Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Telling Campfire Stories

Today, we sat around the campfire and I threw out a few story starters.
*We all sitting around the campfire, warming up and making s'mores, when all of a sudden...
*It was breakfast time and we were drinking our hot cocoa when we heard...
*I couldn't believe what happened the day a skunk came to camp.

We told our stories together, asking different kids for ideas.  I would ask questions like, "Then, what happened?" or "What happened next?" or "How did it end?"  These questions led kids to keep going with their ideas and also show how stories have a beginning, middle, and end.

In the end, we wrote some of stories.  The kids had a great time at Camp Read A Lot today!  
(P.S. - I love our new campfire!  Thank you to Mrs. Woods!)

Monday, June 1, 2015

Camp Read A Lot

Welcome to Camp Read A Lot!  We are spending our last few weeks of school in a camping theme and the kids couldn't be more excited!  Today we spend time "reading under the stars" with our flashlights.








Tomorrow we will be taking our books on a "hiking" trip around the school.  Oh, the joy of kindergarten!

If you are interested in an "at home" camping experience, here is a post I wrote for LeapFrog Learning Path:
Home Campout


Happy camping!

Making Lemonade


Oh, how I love cooking in the classroom with my kids!  They were jumping with joy when they walked in the room and saw lemons and a lemon press.  Of course a few kids yelled, "What are we making Teacher?" (Yes, they still call me Teacher, even though it's almost the end of the school year.) I asked them what they thought we should do, and it didn't take long for the suggestion of LEMONADE to come up!

I started by showing them an online book about lemonade that was on Reading Rainbow.  Our school has a subscription to the service, so I can't share the link.  Then, we started squeezing lemons.  We needed 3 cups of lemon juice and all of our lemons made about 1/2 of a cup.  At that point I pulled out the bottled lemon juice and told them that we'd take the easy way out to come up with the rest of the juice.  (Although I think they would have squeezed lemons all day if I would have let them.)

Here is the recipe we used:
2 cups sugar
1 cup hot water
2 cups lemon juice
1 gallon cold water

Dissolve the sugar in hot water.  Add lemon juice and then cold water.  Stir.

We made our lemonade on a very hot and sunny (by Pacific Northwest Standards) day.  The kids were thrilled with the cold treat and really loved sharing with the recess teachers who are outside for most of the day.  

If you are interested in more lemon activities, here is a post I wrote for LeapFrog Learning Path with more ideas.  Lemony Learning Activities

Now, let's hope the sun comes back out so we can enjoy our lemonade on a hot summer day!