I have been busy doing lots of fun activities with the kids at Holy Family. I finished up my last full week, which is very exciting and depressing at the same time! Exciting because that means that Carrie and Rachel will be back from Ghana but depressing because I really LOVE being at Holy Family. Since I'm used to the church thing (being in a church thing ten years prior to this experience) I feel natural. I can go to school and say "did you know they removed Roll Away the Stone from the Breaking Bread," and NOT get looked at as if I am a nut case. Love it.
And let's face it, I've been spoiled with my placement thus far: great kids, great school, great CT, the ability to try some pretty awesome creative things AND being allowed to have my piano sitting in the room without being judged. And on that piano I get to bonk out church songs. Seriously, every day we have sung the song "Here At This Table." Got it made right there. Oh and Mass of Creation. Did I mention we are singing the new Gloria from Mass of Creation? Got it made.
So...here are a few things we've been doing at HFS!
In Religion, we made puppets!!!!
These puppets helped us talk about self-esteem and welcoming others into the church. We talked about what the word "Catholic" meant and how we can be Catholic every day. The kids then acted out with their puppets how to solve some common issues found at school. I was told this was a great way for kids to act things out that were happening at school without pinpointing any particular students.
Another way to build social-emotional abilities was the "How Full is Your Bucket" activity. I read the book: "How Full is Your Bucket? For Kids"
Then, I went to Michael's and bought every single tin can I could find. I then wrote the students' names on an index card and taped it onto the bucket. Now, for a daily part of their routine, they are filling each others' buckets.
In order for me to keep the buckets out the kids agreed on three things: A/Nobody can have an empty bucket (except at the end of the day). B/All bucket messages must be from the heart. They cannot be fake. And C/they cannot be mean or bucket dippers. If any of those were the case, I would remove the buckets from the classroom. So far, we haven't had any problems. The kids really enjoy this activity. Downside to this activity is that it takes up a lot of space.
Speaking
of writing... the kids are getting ready to write a research paper
about their animal for the Zoo we are creating! To help the kids, I
went to the Brown County Library and checked out some books... the picture below is a little less than half the books I checked out.
Finally, my FAVORITE activity... I had the students practice writing sentences that have the future verb tense... so we made... FORTUNE COOKIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I created this idea all by myself! No Internet, no Pinterest, no friends... just me! The kids loved the activity, but the cookies are a pain in the butt to hang up! I was really angry about that... I spent maybe an hour trying to get the darn cookies to hang up correctly! The point of them is to have the cookies "break in half" to reveal the fortune inside. A person could come up and pull the bottom half of the cookie away to see the little fortune, just like a real cookie. Lesson in the future, maybe have a flap instead. Gravity tends to pull down on the bottom part of the cookie.
That's all for now...hope you were inspired!!!!
<3
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WOW!!!!!!! You've been busy! Keep up the great work.
ReplyDeleteAt Bonduel they do the whole bucket filling not bucket dipping thing. I know one 1st grade classroom has their little buckets hanging from their desks so it doesn't take as much room. I am not sure if she has the same size buckets you have out, though.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a lot of fun learning activities going on at Holy Family. Can't wait to see what you come up with next.