I Heart Teaching 365!: November 2012

Today was the last day of our exciting two weeks unit study and writing about bats. My kiddos had so much fun learning new facts, making their own bat, and writing about bats.

First we did a KWL chart using die-cut bats for each kiddo to write their own facts and questions.

Then I read a great book (Bats, by Gail Gibbons) that had lots of bat facts and information. Then we finished writing bat facts we learned.

After we were finished with the story and KWL chart, my kiddos completed their bat packet (which had a few reading bat paragraphs, bat life cycle, labeling the body parts of bats, writing rough draft paper, and graphing fun activity).

Then we did an are, can, have graphic organizer to record facts we learned, either from the book or the facts paragraph in the bat packet. The we formulated these facts into sentences, in preparation for our writing. First we drafted out the facts into complete sentences and paragraph, then we edited our paper, before rewriting our final draft.

Next, we labeled the parts of a bat together as a class. I cut a large bat then typed out the words and then laminated both (the bat and words) for durability. Next, I used black velcro dots to stick the words onto the bat. This way, we can reuse the bat and words as a labeling the parts game or activity.

The bat cycle and labeling the bat parts pages are from Kidzone.

Click on this link for the bat cycle and bat labeling pages.

For the bat project, I painted toilet and paper towel rolls with 2 layers of black paint. The toilet rolls were the perfect size, but since I didn't have enough saved for this project, I cut the paper towel rolls in half. Having the rolls painted before hand saved time. I copied the bat's body (see below) on black construction paper. For the hands, I took 12" by 18" sheets of black construction paper and cut them into 6 equal squares. I had my kiddos traced their hands and cut them out. Then we took our white crayon and drew two eyes, a mouth, and 2 teeth.

I displayed the toilet paper bats with my kiddos' writing on the cabinet wall.

After all the writing and project was completed, my kiddos did a graphing survey to see what their classmates thought about bats, whether they were cute or creepy (activity from Cara Carroll). This activity can be done as a whole class or individually. I included this page as part of my bat packet and told my kiddos to ask 10 students what they thought. Then we came together as a class to tally and share our results.