In honor of Johnny Appleseed's birthday (September 26th) we spend a few weeks learning about apples. Through this unit, the children learn about measuring, weighing, graphing, and fractions. We taste at least 5 different types of apples and graph to see which one was our favorite. On Johnny Appleseed's birthday, I have the children tell me how they think we would make applesauce and then we make applesauce in the crock pot and eat it at the end of the day. I do peel all of the apples at home the night before to save time.
Following Johnny Appleseed's birthday, we spend a month on Fall themes. I start with a unit on leaves. I bring in leaves from up north so the kids can see how they change colors in the fall. We read many books about leaves and the different shapes they come in. It makes for a lot of fun in our literacy centers.
For Columbus Day, my students learn about poem about Christopher Columbus, make the three ships, and a 3 dimensional ship, which they name themselves. We also write about the things we've learned about Columbus.
My class spends a week learning about scarecrows and what they do for farmers. I have a scarecrow in the room that we label the parts. The children use this for their writing at literacy centers during the week. As a class, we measure the scarecrow and then add how tall he is in our scarecrow books. Each child makes his/her own scarecrow to hang up in the room.
I love my bat unit. It is one of my favorite. We hang a big bat in the classroom and hang facts that we learn about the bats from it. Each child makes bats to hang up as well. With this unit, we work on the word family AT during literacy center time. This is a fun filled learning week.
Spiders are fun to learn about. As we did with the bat unit, my class always has a big spider hanging from the ceiling to hang spider facts from as we learn about spiders. Each child makes a spider, with the help of a volunteer, to hang in our room.
Pumpkins are a fun way to learn a lot in our math unit. At the end of October, I use a pumpkin theme in all of my literacy centers. As a class, we measure and weigh the pumpkin. We also estimate how many seeds are inside our class pumpkin. After each child has made his/her guess, we take the seeds out, put them in groups of ten, and then count them. The following day we have baked pumpkin seeds. YUMMY!
Part of the Kindergarten curriculum is to learn about the different holidays we celebrate. We spend November learning a lot about Thanksgiving. The children learn about the Pilgrims and Indians. We learn about the First Thanksgiving and what it means to be thankful for something. The children use this theme to write about something they are thankful for. At our school Thanksgiving lunch, the children are asked to try everything on their plate so we can graph what is their favorite Thanksgiving Day food!
Another holiday we learn about in Kindergarten is Veteran's Day. We make flags and read stories about veterans and what they have done for the USA.
During the month of December, my class spends a lot of time learning about other cultures and what they do for the holidays. The children make passports to help us keep track of the countries we have learned. At the end of this unit, the children have been exposed to many other cultures and have learned where some of our customs come from.
We are going to learn about the Gingerbread Man in the month of December as we get closer to our winter break and the end of the 2nd grading period. This is a fun filled unit where the children learn many of the K standards. You never know where the Gingerbread Man is going to show up at Tatum!
More themes coming soon!