The last day of school is approaching quickly, needless to say, my sweet class and I are ready for summer!!! Although, they don't want kindergarten to end I know they are ready for their next adventure... 1st GRADE!! The count down has officially begun and their last days of kindergarten are going to be filled with fun, fun and more fun!
Have you ever dressed up like a pirate and gone to work?
Sounds weird but that's exactly what I did.
I did it for the children... I tell you!!
I love to start out a theme with a good book to get the class excited about what we are about to learn. In this case we read How I Became a Pirate.
Let me set the scene...
me dressed in a pirate hat, wearing a sword and I can't forget about the eye patch.
Please don't attempt to wear an eye patch and read a book... it's a tough one!
After we read our story we did a story map of How I became a Pirate... and of course I forgot to take a picture oops!
Moving right along...
My kindergarten pirates were very excited to go on a treasure/ "ar" word hunt. I hung "ar" words around the room and gave each one a map. They walked around the room looking for the word that matched the picture and wrote it one the line.
 |
| Here is a picture of the map that the kids used for their hunt... I'll be the first to admit that I'm no artist but it served it's purpose. |
We sorted good manners and bad manners... and boy did I get some funny answers! Apparently, picking your nose, IF you don't have a kleenex is not bad manners, especially is no one sees you doing it. This cute idea came from the blog Crazy Speech World.
Next, we played a game that I designed to have them practice their addition and subtraction skills. First, I put them in groups of 3 and assigned them a color. Next, I would have all the groups turn over the first circle and write the addition/ subtraction fact in their math journal and work out the problem. If the team got the answer correct they got to keep the gold coin. Whoever had the most coins at the end won the game. I love this game for the mere fact that they were doing math and loving it!
I even threw in a few pirate themed centers that the kids flipped over! This one in particular was a winner! The purpose of this center was to give them more practice reading "ar" words. Here's how it works... one child rolls the die and moves that many spaces. If they can read the word they can keep the coin. The person who has the most coins at the end wins. I got the idea for making the "ar" pirate map from The Inspired Apple.
My class loves to write in their journals so today I asked them to write about what they would do if they were a pirate.
Here's their responses...
This one in particular cracks me up!! If I was a pirate I would make Miss Hood swab the decks!
This little girl likes to sing her sentences so from time to time she will write the word "music" to inform me to sing while I read her entry... precious!
This little girl amazes me because when she came into kindergarten she was still working on learning her letters and sounds and now she is writing sentences.
Here are a couple of fun pirate videos my class loved.
