A Strange Sight to Behold!

This is what you get when "Party Patrol Boot Camp" (whatever the heck that is) is scheduled on the same day as Literacy Lauchpad's squid story! It's Rambo Squid! ... Or feel free to interject your own funny caption in the comments section! I bet you've got some good ones!

We wrapped up our ocean themed unit for the month of July! Our story this week was I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean by Kevin Sherry. I presented the students with these homemade (obviously?) squid hats, and we played a musical chairs-type game that helped reinforce what we learned in the story about all the ocean creatures that squids are - and aren't - bigger than. If you haven't read this clever book yet, it's definitely worth checking out. It's perfect for a read aloud. I especially love to watch the students react to the squid getting eaten by the whale. Priceless!

Oops! Did I spoil the ending? Nah! That's not quite where the story stops. Seriously. Go read it!

Party Patrol Boot Camp involved some kind of swimming or water play activity; hence the swimsuits you see in many of the photos. My first group of students were scheduled to go to boot camp after Literacy Launchpad, so they were completely distracted during class as they eagerly anticipated this event. My second group of students had just finished boot camp, so while they weren't distracted with the anticipation, they were soaking wet and covered in war paint. Fun.

The game we played was a hit. Can't you tell from the big smiles?

This student decided to make a bold fashion statement with his squid hat by wearing it upside down. He can pull this look off, don't you think?

Here are photos from last week's class. Note the lack of swimsuits and dog tags.

Last week we read Out of the Ocean, by Debra Frasier. It's a really awesome "realistic fiction" book I guess is how you would classify it. It's a story, but it's full of cool info and photographs. It worked great in this unit. I wasn't sure how receptive the students would be to it, but they liked it a lot. The photographs in the illustrations seemed to really intrigue them.

The ocean brought us surprises! Above: Pelican feathers. Below: sea glass.

I was so impressed with the details my students remembered from each story and activity this month. I had one student mention the big Tuna Fish from Swimmy while we were discussing the various sizes of sea creatures in I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean. And just about everybody remembered specifically what treasure they found in our "ocean" during last week's lesson.

I love my students! They're brilliant!