#2getherwearebetter: All Things Bulletin Boards!

Hi, friends!  I'm super excited to be linking up with Ashley and Angie today for the #2getherwearebetter linky!

I really believe that bulletin boards should showcase student work.  It's important to celebrate all the learning going on and show students that their hard work is valued by putting it on display.  So, here are my top 5 favorite boards from the last couple of school years!  

Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Color Pals!  

We do a unit on colors very early in the school year and this is one of our first bulletin boards.  The adorable craftivity is from Cara Carroll and can be found here.

Earth Day!

I absolutely LOVE this watercolor earth day project from Maria at Kinder Craze.  We paired it with a writing page from this unit from Cara Carroll.  And of course, the adorable clipart from Nikki at  Melonheadz Illustrating.  I just used my document camera to project it on the SmartBoard and then traced it on poster paper.

Baseball!

Have I mentioned that I love baseball?  :)  In May, we do a 3 week long unit all about baseball.  You can read more about it here.  These amazing baseball player portraits and baseballs are from the amazing Katie Mense at Little Warriors.  You can find them here.  Of course, we make our players into Giants.  They have won the World Series 3 times in the last 5 years after all.

Peace Out Kindergarten!

This was our end of the year bulletin board and I absolutely L-O-V-E-D it!  Again, this amazing craft and writing activity also comes from Katie Mense.  (Can you tell I love this girl!?!)  You can find it here.

The Pond!

This, my friends, has got to be my favorite bulletin board of all time.  Each year, our school celebrates Oceans Week.  Each grade level studies a different water habitat.  In Kindergarten, we learn about the pond.  You can read more about this unit here and here.  This board was a collaboration between all 3 Kindergarten classes.  The background was painted by my former coworkers husband who is an incredible artist.  The water was made using a blue shower curtain.  All of the animals that live in and around the pond were made by our students.  

Here is a close up of the water.

We had so much fun putting this together and the students were so proud to call it their own.  

Which board is your favorite?  Let me know by leaving a comment below!

And go check out all of the other amazing bulletin board ideas over at Ashley & Angie's blogs.

  

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All About Ponds: Week 2

Ponds, ponds and more ponds!  

Want to read all about week 1?  Click here.

We kicked off week two with talking all about what a habitat needs.  The students were lead through an activity to build a model pond habitat with a marine science educator from the a local science museum.

  

Students marked the water line

Added both sand and gravel to the bottom

Used a piece of a clay pot as the shelter

And finally, added a piece of elodea (water plant).

As we added each piece, students discussed as a small group where things should go in the habitat, how the animals might use the different parts, and made observations.  Then as any good scientist would, we recorded our work in our pond journals.

Throughout the rest of the week, we observed 3 different pond animals (tubifex worms, water snails, and fish).  Each time, students worked in small groups and discussed their observations and made predictions about what each animal would do when it was added to the pond.  We recorded our information in our pond journals.

 "They look like shrimp."

 "The tubifex worms are tangled."

"The fish has a mouth and it has scales."

We then took our learning outside to the school garden where the students worked in small groups to create mini pond habitats.  The challenge was to create a pond using found objects in the garden that would hold water, have a place for animals to use as shelter, include plants and rocks, etc.  The kids had a blast working on these and couldn't wait to show them off to their friends!

My Kinders are now pond experts and we will be putting that schema to good use with our All About books in Writer's Workshop!

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All About Ponds: Week 1

Every year, we celebrate a school wide Oceans Week.  Each grade level studies a different water habitat.  In Kindergarten, we learn all about Ponds!

We spend our first week getting to know the pond habitat and the plants and animals that can be found in a pond.

My pond bookshelf

We share our schema.

We explore real pond water.

We did some fun activities in small groups:

Paper models of pond plants and animals

Click here to find this book

 

Listening Center and  Frog Life Cycle

Pond Art inspired by In the Small, Small Pond by Denise Fleming

Because our school is under construction this year, we were not able to build our pond art habitat as we have in years past.  Here are some pictures of our display from last year.

Stay tuned for our pond fun from week 2!

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