Planet Movies

I wanted to share with you the space activity I did with my students. I had the students create their own planet on Kidspix. I encouraged them to be creative. I had a balloon planet and a planet that only cooked blueberry pancakes. After they were done creating the planet, I printed each child's planet and gave it to them. They then had to write about their planet. I told them I wanted at least 3 sentences but most of my students wrote more. They had a great time coming up with new ideas for their planet.

After they were done writing about their planet, I recorded them reading about their planet using Audacity. Each student had a chance to record. They are now so comfortable recording, it only took 19 students about 20 minutes total to record. I was impressed.

When the student were done recording, I exported their planet pictures out of Kidspix as a JPEG and took the MP3 from Audacity and created a planet movie using Microsoft MovieMaker. Here is one example:

Introducing the Book Nook!

Early Childhood Today just launched a new area on the site called The Book Nook. Literacy expert Shelley Harwayne chose 5 great book titles for the winter, 3 of which are offered at a 25% discount at the Scholastic Teacher Store just for ECT viewers! Check it out!

Pajama Day

To end our week on nocturnal animals, we had a pajama day. The students came to school in their  pajamas. When they walked into my class, I had most of the lights off and  I was sitting on the floor. The students quickly put all their backpacks away and came to join me. We watch the announcements and then I read them a "bed time" story. The students laid on the floor and pretended they were falling asleep.

For the rest of the day I kept most of the lights off. Our reading buddies came and read them another "bed time" story. The third graders were jealous and they wanted to wear their pajamas. Our principal also wore her pajamas to school. She came on the announcement and all my students were so excited to see her in her pajamas. I also wore my pajamas and slippers as well as the rest of the kindergarten teachers.

Later in the day, my students went next door to our neighboring kindergarten class. There the students ate pancakes and drank hot chocolate. I read the class the story "If you give a pig a pancake" as Ann Miller, the other kindergarten teacher cooked the pancakes. The whole room smelled delicious. All the student ate the pancakes and were begging for more. (Click here for an "If You Give a Pig a Pancake" extension activity!)

During our "breakfast", I had a great idea run through my head. I have a black filing cabinet in my classroom. I quickly ran to make star dicuts and I taped them to the cabinet. I took a picture of each student with the nighttime sky as a background. The pictures came out great. I love taking pictures of the students on days like this. By the end of the school year, I have my camera filled with pictures of my students and none of me!

I have to remember next year to make a bulletin board of the night sky. I thought about it today (because I'm obsessed with bulletin boards this year - click here for other teachers' bulletin board ideas!). Maybe we could add nocturnal animals to it. I have a whole year to think about it. I would love to hear more ideas to do on pajama day. If you have anymore activities, please post them in the comment section. We have the only job that allows us to wear pajamas to work. We have to enjoy it!