My Class Is A Gift....

We talked about how everyone has strengths and how everyone contributes to our classroom-like pieces of a puzzle. I put a class book together and I know it will hard to see because I redacted the names from the pics. But various students wrote one nice sentence about their friends and then I wrote the last sentence on everyone's page. So it started as "Johnny" is a gift to our class because.....and then they took turns writing sentences and drawing illustrations on each other's pages. I think it came out very cute and sometimes the parents don't believe me when I tell them a child has excellent conduct (apparently they act differently at home :), so maybe coming from their peers it will be more believable. Here are just a few pages:

New Breed of Dinosaurs

I wanted the kids to use their creativity and "invent" a new breed of dinosaur. I thought they had some imaginative ideas.

Firework-asaurus

Music-asaurus

Violin t-rex

Flower-saurus

Colorful Skeleton-saurus

artistasaurus

Fishsaurus

Blah-Blah-Saurus

Rock-asaurus

Dinosaur butterfly

Bow-and-arrow-asaurus

Block-asaurus

Spider-asaurus

Tomato-saurus

Rumpa Bumpa 

Idea-saurus

Spot-o-saurus

Daddy-long-leg-asaurus

Dinosaur Pets Pro vs. Con

Almost every day as the opening of our whole group activities, we do a think-pair-share where the kids turn to their partner and I give them a minute to "debate" a topic. For example--should women be soldiers? Or what is a better pet-dog or a cat? One takes each side and they discuss their reasoning.

So, I didn't think they'd have a problem with making an argument for whether or not dinosaurs made a good pet. I assigned the girls the pro side and the boys the con. Here are a few things they came up with:

I love this one. True creativity!

Kinder Grads

We don't have official "graduation" because they want to save all the fanfare to give them something to look forward to in high school. But we do an awards program, song, powerpoint--the whole nine yards. I had the kids made pics of themselves as graduates and write about how they changed over the year and what they will be like at their high school graduation. This was one of those crazy projects because we just started working on them and I was pulled out for an ARD I didn't know about. :( I walked back in and you should have seen the room. They convinced the aide that was watching them to "help" with some of the tassles, that's why they came out well on those. But I think they did a good job.

Charlotte's Web Collages

We finally finished our novel (at a chapter per day, it can take some time :). I asked the kiddos to make a collage and write about their favorite part of the story. I love that at this point in the year, I can just say "make a collage" and they know what that means! :)

I love that part too. Every time I read it a hand goes up to ask what it means and Charlotte explains it.