The Little Red Hen

As a part of our farm unit, we read The Little Red Hen by Paul Galdone. This story is about a hardworking little red hen who lives in a house with 3 lazy animals. As her roommates spend their days napping, the little red hen is busy cooking the meals, washing the dishes, mending the clothes, and tending the garden. One day, she finds a grain of wheat, and although she asks her roommates for help, they all refuse to help her plant, grow, harvest, and grind the wheat. They also won't pitch in when she takes the wheat and uses it to make a cake. However, when the cake comes out of the oven, the animals are all ready to help the little red hen eat it! After reading the story several times, we decided to a "Project Act" activity called "The Hot Seat". We began by reviewing the chores that the Little Red Hen did throughout the story. We discussed how the pig, the duck and the cat were lazy. This lead us into a discussion about why it is not good to be lazy! Next, we held a trial! We put the cat, the pig and the duck on trial and had them sit in the "hot seats". The rest of the class sat around them and acted as "The Little Red Hen". Each student took turns inquiring why each animal did not help to weed the garden, water the plants, harvest the wheat, or bake the cake. The students in the hot seats got to come up with any "excuse" to defend themselves. Their responses were hilarious.
After performing the "Hot Seat", we wrote apology letters in our journals to the Little Red Hen!

After being asked why the duck did not help the Red Hen with the chores, the duck explained "I was too busy taking a bath in my pond." When asked why the cat did not help to water the plants, he replied, " I don't like water!". The pig stated that he was too busy building a mud house to keep himself cool!

After performing the "Hot Seat", we wrote apology letters in our journals to the Little Red Hen!

We created our own tear art "Little Red Hens".

We wrote hen facts inside of our hens!

Fe! Fi! Fo! Fum!

Fe! Fi! Fo! Fum! We kicked off our plants unit by reading Jack and the Beanstalk and some great informational texts about plants. Today, we read "Roots" by Vijaya Khisty Bodach and "What Does a Garden Need?" by Judy Nayer. I showed them two blank anchor charts on the board ( Plants: Have/Need/Give) and the diagram of Parts of a Plant. Their instructions were to listen to me read the text and raise their hand each time they heard a part of the text that could be reported onto one of our anchor charts. They enthusiastically shared their knowledge.

This student is labeling our plant diagram.

Each day, we will read more informational texts about plants and we will add to this anchor chart. I can't wait to see what it looks like when it is finished!

After studying and charting about plants, we wrote in our journals using our new "By Heart" word "they".

I LOVE that she wrote "Did you know...".

Look at his awesome roots and labeling!

On his own, he decided to label his picture!

This student learned that plants need roots because it helps to hold up the plant and drink up the water.

Here is a little poem that we memorized and acted out today! 

We re-enacted Jack and the Beanstalk by making our own pop up books.

Of course we needed to plant our own "magical beans".

The Grouchy Lady Bug

After reading the Grouchy Lady Bug, we wanted to delve into the study of insects even deeper. We watched the life cycle of a ladybug in this informative video clip. The students became entomologists (and were quite proud of using their impressive new vocabulary), and presented their findings to the class. I gave them no guidelines or restrictions, but simply told them to "take notes" on what they learned from the video. I was dazzled by their studious approach and their eager intentions. They were so enthralled by this process that they told me when they wanted me to "pause" the clip, so they could write down more accurate notes. Sometimes you just have to step back, and let them learn in their own way.

His focus was unbreakable!

Intently documenting his findings.

Look at this report!!!! (ALL ON HER OWN!)

I love how she organized her thoughts.

Entomologist Arabella reporting her findings.

We created our own "Grouchy Ladybug" book. We are learning to tell time to the hour and to the half hour. The students were able to re-create characters from the book and give their own reason why the animal could not fight.

She wrote about a Boa Constrictor being too "big and dangerous". I just LOVE her phonetic Kindergarten writing.

How cute is this whale?

Thank you to our fabulous aide, Mrs. McLean for  making the cover of our book.

 

After reading the Grouchy Ladybug MANY times, we did a "CLOSE" lesson on the story. As usual, I was amazed at the questions the students asked which prompted us to re-read and investigate the answer. The students got into a "friendly" debate about whether the Grouchy ladybug and Friendly ladybug were males or females. We looked back into the text to find out if the author provided evidence of the gender of the ladybugs. After further research, we discovered that Mr. Eric Carle did NOT provide a gender. Hmmmm I wonder why? The students were so intrigued, that they suggested that we write a letter to the author to ask why he did not use the words "he", or "she" to describe his characters. More on that later. Stay tuned!

Next, we wanted to use the text to provide evidence about why the Grouchy Ladybug was in fact "grouchy" and why the Friendly Ladybug was indeed "friendly". We re-read the text again. Every time the students heard evidence to support these characteristics, we wrote it on the board.

Finally, we wrapped up the activity by doing a "Project Act" activity called "Tug-O-War". First, I had to demonstrate to the students what a "tug-O-war" was. After all of the safety guidelines were ironed out, I had half of the class stand on one side to be the "Grouchy Ladybug", and the other half stand on the other side of the line to be the "Friendly Ladybug". The students got in their "tugging stance" and took turns "tugging" and shouting out something their character would say to "win over the aphids". Who do you think won?