Oceans of fun!

I cannot believe that summer school is almost over already - I feel like it just started! Noooooot that I am complaining though ;) 

Here is a little rap up of what he have been up to:

In math we made these little "jelly fish" with numbered tentacles to practice making sets, number ID, counting, and number order   

My original plan was to only make them with the students who really needed practice in those areas but after the other kids saw them, they begged me to make them too! I put them in a workstation for those who could complete them independently. It cracks me up how some opted not to decorate them, some drew "jelly fish" faces, and others just drew pictures on them like rainbows or their family:

We also have been practicing patterning everyday in math. As a cute little way to show off our new pattern making skills, the kiddos made these "octopus hats."  They love them because, well, they love making ANY kind of hat and I love them because they get lots of practice creating 8 different patterns (not to mention they look adorable on!)

Science is usually one of my favorite parts of the day! I love teaching the kids about some of the amazing creatures that live in the ocean! To kick things off, we did a very simple sort of creatures that live in the ocean and ones that do not:

Then, we started narrowing in on some of our favorites. We have focused in on sharks, fish, and octopus so far. I haven't taken very many pictures but I did manage to snap a few of our octopus "experiment". I got the idea here and it was a huge hit with the kids :)

First, we made little "octopuses" using pony beads and pipe cleaners. The kids each got their own water bottle and dropped their octopus in. We made observations about how we could easily see them through the clear water. 

Then comes the fun part :) The kids took pipets and practiced squirting "ink" (aka food coloring) into the water until it became difficult to see the octopus. We discussed how many different types of octopuses use this as a way to escape from predators. 

During literacy this week we have been hitting rhyming HARD! Rhyming seems to be such a tricky thing for kids to fully understand. It always seems after hearing it/saying it/doing it 891749837932 times and not really getting it -

one day they wake up and they've got it! So here is to time 891749837933...

I try to incorporate as much rhyming stories/songs/text as possible. The more they hear it, the easier it is for them to understand. I taught them this little song and we circled the rhyming words with Wikistix. It's an oldie but a goodie :)

Then I gathered a few objects that were fairly easy to rhyme with (a shell, cat, ball, dog, fish, block, mug, man, and pig) and loaded them up into my "rhyming basket" 

Then, we passed around the rhyming basket as we said this adorable little chant form Grown Kinders: 

And the kids took turns picking an object and producing a word that rhymes with it.

We have also been watching this video on youtube EVERY.SINGLE.DAY!

I showed it to the kids the third day of summer school and they LOVED it! They ask if they can watch it every day (over and over and over again if I would let them)!

Next week we are focusing on alliteration. Only 7 more days with kids!