower levels), drew a picture to show a way we've been kind to others.  Older students (and yes, did this K-5) wrote down a kind act.  The Grinch's example was how he always fed Max and took care of him.  That's what's hanging from his hand on the bulletin board.  The kids who were not buying were the ones who would go with me to hang everyone's heart up.  It made a great display and went with our kindness theme this year!  Oh!  We also collected canned goods for our local food pantry, to show kindness as a school.  

So that's it for the first semester.  I also do a gingerbread comparison (depending on whether teachers do it in class) some years - take the original, then do some of the "other" ones like Ninjabread Man and the Laura Murray books, then kids create a gingerbread man.  I actually do that one more in January because December is so short, so I'll share it then!

Monsters Anyone?

Since everyone doesn't celebrate Halloween, this past week I decided to do some spooky things, but nothing that could be directly related to the holiday.  For instance, my fourth and fifth graders did a "series highlight" on Goosebumps.  You can check out some of the interviews with R.L. Stine, as well as links to his websites at our "Secondary Foxes" wiki page.  I loved using the "World of R.L. Stine" website and the audio theater they had there.  Make sure to listen to "Don't Open the Box."  When you can get this age group to exclaim excitedly after a lesson, that is surely something!

I found this book for my 3rd graders, which started a great discussion on what exactly a "hoax" is (as well as some debate on whether some of the mysteries were real or not!):

 

My second graders were doing pumpkin experiments this week, so we did a little estimating ourselves with how many candy corn were in a jar that my secret pal gave me.  We read this excellent book, which although being fiction, had some great facts about pumpkins:

 

For my special PreK class, which has 2-3 year olds, we read the book, People in Fall, from the great Pebble series, and decorated trees with leaves, picked apples, and dressed people for Fall.  You can check that out by clicking on the picture below.

 

However, it was my specialty classes that had some of the most fun with a "monsterous" theme.  We read the book There Was an Old Monster, chanted "Going On a Monster Hunt" (a freebie in my store), and had some great monster centers!  We were matching lower and upper case letters, using those same monster letters to spell our names and sight words, counting monsters, and playing "I Spy" with our monster sheet!  I combined two packets for these activities.  Click on the pictures below to see them up close and personal!

 

I hope this helps you plan some of your lessons, if not for this year, then for next!  Of course, some of them can be used any time of the year.  I'm still catching up on my blogging/sharing, so I hope to be able to share some more seasonal ideas BEFORE the actual season! :)