Finishing up pirates

Over the last couple of days we finished up most of our pirate activities.  Here are a sample of some of the rest of the activities.

One More: The children had to figure out how many pirates to add to the island with the one pirate already there.  This activity was great for my students who needed an extra challenge.

Syllable Sort:  The kids love clapping out the number of syllables.  They are getting quite good at this.

They loved pirate picture bingo.  This was great for visual discrimination as they had to look closely at the pirates to figure out if they had the right one.  They also loved rolling the dice.

 Ship word families.

 Alphabet match.

Word family bingo.  This was more tricky as the children had to roll two dice, put them together to figure out if they made a word and then see if they had the word on their card.  We used dry erase markers to mark the cards.

Winter Carnival Obstacle Course

One of our fabulous EA's Linda, designed an obstacle course for the children today as part of our winter carnival.  Here are some of the things they had to do.

They had to pull the wagon with the mummy dog through the pylons to pick up the baby dog and come back again.

 The children had to take the gingerbread man through the house and around the red mat, where he got eaten by the dog.

This is the groundhog tunnel that the children had to crawl through then put the date together correctly for groundhog day.

 "Snow" shovelling from one bucket to the other.

 Walking the plank.

 Blowing "snow" onto the paper with a straw.

 Feeding the bear.  The children had to reach into the box and find something that the bear would like to eat.

 Put the gingerbread man back together.

 Spelling.

 Throwing "snowballs".

Pirates - Day Five

This week we are finishing up our pirate unit.  Today we concentrated on patterns.  I made up pattern strips for the students who were working on extending a pattern and needed a model.

 I made up individual cards for the children to manipulate. First we sorted the pictures into piles and then they picked 2 piles of pictures to make their pattern with.

They then chose two black and white pictures to colour and put in their pattern book.  They are getting very good at making ABAB patterns.

Imagine my surprise....

when I got up this morning to find out that Barbara (http://mrskilburnkiddos.wordpress.com/ ) had given me the Stylish blogger Award.  I have only been blogging for such a short period of time.  I am so honoured.

Here are the rules for receiving this award:

1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award.

2. Share 7 things about yourself.

3. Award 5 recently discovered great bloggers.

4. Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award.


7 things about myself:

1. I am a hockey mum.  My boys Jakob (10) and Joshua (7) are goalies.  I love watching them play.

2. I'm crafty.  I love to knit and scrapbook.

3. I live in what was the original one room school house of our little town.  It was built in the 1800's and we are currently trying to renovate it.

4. My husband has a drag racing car which we race in the summer time.

5. I am a huge Maple Leaf hockey fan. 

6. I am addicted to chocolate and diet Pepsi
7. I have a huge German Shepard called Chevy who loves the children and is the best dog ever.


I am giving this award to:

1. Caleigh at http://www.caleighscorner.com/

2. Junior at http://adaptions4kidz.blogspot.com/

3. The FBU girls at http://frogsbeesundertheseas.blogspot.com/

4. Kate at http://teachinglearnerswithmultipleneeds.blogspot.com/

5. Heidi at http://heidisongs.blogspot.com/

Pirate card games adaptations

This is how we adapted the pirate card game "Walk the Plank" (Go Fish) for a non-verbal child who uses eye gaze to communicate.

First we used two meter sticks and taped them to the front of the wheelchair tray.  We then taped an e-tran board between the two sticks.  Very low tech and not very fancy but it did the trick. 

Next we taped a "yes" to the top left and a "no" to the top right of the board.  We then taped the dealt cards to the board, far enough apart that we could tell which one was being looked at.

 On the tray we programmed a Step by Step with the message "Walk the Plank you scallywag".

During the game, when it was this child's turn, he looked at the child he wanted to ask and then looked at a card on the e-tran board. I sat in front of him so that I could see where he was looking and an EA sat beside him to physically assist with moving the cards.   The game then continued with normal rules and he either made a match or was told to "walk the plank" and had to pick up another card.

When someone asked him for a card, he would look at his yes or no card to answer whether or not he had it.  He would look at the matching card on his board if he had the match and if he said "no" he could then hit his switch which would say "walk the plank" and the other child would have to pick up a card.

Pirates - Card Games

Last week one of my students started playing Go Fish with the Domino cards.  So decided to make up a set of proper cards.  While I was at it, I included Old Maid and Concentration.  We decided to call the Old Maid version "Skull and Crossbones" and the Go Fish version "Walk the Plank". 

The children loved telling their friends to "Walk the Plank".

 The card holders I got from a Leap Game that I had in the classroom.  It them so much easier to hold.

The cards looked nice with the words printed on the back.    Do a test page to make sure they print out properly on your printer.  You can find the cards here on my teacher pay teacher site.

Here is the sample:

Pirate card games sample

Critters

Today we had a special visit from Critter World.  The children were so excited to see the animals she brought with her.

A guinea pig

a hamster

A chinchilla

(which liked to sit on peoples heads, including mine)

A ferret

A tarantula

A frog

a gecko

a turtle and a bearded dragon

and of course, a snake, which my brave EA's put around their neck.

I was really surprised at how many of the children touched the different animals.  They were very brave.

100 Days of school

We have made it to 100 days of school.  To celebrate we made "100" glasses and counted the 100 items that we each brought in.  We had 100:

Smarties

 Pasta

 Silly Bands

 Fish Crackers

 More Silly Bands

 Twist Ties

Thanks to everyone for being creative.  We did a lot of counting today.

Much to our great delight........5 more Valentine cards arrived in the mail today.  It was so exciting to open them all.  What creative friends we have.  We are displaying the cards so the other classes and visitors to the school can see.