Home sweet home

In November, we studied homes/family and shapes to kick the month off.  Here are the shape posters we created for the 2D shapes.  Each day we looked at features of each shape and hunted for real life examples of each one to add to our chart.

We read The Shape of Things and selected a shape to create a new picture by adding a few extra details.  These turned out so good!  I did not take new photos after they were colored, but they were amazing!

 

Here are a few samples....

 

 ninjas

 a bunny and the ninja from above

 Santa!!

 

We looked at photos of different types of houses and discovered that people use the resources avaiable to them to build houses that meet their needs.  We read lots of different versions of the 3 pigs and compared them.  We discussed story elements such as character, setting, and events (beginning, middle, end).  We focused on setting one day and drew the 3 main settings from one of the stories.

 

 **photos coming soon**

 

We read The True Story of the Three Little Pigs (one of my personal faves) and discussed point of view.  This story is told from the wolf's perspective.  We talked about who we felt was truly the guilty party after reading this story and created a WANTED poster for either the wolf or the pigs.  So much fun... It was pretty even for each side. 

 

We watched this short video

and got into small groups to build a wolf proof house.  I put out lots of different building materials for the groups to choose from.  I was so excited to watch the kids test out their houses as they worked by blowing on them.  Then...the big bad wolf came around and tried to blow the houses down.

 

 (idea from sewingschool.blogspot)

 

Some other great 3 pig stories

 

    

We read the last one The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot on my Nook using the document camera.  I introduced Harold's second reading super power...asking questions using this story.  We made "I wonder..." statements and recorded them before reading this story. 

Some examples were:

I wonder if the robot will knock down their houses. 

I wonder if he will eat the robots. 

I wonder if they will build houses on Earth. 

I wonder if he will become a good robot.

 

We made shape houses for snack on Friday and recorded a recipe (from Kim Adsit's family unit). 

 

 

Parents...I found this video when researching 3 pigs activities and thought it was pretty interesting to think about how their story would play out in the media today.  I knew it was a bit too much for the kids, but thought you might like to check it out.  Pretty interesting spin on what would happen in 2012 if this were a true story.  Let me know what you think.  :-)