Animal Leaf Projects

For the month of October the students had an at home project to make an animal using leaves. They were encouraged to use as many leaves as they possibly could. We were absolutely thrilled with the end products! They turned out incredible. For each child, I have included a picture, the name of their animal, and a fun fact. Enjoy!

Remi named his animal "Hipalonagus." His fun fact is that the average adult is between 4-5 feet.
Derek named his animal "The Perry Bird." His fun fact is that it eats acai canopy tree seeds.

Matthew named his animal "Aligonkey." His fun fact is that his animal is a reptamal, half reptile and mammal.

Payton named her animal the "Yurpl Bug." Her fun fact is that the bug has live births.

Marisa named her animal "C.O.A." Her fun fact is that it stands for crazy, out of this world, alien. It has spikes protect them from sharp plants.

Jack D. named his animal "Liowpecker." His fun fact is that his animal uses talons to protect themselves.

Clay went above and beyond the assignment by creating 2 animals! The one on the left is an eagle. The fun fact is that it is 30 inches tall.

Analiese named her animal "Dede." She is a rabbit and centipede mix.

Shradha named her animal "Peacock." Her fun fact is when her animal gets excited he fans out his beautiful tail and dances.

Nathan named his animal "Koala." His fun fact is that the koalas put their claws deep into trees.

Cayden named his animal "Count Tortula." His fun fact is that it is faster than a cheetah.

Thai named his animal "Turtle." His fun fact is that his shell actually feels rough like a turtle.

Tristan named his animal "No Arm One." His fun fact is that his animal lives underground.

Maxine named her animal "Spiky Plant- Planimal." Her fun fact is that it eats fruits and has pads on its feet.

Jack K named his animal "Leafly Stem." His fun fact is that his animal is special because he is nocturnal.

Trey named his animal "Romandon." His fun fact is that it has 6 legs.

Serena named her animal "Pingy." Her fun fact is that it is a close relative of a penguin. It flies and eats fruit.

Gabrielle named her animal "The Flying Squirrel Acorn Fish." Her fun fact is that it has a mane like a lion, gills like a fish, glides like a flying squirrel, and has webbed feet.

Luke T. named his animal "The 3 tailed elephant." His fun fact is that he can whack people with his 3 tails.

Josie named her animal "Flying Deer." Her fun fact is that her animal throws sticky stap at its predator.

Casey named her lion "Marlin." Her fun fact is that he lives with his cubs and his wife.

Luke M. named his animal "Rosela." His fun fact is that it lives in the forest with green trees and all types of plants.

Isaac named his animal "Crocosaur." His fun fact is that it eats meat and baby dinos with no teeth.

Will named his animal "Scorpion." His fun fact is that there are 25 different scorpions that can kill a person.

Anusha named her animal "Rocky Turtle." Her fun fact is that it like to eat poison arrow frogs.

Ian named his animal "Wunny." His fun fact is that it is a weiner dog and bunny mixed together.

Kiyomi named her animal "Lion." Her fun fact is that it lives in an African Savannah.

Hays named his animal "Spotted Terandon." His fun fact is that it can eat fish up to 3 feet.

Dalton named his animal "Chommpy." His fun fact is that his favorite time of day is night.

Science centers

We had some great fun in science today. We got to visit 3 centers. In one center we sorted different animal pictures and characteristics. After that, they created flip charts of 3 different categories of animals. At another center we created a model backbone using wagon wheel pasta, gummy rings, and a pipe cleaner. The last center, they read a book on their level about classification of animals and wrote down interesting facts in their journals.

Here are 2 pictures of the center where they sorted the animals and then made a flip chart.

Here is Luke with his finished model backbone and Jack D. putting the finishing touches on his.

Trey, Marisa, Analiese, and Shradha are deep in thought reading about animals.

Classification of Animals

In science we have been working on invertebrates and vertebrates. We dove into the five types of vertebrates head first! We divided into 5 equal groups and each group received a group of animals. In the groups they had to teach the rest of the class about the group of animals they had learned about. They had to research and learn about whether their animal group was warm or cold blooded, what they used to breathe, what was covering their body, an unusual example, examples and non-examples of each. They did a great job and worked really well together! Below are pictures of each group with their mobile.

These are the members of the "mammals" group.
These are our friends in the "birds" group.

This group did a great job with "birds."

These boys had fun with "fish."

"Amphibians" were what this group taught us about.

A Paper Clip Picture

This was another great activity that we did in class. We had been doing story problems in math that involved paper clips, so we found an activity that was related to paper clips and listening to directions. It is so interesting to see how each child interprets the directions differently. Then, they got to add color! Wow, they turned out incredible!
Here is a shot of the work of the whole class.

This was Issac's picture. His fence made of blue triangles I thought was the most creative!

In box #2, Ian made a aper clip animal- a bird!

Thai added speech bubbles to all of the living things in his drawing to add a little something extra.

September Projects

Each month we are going to have an at home project that fosters creativity and is linked to something we are doing academically in the classroom. For September it was a book report. Students were to read a book of their choice and do a report on it. We gave the students many different creative choices instead of the normal book report form. They could choose from creating a scrapbook as a character from a book, decorating a grafitti wall relating to the book, creating a scene from the story, or inventing a game to go along with the book. We were thrilled with the results, they turned out phenomenal!
Featured on the wall are some examples of the grafitti walls, a few games, and the character scrapbook.
These are a few examples of the scenes from the books.

A close up of Serena's grafitti wall.

This is Gabrielle's scene from her book "Strawberry Girl." The detail was amazing!

Check back in at the end of October for our next project. Our assignment is to collect leaves and use only the leaves to create an animal, real or fictitious. We are on the edge of our seats waiting to see what the kids will do!

Field trip to MOSH

Our very first field trip this year was to the MOSH- Museum of Science and History. We saw an enlightening program about the Timucuan Indians. We were studying Native Americans so this went along with our Social Studies curriculum. See below for pictures from the highlights of our trip.

We got to see artifacts from the Timucuans up close and personal.
We even got to grind corn just like they used to!

Before the program began we got to explore the museum. We even got to stop for a few candid photos.