Posts tagged ‘first grade’
No recess equals wild and crazy kids
I dare anyone to say that kids don’t need recess to learn. There is no better way to prove this than an old-fashioned rainy day.
Today was such a day.
By 3:00 pm (when we pick up kids from school for afterschool), they were jumping out of their skin. The noise level on the bus was loud and a few kids were standing up on their seats and acting crazy. I addressed the noise and behavior by using the “clap once if you can hear me” strategy. When I had their attention, I acknowledged their day and the lack of outside time.
Think about it. They had been in school for 7 hours without recess. When they got on the bus, all that energy exploded. It had to.
When we got to the Center, the noise and activity continued and it took
a while for the kids to calm down. Snack helped.
Meanwhile, the rain kept coming down with no sign of stopping.
We made it through the day, but hopefully, the sun will come out tomorrow.
The kids need their outside time and so do the teachers.
Pent up energy causes behavior problems and shorter attention spans.
Rainy days can be fun sometimes, but let’s hear it for recess.
Share your stories about recess and why it’s important. Have you ever had an outside recess on a rainy day?
Diane Schwartz is an Outdoor Education Teacher at Goodman Community Center in Madison. Today, she subbed in the after school and stayed inside with 19 K-1 students. Subscribe to this blog now and receive a free 11-page bubble activity guide. Thanks for reading.
Two Cool Things: Nature Hike made Easy
Looking for an easy Nature Hike?
Just ask the kids to find two cool things.
I did this with a small group of Kindergarten and First Graders and
was amazed by the results.
Joe immediately found a crack on the ground.
“Maybe there’s magma down there,” he said enthusiastically.
He then started to dig in the crack with a stick. He got excited when he
dug up a rock. Another child joined him. I watched as they poked around
in the dirt, digging up rocks and talking about them.
“This one’s sandstone,” John said.
They dug away at a large rock for about 20 minutes, trying to get it out of the
ground. They dug around it and they kicked it. They eventually got it out (with a little help).
Joe took it back to the classroom and showed his friends. He was proud of his efforts.
Nearby, Lily was collecting leaves… her cool things. She spent her time playing in the sand. I watched as she used a stick to make patterns in the sand. She also covered the leaves with sand and then let the sand roll off.
This kind of exploratory play is so important for kids. It teaches them to play with the simplest of things… cool things… and to entertain themselves. All they need is a stick, some dirt, some leaves, and a little imagination.
Try this out sometime and let me know how it goes.
Diane Schwartz is an Outdoor Education Teacher at Goodman Community Center in Madison, Wisconsin. She is also the Site Coordinator at Schumacher Farm County Park in Waunakee. Register for this blog now and receive your free 11-page Bubble Activity Guide. Thank you!
Insect Safari with Kindergarten and 1st graders: Notes and Tips
Pitfall Trap
Friday we had insect club with 15 Kindergarten and first graders.
The plan was to have the kids dig pitfall traps and then hunt for insects. We did both of these things, but the outcomes were different than expected.
I’ll make some observations and then suggest changes for the next outing.
Observation One: Kids love to dig.
In fact, they were more interested in digging and playing, than in finding insects, though they did find insects.
While digging a hole for a trap (really just a cup in the ground), one student dug into a nest of ants. Squeals of excitement prevailed as hundreds of ants swarmed on the ground.
“Gross,” said Joanie.
“Cool” said John.
” I don’t like bugs,” said George.
Now that we had some insects to watch, the plan was to see what insects liked to eat. We had apples, peanut butter, jelly, bread, and some lettuce. I tossed a little on the ground and I explained the project. They were not impressed.
Observation 2: The kids were more interested in tossing food on the ground and playing with containers than watching what the insects ate.
One boy placed a variety of containers on the ground upside down directly on the ant hill. I asked him what the cups were for and he said they were to catch the ants. The ants did crawl up side the cups, but afterward, John wasn’t at all interested in picking up the cups after the insects were inside. This was interesting. He just liked looking at them and playing with the containers.
General observation wasn’t the objective of this lesson, but that’s what happened. As a teacher, sometimes lessons don’t go as planned. Flexibility is key.
A few kids did get their pitfall traps into the ground. We’ll go back to the traps this week and see if any insects fell into them. To find out how to make one go to http://insects.about.com/od/entomologytools/ht/byopitfalltrap.htm. These traps are simple and fun to make. I’ll report next week how the older kids liked making them.
The safari went okay, though three kids opted out. They were hot and didn’t really like the insects. The kids that went each had a container for their insects. They really liked having their own container. I expected to find a lot of Japanese beetles, but we only found one. The kids thought this was cool, but it’s hard to show off just one beetle to 12 kids. And of course, they all wanted to take it home.
Here are my suggestions for the next time:
1) Pick a New Location: We did our digging along a rain garden near a bike path. We had about 5 kids that did not look before crossing the bike path. This meant that me and my co-teacher had to constantly watch them. Next time, I will hold the activity at a nearby park or take smaller numbers of kids to this location.
2) Define Expectations: Tell the kids ahead of time that all insects will be released or placed in our science area. They will still ask, but at least it’s up front. Many wanted to take their creepy crawlies home, but this wasn’t possible. If we do some pinning, then they can take them home.
3) Keep it very simple: Turns out that Friday is the toughest day for our kids. After a long week, they are least likely to listen and I am least likely to have patience. Next time, I would just dig with them and not make the traps. Most couldn’t dig a hole deep enough to place their traps anyway. The pitfall trap activity will work better with older kids. Then, just go on a safari.
Tell me about your adventures with kids and insects. What worked? What didn’t? What did you do? You can find me playing with insects at the Goodman Community Center. Like what you see here? Register for this blog and get a free 11-page Bubble Activity Guide. Just click on the home page and type in your email.
Crazy Hair and Trash pickup on Earth Day 2010
I have never seen such enthusiasm for picking of trash.
Armed with bags and gloves, I watched 13 Kindergarten and first grade kids pick up the trash around our center with a zeal I could never duplicate. They were unafraid of picking up trash and sought it out.
“I found some,” Sue yelled.
“Me too,” said Joe.
We also made “Crazy Hair” cups. To make them, the kids colored a face on a paper cup. Then, they added dirt and grass seed. Soon, the seed will sprout and grow into hair for the face on the cup. The kids will watch them grow.
I think we need to have Earth Day more often. Instilling environmental ethics into our work year round is important. One of the kids suggested that we collect cans and sell them for money. I think this is a great idea. I’ll keep you posted on that.
In the mean time, please share your Earth Day lessons. I’d love to hear from you.
Get an email subscription (go to home page) and receive my Bubble Activity Guide. It’s full of inexpensive activities to do with kids.
Crazy Fun Ice Sledding
What do you get when you take kindergarten and first graders sledding on a very icy hill? Comic relief and crazy fun.
The comic relief came from the kids trying to climb up the icy hill. They’d get so far and then fall down. We all laughed. I actually think the kids liked the challenge because there was a less icy option, but they ignored it. What great exercise.
The crazy fun part was screaming down the hill. This was a fast hill. We had the most fun when we linked all our sleds together and went down as a 7-sled unit. The ride felt like we were on a rollercoaster and the ice made the glide extra long. Now we just need a bit of snow to freshen things up.
If you’d like to try this hill, go to Heistad Park in Madison on Milwaukee Street. It’s the park with the frisbee golf course. Happy winter. Kids love to sled!
The Polar Express: Creative Play at Lake Farm Park
What do you call a fishing pier that’s on land for the winter? The Polar Express, a ship, and a ferry. On a trip to Lake Farm Park, I thought that most of the Kindergarten and first graders would have rushed to the water. But, they didn’t. Instead, they immediately jumped on a massive pier, in three pieces, now setting on land for the winter.
Continue Reading November 13, 2009 at 12:42 am Leave a comment
Leaf Safari
It’s fall and no matter how many times I’ve done this, it’s still exciting to take kids on a leaf safari. On a glorious October day, me and my co-teacher Zach took about 11 Kindergarten and first-graders on a leaf safari. They were REALLY excited about this, especially when they saw that they got to use their own bag with their name on it. The purpose of this adventure was to explore different colors and shapes of leaves and then make art with them.
To start, we read a book called “Fall Leaves Fall” by Zoe Hall. This book has lots of great ideas for leaf fun. We read this book and then got our bags. Outside, the kids quickly filled up their bags with leaves. We found yellow leaves, red leaves and purple leaves. I tried to sneak in some leaf classification by asking, “Does that leaf have pointy end or round ends? Does it have fingers or no fingers?” Jean picked up a maple leaf and I asked her if she knew the tree that the leaf came from, thinking that she may have talked about the state tree in school. I wish I could remember what she thought it was because it was pretty funny. This kindergartner was not impressed to learn that it was a maple leaf.
We stopped at a Purple Ash and enjoyed the bright purple leaves on the ground. Then, one child spotted an evergreen and wanted to go check for pine cones. This was unexpected and delightful as this child was clearly observing his surroundings. Quickly, they all picked up pine cones.
Another child found an apple on the ground and we stopped to ponder how that got there. The tree standing by the apple wasn’t an apple tree so we left puzzled (I found the apple tree the next day). Then, John solved everything by picking up the apple and throwing it hard. So much for that conversation.
We found some huge basswood leaves that fascinated the kids. Of course, they all wanted one. By now, each child had more than enough leaves in their bags and one child had no leaves at all. His bag contained rocks, sticks and dirt. I guess leaves didn’t fascinate him. Some kids picked small flowers like chicory and Black-Eyed Susan. During fall, I’m less concerned about kids picking plants because soon they’ll be dead, but overall, I discourage kids from picking things.
We marched back into the classroom armed with our leaves and ready to make some art. Again, the simplest thing like leaf rubbing was totally new for these kids. Most had never done it before. They took great care in their work and created colorful rubbings. Then, they made animals out of leaves and added googly eyes. Their creativity was amazing. The kids with pine cones used ink pads to make pine cone prints. I really do need to put their art work on line. The child that collected the rocks and sticks made a pumpkin mask. Apparently, he wanted to continue the pumpkin activity from the previous day. This was fine too.
The hardest part about after school teaching is that the kids get picked up at different times. Therefore, some kids didn’t get to finish their project’s today. The next day, their leaves with dried out, so they needed to pick more. This would have been fine, but it was raining. Flexibility is key. There’s always room for improvement. The next time I go on a leaf safari I might suggest that kids pick 20 leaves, rather than stuff their bags with as many as possible. Then we could have added some math into the project. As it was, we combined literacy (read aloud), science (leaf identification and classification) and just plain good outside fun on a gorgeous autumn day.
