Character Building Books in Kindergarten

Social skills and character education is a large part of a kindergarten curriculum.  Using books can help convey the lessons in a meaningful way.

Today I am excited to join Katie - from Minute Mommy - in her Summer Reading Stash Blog Hop!

Each week fabulous bloggers (and my IG friends!) will be sharing favorite children's books relating to the weekly theme. And this week's theme is Character / You Are Special.

Here are a few of my favorite books that are perfect for any Kindergarten classroom.

KINDNESS - My absolute favorite way to teach about kindness is by using any of the bucket filling books.  I really like Will You Fill My Bucket? by Carol McCloud and Karen Wells, because it shows families and kids in many different countries around the world filling buckets!

Filling buckets helps teach kids to use actions and words to show how they care about someone. Students learn about respect, sincerity, and thoughtfulness.  My Kinder kids can't get enough of bucket filling!

FRIENDSHIP / CARING -  I have been reading Corduroy by Don Freeman for years.  And every year my students LOVE it!  Who can resist that sweet little bear with the missing button???

Another book that teaches about friendship is Simon and Molly Plus Hester by Lisa Jahn-Clough. Simon and Molly are the best of friends until Hester moves in.  Molly begins to feel left out, but eventually they ALL become the best of friends!

COOPERATION / TEAMWORK -  I love reading Swimmy by Leo Lionni when I am teaching about cooperation and working together as a team.  This story is about a little fish, who works together with his fishy friends to avoid the dangers in the ocean waters.

After reading I have my students create a large fish out of their handprints to get across the concept of working together to reach a common goal.

We use a large piece of butcher paper and then I strategically have students stamp their handprint using paint in the shape of a fish. The black handprint is Swimmy! I like to hang it on the wall all year long, so the kids can be reminded of the story and of the concept of teamwork!

PERSEVERANCE - My last book is called The Wonderful Towers of Watts by Patricia Zelver.  It tells the story of Simon Rodia an Italian immigrant who, over the course of 33 years, created a magnificent structure from pottery, broken glass, and shells, which is now a National Historic Landmark.

My students relate well to this story and the message because they live near the towers!

I hope you enjoyed my top 5 books.  My students love every one of them!

Don't forget to come back each Wednesday throughout the summer for more awesome children's literature!  And we will be having a BIG grand finale in August!

NOW continue on through the hop and head over to Lovin' Little Learners to see some of Sara's favorite books, just click on her button below!

An InLinkz Link-up

Shining a Light on Kindness!

Happy Summer!

Light Box Slide Inserts {Bucket Filler}

I'm linking up today with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for her Monday Made It!

These fun lightboxes from Heidi Swapp and American Crafts are all the teacher rage right now! Instagram Peer Pressure got to me and I headed down to Michaels to pick one up!

Then I spent most of the night and the next day playing around and creating fun displays for the light box!!!

I love to teach my Kindergarten students about Bucket Filling, and I know that these fun diplays for my light box will be a great addition to my classroom.

Students will see the display all lit up and be reminded and encouraged to act with kindness and positivity!

Here are some of the fun designs that I created.

 Here are all of the designs!

I have added them to my TpT store, and they are on sale {half price} unil Tuesday night - 6/28!!

Just click on the thumbnail below.

You may also like my latest set for your light box - Growth Mindset!

Teacher Gift Labels {FREEBIE}

I am almost at the end of the school year, and I am ahead of the game!  Well, the teacher gift game that is!!!

I made these fun labels that are perfect to add to a lemon hand soap pump. 

I am giving these to all of my teacher friends, who are soooooo ready to start summer vacation!

But you can add this label to any lemon themed item.  How about a bottle of lemonade?  Or a bag of lemon flavored candy?  Perhaps a container of powdered lemonade mix?  Or even a pitcher full of fresh lemons?

**I included 4 different versions of the label - summer, break, year, and day.  Pick the one that works best for your gift!**

Click {HERE} to pick up the labels for FREE!  NOW EDITABLE!  {You can type your own name at the bottom}

#hellosummer Dollar Deals

I still have 9 more school days, but the #hellosummer Dollar deals sale is going on at TpT this weekend and I am excited to participate!

I have marked down 2 of my product to just a dollar!

Make a Lei {Dolch words}

Make 10 with Little Sharkie

Click on the above images to see these products.

And be sure to search #hellosummer on Teachers Pay Teachers to find tons of dollar deals from more sellers!

Science Fair 2016

It's time for the Science Fair at our school!

What to do?  What to do?

Time to search Pinterest...

Time to rack my brain... or is it wrack my brain?

Time to ask the Google...

I finally decided on this project - creating trace fossils

Here is how we did it.

#1 Observation

Some areas of the world contain more fossils than others.

Is that due to the different types of soil found in the world?

#2 Question

What type of soil is the best for making a trace fossil?

We tested sand, sand mixed with moist topsoil, and moist topsoil.

#3 Hypothesis

We think that the type of soil will make a difference in the quality of the trace fossil.

Each student examined the different types of soil and them predicted which would make the best trace fossil.

#4 Predictions

#5 Experiment

We began by pressing a shell into each of the soils to create an imprint.

Then we poured plaster of paris into the imprint space.

After letting it dry overnight, we took each of the plaster of paris "fossils" out of the soil and brushed them off to remove as much soil as possible.

Then we compared each of the trace fossils to determine which one was the best - had the most ridges, had deeper ridges, had the best shape, etc.

We recorded our data by sketching scientific drawings of each of the plaster casts.

#6 Conclusion

We decided that the sand mixed with moist topsoil made the best fossil.

We also concluded that many of the areas of the world where fossils have been found must have a sand and moist topsoil mix.

The kids loved this projecct and it was a great addition to our dinosaur unit!

Want more science?  You can see the experiment that we did last year {HERE}

Fish Faces!

We read Fish Faces this week and I wanted to share a fun writing activity that we did.  Cute fish books!

We began by reading this great book!  Fish Faces contains wonderful photographs of all sorts of fish.  My students were fascinated {and even a little grossed out} by the photos!

We used a tree map to organize the information we learned from the book.  I organized the map so that it would be easier for my students to create sentences about fish.

I made the little fish books by stapling construction paper around 3 pieces of lined paper, and then traced and cut the fish shape.  I used 3 pieces of paper so that the kids could write one sentence from each column of the tree map, one sentence per page.

Here are some of the sentences.

I can't wait to hang these up around the room!

Even More Sunflowers!

Each year we read Sunflower House by Eve Bunting as part of our reading curriculum.

This year I supplemented the reading with a fun sunflower craft and writing.

We started the sunflowers by painting the outside portion of a paper plate yellow.

Then the inside area was painted brown.

After the paint dried (the next day) we cut straight lines into the yellow portion of the plate. 

With a brown or black crayon we drew a hashtag pattern in the middle of the sunflower.  And then glued on a few real sunflower seeds.

Every year we create a bubble map to describe a sunflower - using the vocabulary from the book. Here is an example from last year.

Then we created sentences descibing the sunflowers using the sentence frame "Sunflowers are..."

Here are some of the finished products.