Bees, Frogs, Polar Bears, or Fishing...

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Home : 2001 : July : 31

Bees, Frogs, Polar Bears, or Fishing...
By Krissy

Bees:
Information Board with the headline "What's Buzzing in ___ grade?"

A grapevine wreath with wooden bees glued on it and the message "Bee Your Best!"

A large attendance hive with a small velrco square for each
student to attach their own bee to when they arrive in the morning.
A Jobs Bulletin Board: "Worker Bees" with individual beehives labelled with jobs and the students names on bees
A classroom newsletter "News from the Hive"
A sheet to record homework for absent students that says "While you've BEEn gone..." with clip-art bees
A puzzling morning question called the "Bee Stinger"
A

showcase for students' best work "Bee-utiful Work!"

Display quotes around the room replacing the word "be" with "BEE" and adding some appropriate bee clip-art.

Reward coupons called "Bumblebee Bucks"

Student of the Week called "Queen Bee or King Bee"

Add a bumble photograph to your computer desktop.

Make bee or beehive nametags for student desks.

Make a large honeycomb area to set a class goal for books read. Gradually fill in honeycombs as students read books.

I also plan to hand-out bumblebee shaped cookies at open-house or on the first day with the message, "I'm so glad you are going to BEE in my class"

I'm also developing a bee-themed (large clip-art bee and questions in various sections )interest inventory for the first day. If you'd like a copy, I'd be happy to e-mail it to you.

Besides making bees my classroom theme, I'm also planning to develop a thematic unit. I'm hoping to study bees with my students and learn more about them. I'm going to try to get a bee-keeper to come and talk to the kids some time this year.

This is just a start, but I am still working on it.

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FROGS:

START OF YEAR: Leaping into ____ grade! OR Look who's hopping their way into ____ grade. Put students names on Frogs and put little lily pads and cattails around on the board.
READING: Leap into a good book! OR Read-it, Read-it, Read-it. I have seen teachers use a lilpad system to keep track of books read. Each student has a lily pad and small frog stickers indicate books read. OR Make bookmarks that say "Leap into a good book!" with froggy clip art on them. (Cute frogs can be found at MSN Clip Art Gallery Online)
READING CORNER: Get a blue rug for your reading corner and use stencils to paint frogs all over with fabric paint. Call it, "The Pond," and put a few green pillows around for students to sit on. If you could find artificial cattails, they would look nice in a pot around the edge.
CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT: If you use a level system for classroom management, why not make a lily pad for each level and move the frogs from lily pad to lily pad, if need be.
CLASS REWARD: For a "whole class" reward system, like marbles in a jar," call it "Feed the Frog" and put up a large cutout of a frog with a big mouth. Draw a grid in his mouth. Buy those inexpesive little plastic flies and fill the grid each time the class earns it. When it's full, host a special party, movie, etc. (Or Call it F.R.O.G. awards... For Reaching Our Goal)
More ideas...
Call the morning activity "Leap of the Day" or "Morning Leap"
Put a picture of a frog on your background screen of your computer.
Showcase student work on a bulletin board labeled "Frog-tastic Work!!"
For a classroom pet, get a little frog! Tree frogs and fire-bellied toads make nice pets.
Make student nametags that say "______'s Pad!"
Have a student of the week bulletin board labeled: "Look who's leaping their way to success!"
I have seen many adorable rubber stamps with frogs on them at craft stores. A lot of them have teacher messages on them like "Great work!"
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POLAR BEARS
JOB CHART: make little igloos for each job and then give each student an artic animal... polar bear, penguin, walrus, etc. and rotate the animals around the job igloos. The students could even help make the igloos out of cotton balls or styrofoam pieces.
POSTER: "School is COOL"
BULLETIN BOARD: "nICE work," or "Beary good work!" for fantastic work; for a student of the week board, a large cartoon of a polar bear icefishing, make a real string with a paper fish on the end of his pole, each week he would have a new "Great Catch" Title the board "Fishing for Great Students." Other animals could hold signs with facts like "Favorite color"
Put large polar bear footprints on the floor leading into your room, or to an area in your room.
Make classroom reward money called "Bear Bucks" or "Polar Points" (I could help with these if you'd like.)
Print out some nice polar bear pictures and write character development message above them "People are easier to bear with if..." Then on each bear put a message "they are cooperative," "they are responsible," etc.
Reading Corner: Put white/blue bean bags, ask a local company to donate two or three large square cubes of styrofoam, put down a blue rug, and presto, you have a "Polar Bear's Den" for reading! You could even line the wall in that corner with white butcher block paper cut in jagged edges to look like ice. OR... if you could get a hold of SEVERAL styrofoam cubes you could build a partially enclosed reading corner with an igloo feel.
Maybe your class could raise money to "adopt" a polar bear at a local zoo. He/she could be the class mascot. It would be a great journal activity for the kids to write about.
White tissue paper crumpled, opened up, and glued to white posterboard looks "icy" OR saran wrap over white posterboard does, too. Add some spray glitter for extra flair.
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FISHING
Here are some ideas that I recently got together for a
fishing classroom theme. Just wanted to share them with
everyone...
A Bulletin Board: "A Great Catch" or "Fishing for a Good
Book" or even "Get Hooked on a Good Book" made with a fish
net and print out several different book-cover pics to put
in the net.
Instead of using marbles in a jar for a class goal, hang a
string from ceiling to floor and hang small paper fish on
it. Tell students that they will have a class party, or
watch a video, etc. when the fish reach the ceiling. (OR
use a large cutout of a paper fish and cover it with paper
scales each time they earn one)
For an opening day - get to know each other activity, cut
out some blue paper in the shape of a pond and put it on
the floor. Write each students name on a paper fish and put
them face down with magnets on back. Have students gather
around the pond and lower a fishing pole (with a magnetic
end) to catch a fish. Have them ask the student they caught
a question such as favorite color, food, etc.
Make an attendance board by hanging a small piece of net
and having students paperclip/clothespin their fish to the
net when they come in each day.
Make a bulletin board of brain-teasers/mysteries
called "Somethings Fishy!!"
Make a classroom job chart with a fish theme by putting job
names on hooks and student names on fish. Simply rotate the
fish each week/month.
Use a fish bowl to store pencils, pens, markers, etc. on
your desk.
Or, use a fish bowl with student names written on fish to
draw out names to call on.
Someone else on here told me they had a canoe in their
reading corner for the kids to sit in and bought a giant
fish pillow from Wal-Mart to go inside. That would be great!
Call your beginning of the day activity the "Catch of the
Day"
For treats during the first week/special ocassions, give
out Gummi Fish.
Use the lollipop buddies activity posted on the message
board but instead call it "Fishing Buddies" and print out
different types of fish. Two of each fish will be needed,
if you missed that post, e-mail me.(These could be used
later on to group students. Hand out the fish and have all
the bass be one group, all the catfish another, etc.)