What a fun week we’ve had! I know it’s a *bit* early (October JUST started) but this week we learned all about bats (and later, spiders!)
What a BLAST my kiddos had learning all about creepy crawlies and things that go “bump” in the night!
At the beginning of the week, we narrowed in on bats! To activate our schema, we filled out our K’s and W’s on our Bats! KWL’s.
I was pretty impressed on their background knowledge on this subject!
Then we set to work reading as much about bats as we possibly could! We even read one of my favorite fictional bat stories, “Stellaluna”, by Janell Cannon
(You can find an online reading of this book here, on Storyline Online!)
The first day we read the story, we discussed some of the key vocabulary (like crooned!) and the general story elements (characters, setting, plot).
The following day, we reread with comparing and contrasting in mind!
Once we finished our second read through, we set off to comparing Stellaluna (the bat) to her bird family (Pip, Flitter, and Flap!)
Bats even found their way into our Foundational Skills time when we reviewed word families.
In our Reading Response Journals, we did a quick sketch of a bat and filled it up with all the -at words we could think of! (Don’t worry, we reviewed our -at words, and discussed real words and make-believe words… “shat” went in to the make-believe pile!)
We of course had to find out more about all the different types of bats, so we started in on some BATTY research!
We later used our new found bat facts to help us write a narrative on a “Batty Adventure” we would have if we were a bat! We shared our writings in triangle groups.
( I wish this was a video of these boys sharing! Their “Two Stars and a Wish” comments were too precious!)
Then, the bats headed up to our ceiling to rest (until night fall…) and helped turn our classroom into a bat cave!
Whew! and that was only *part* of our week!
You can grab all these activities and so much more in my “We’re Going Batty” Thematic Unit
(be sure to redownload this pack if you already have it! I’ve completely overhauled it and added in even more activities!)
I’ll be back later this weekend to share how we also learned about creepy crawlies this week!
(I know… I’m not sure how we had time, either!)
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