Feeling a Little (Hermit) Crabby, Part 2

Following our Eric Carle author study lesson (check out the Feeling a Little Hermit Crabby, Part 1 post), our brilliant art teacher, Mrs. London took over our beautiful hermit crab shells. Mrs. London has put together a blog post about her work on this project, as well. We were very involved in one another's lessons throughout this unit and we were thrilled to be collaborating on such a fun project. It was so exciting to be able to tie one topic into the general classroom, the library and the art room. The kids were so engaged throughout the entire process.

Check out how we honed in on our inner-Eric Carle:

 The crab bodies were created using red modeling clay

They were sooo cute!

 Not only did the kiddos make hermit crabs, they also created underwater habitat homes!

 Next step, using Eric Carle's style for inspiration, Mrs. London had students paint tissue paper to adorn their habitats

"More paint, cover as much space as you can!"

 The following week, the kindergarteners used the tissue paper to create seaweed, starfish, coral, sponges, sea anemones and much more!

 Mrs. London's adorable example (she used dried flowers to decorate the floor of the habitat)

Amazing display in the front corridor of the school

 Lastly, I have to brag about our amazing kindergarten team and their stunning bulletin boards!!!

I hope you're inspired to do your own over-the-top Eric Carle study and have the opportunity to collaborate among departments. It was truly a joy!

Feeling a Little (Hermit) Crabby, Part 1

Costume creation inspired by the very talented, Megan Kimball

My kindergarteners are in the midst of an Eric Carle author study and what started as a simple reading of A House for Hermit Crab, quickly turned into Hermit Crab fever! When I saw Ms. Kimball's crab costume, I knew I had to try to make one. And it turned out to be a wonderfully fun success. The costume prompted an art project and a painted jumbo pasta shell morphed into a cross-departmental, month-long project.

Because the kiddos had already read Eric Carle's story twice, I thought it would be a great opportunity to have them recall the details and then compare it to non-fiction hermit crab books. The kids were fascinated by the books and were thrilled to learn how hermit crabs poop.

 Book: Animals Up Close: Zoom in on the World's Most Incredible Creatures by Igor Siqanowicz
This book was the kids' first opportunity to see a "real" hermit crab and they were enthralled. They were able to see all the details and made several observations between real crabs and Eric Carle's character.

Book: My Friend the Hermit Crab by Joanne Randolph

I did not read this book cover to cover, but it had more fun facts and big, bright photographs.

After exploring the non-fiction books using a document camera, we moved to the tables and the students transformed jumbo shell pasta into beautiful hermit crab shells. It is important to note that the Animal Planet cautions against painting a living hermit crab's shell (we were going for the colorful Eric Carle-esque shells and I talked to the kiddos about why painting a living creature could be harmful to their wellbeing). 

Per the art teacher's advice, we used tempera paint. It worked wonderfully and the kids loved it!

Beautiful! It was discovered that the kids who are paint enthusiasts and love to add layers and layers of wet paint would end up with a cracked shell.

To see what we did with these fun and colorful shells, check out my Feeling a Little (Hermit) Crabby, Part 2 post!

I Got MelonHeadz-ed!

Yaaay! It finally happened, that's right, I got MelonHeadz-ed! My ultimate "I finally made it" moment is seeing myself as a cartoon. Well, feast your eyes on this!

I am tickled pink by the talented Nikki and the rest of the crew over at Honey Bunch Blog Design! If you're not familiar with MelonHeadz, it's an absolute must! Her stuff is adorable and designed especially for the classroom. Aside from what can be found on Etsy, you can also order a custom "Build-a-Teacher" (as you can see, mine comes complete with Toms, wedding ring, iPad, books and Starbucks iced chai latte). And to my delightful surprise, it was far more reasonably priced than I expected.

Sigh... Adorable.

Who Knew... "Who Was" Works Magic

My 5th through 8th grade students are required to read across a range of genres throughout the year. One genre that always prompts a lot of heel-digging is biographies. Our biography section is... Well, let's just call it a little "dusty." It's not a section that I'm proud of. In an effort to not only help the kids fulfill their requirement, but also get them interested in reading non-fiction, I ordered the complete Who Was series. These short, illustrated biographies are great for my middle grade readers. I found there are a ton of great biographies for children and a ton of great biographies for high schoolers, but the ones in between, fell through the cracks. This series is the perfect supplement.

Best of all, when I delivered them to the 5th grade classroom, they went WILD. Now that's librarian magic.

Photo credit: Ideas by Jivey

Preschool Storytime: Choo-Choo!

If our ragged Thomas the Tank Engine books were any indication, I knew our train storytime would be a big hit! Feeling extra ambitious, I wanted to do a fun project to top it all off. Little did I know, this would be a storytime to go down in the record books.

It all started with Esther's CrafttoArt "Thumbprint/Fingerprint Freight Train" post. I loved her colorful thumbprint train so much that I quickly went on a mad search for large, washable, child-safe ink pads. After a fruitless search at Target, Michaels and Joann Fabrics (they all have a plethora of stamp pads, but either they're permanent or I would have needed to spend a bundle of money and buy one of every color), I was about to give up. That's when my husband chimed in and suggested using those cheap little watercolor paint trays. Now, I had my doubts, but it turned out he's brilliant. Not only were they incredibly inexpensive, they were also super kid-friendly and much less messy.

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Book: Hey, Mr. Choo-Choo, Where Are You Going? by Susan Wickberg and Yumi Heo
I absolutely adored this book. It was so catchy and the kids just loved to sing along. It might have been a little too catchy... I found myself singing it for days after I finished storytime. And after thinking about it, the song is now happily bouncing around in my brain once again.

Rhyme: The Wheels on the Train (to the tune of Wheels on the Bus)
Conductor on the train says, "All aboard!"
Whistle on the train goes toot, toot, toot!
Wheels on the train go clackety-clack!
The crossing gates go clang, clang, clang!
People on the train go bumpety-bump!

Credit: Miss Jenny Reads

Book: Train Man by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha
A fun story that was a favorite of the kiddos who are already train enthusiasts. I will say, when I was short on time for some of the classes, this is the story I left out. The first book, Hey Mr. Choo-Choo got them excited about the theme and the last book was important for leading into our craft. I liked the book, but if need be, this was the one I would leave out.

Book: Freight Train by Donald Crews
We went from Train Man straight into Freight Train and for all of my classes, I was very impressed at their ability to hold their attention and sit still that long. Granted, wearing a conductor hat and blowing a train whistle never hurts... This classic story was a great intro to our craft.
Craft: Thumbprint Train
I cut pieces of white card stock in half and then draw a horizontal line across the bottom of the paper using a black marker. The kiddos did this project one-on-one with either myself, the assistant librarian or one of their classroom teachers while the other kids picked out their books. I am incredibly fortunate to be able to go over my 30 minute time limit, if need be, and this was definitely one of those times. I am also incredibly lucky to generally have myself, the assistant librarian, and two to three classroom teachers during the preschool storytime. We kept a watercolor paint tray and very wet paper towels inside of Ziploc bags at each station. The adult helped to guide the kids' thumbs to the paper towel and then to the paint (we made sure to get it very "goopy" with paint). After the classes left and their trains dried, I added the small details and painted the smoke on using leftover water color. The preschool teachers were thrilled when they would see the finished product. VERY successful!

 Credit: CrafttoArt and Ed Emberley

Name That Character

Today, second graders listened to several character traits while tuning into their inner illustrator. They used the character clues, plus their imagination to illustrate a secret character. We talked about how each person has their own imagination so the pictures may look different, even though we all hear the same clues. I was very impressed! Any guesses...