There's a Wocket in my Pocket...

Elementary schools celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss. This is a project that I do with kindergarten. I read the book "There's a Wocket in my Pocket". After reading the book, the children start by making a pattern on a piece of paper. We then glue a square on the paper to make a pocket. A few dashes with the crayon and you have stitches around the pocket. The children then make a "Wocket" for in the pocket. We were able to do this in one class period. These examples were completed earlier today. Fun project!

Coat of Arms

In 5th grade I have my students create their own personal coat of arms. (This is a much anticipated project) I used the book "Design Your Own Coat of Arms" by Rosemary Chorzempa to help the kids with some different ideas for their coat of arms. We talk about the different elements they need to incorporate, the shield shape, the helmet/bow/crown at the top, mantling (the decoration around the helmet and top of the shield), and the scroll at the bottom with their motto (we talk a little about examples of mottos and what a motto is). Unlike traditional coats of arms, these projects are not about their family name, instead they should represent them as a person. The students incorporated different symbols that related to them or represented things they like to do. The kids LOVE this project, which is pretty cool for a non-messy thing. We used skinny sharpies to outline and colored pencils to color in.

Penguins....

I did this project with first grade, but it would also work with Kindergarten.  I read the book, "Penguins, Penguins Everywhere!" by Bob Barner. We then  created  penguins step by step together. I saw similar ideas on several other blogs. They are adorable!

Compass Rose

Whenever possible I like to correlate with the classroom teachers on projects. Third grade created a Compass Rose. We used rulers, circle templates, sharpies and colored pencils. The children absolutely loved this project.  The results were quite impressive.

Snowmen Painting

This is a project that was done with first grade. We drew the snowmen, outlined them with sharpie and then painted them with tempera cakes. The following week we glued them on a sheet of construction paper and used oil pastels to make snowflakes on the frame. They came out SUPER! We have received many compliments on the displayed work.