Train Names

Here's a great activity that would go well with the Polar Express if you are doing anything with that!  First we cut 12" X 18" gray construction paper in half to make it 6" X 18".  Then they drew two horizontal parallel lines and lots of vertical lines to make the tracks. 

 

Ahead of time I cut 2" squares for the engine, and cut a 1" square out of one corner.  I also cut a small window and triangle for the front of the engine.  In addition I cut LOTS of 1" squares for the cars, and two different size circles for the wheels.  I just colored the smoke stack with a Sharpie for the engine, instead of cutting out construction paper.

 

My students wrote the first letter of their name on the engine (capital letter) and then we counted how many cars they would need for the rest of their name and they wrote one lower case letter on each car.  Using glue sponges, they glued the cars and wheels down.  Then I drew 3-4 dots where they should glue down their cotton balls.  I did this because we've been practicing "a dot, not a lot", so this was the perfect opportunity for them to see about what size glue dot they needed!

 

 

 

 

Here's a close up of the train I got the inspiration from.  I'm sorry I can't give credit to the original poster, but it only links to the image and doesn't have any identifying information.

 

 

 

All About Me and Family and Pets Themes

This year we had an All About Me weekly theme as well as a My Family and Pets theme.  During these two different weeks we did a couple of different projects that I remembered to take pictures of!

First name assessment of the year.  We'll use this same page 3 times during the year to see the growth of how students wrote their names when they came to us and how they are able to write their name before they head to kindergarten!  I'm super excited to show students their page at the end of the year!

We put some faces and bodies out for students to decorate with playdoh, pipe cleaners, wiggly eyes, beads, and other odds and ends.

 

After reading the book "A My Name is Alice" by Alice Lyne we provided students with heads and half circles.  They got to choose which pattern to use for their half circle.  Once they had the head and shirt glued on their paper (they used glue sticks), we wrote up the saying "____ my name is _____ and I like ______."  This got glued on next.  The next day we provided pieces of construction paper for mouths and hair.  They decorated their person as they saw fit using glue sponges (BEST THING EVER!)  Once they were done I gave them their initial letter (which I had cut out) to glue onto the first blank of the saying.

 

Once we finished our people, we went to work on our names in small groups.  Students were provided with a paper that had their name printed in gray on it.  They then used bingo daubers to cover the letters.  This also helped me gauge fine motor and color identification skills.

 

When we finished both components they went on our bulletin board in the hallway!  They look amazing and we've gotten so many wonderful compliments!  I got the idea from Pinterest.

Another activity we did during our family theme was to provide students with sentence strips and ask them to draw their family on the sentence strip.