UP KITE UP!

Hey frugal followers!  Sorry for my lack of posts lately - I'm trying to get back into the swing of things after a long (but not long enough) spring break!  The weather was definitely NOT on our side this past week! Although the sun was shining, the temps were too chilly for the beach!  However, we did manage to make it to the beach once toward the end of the week (as you might have seen in Melissa's post)... it was well worth the wait!  We had a blast!

Any-hoo, I wanted to catch you all up on a fun and exciting project we did right before we went on (a much needed) break.  As many of you know, my classroom theme is frogs.  I am also a BIG fan of the Frog and Toad series by Arnold Lobel.  They are just so darn cute!  Our main selection that week just happened to be "The Kite" from Days with Frog and Toad.  With our focus skill on problem and solution that week we decided to create this adorable little KITE story maps!

     

This was an idea I came up with my first year teaching (waaaay back in 2008).  Over the years we've made modifications to make them fit with certain skills we are trying to teach at that time.   This year we divided the kite into four sections - one for characters, setting, problem, and solution.  Students had to draw and write about each topic in the corresponding sections.  For those of you who aren't familiar with the story - Frog and Toad want to fly a kite.  It doesn't work on the first try and Toad is ready to give up.  Frog encourages Toad to keep trying, and finally... on the fourth try, the kite goes up when Toad yells "UP KITE UP"!  On each try, Toad tries something new to make the kite fly.  This year, on the bow ties, we described each "attempt" at flying the kite.  In the past, I've used the bow ties as a BME and had the students describe the beginning, middle, and end of the story.  You could also use them to record words from the story that follow a particular spelling pattern.  There are so many options!!! Each student was responsible for making their own (which they absolutely LOVED!!!).  Of course I modeled an example during whole group before sending my little firsties off independently.  We talked about the importance of using the book as a reference to help them complete their kites.  Here's a glimpse at some of my kiddos at work... 

 

 

 Here's a close up of the final product...

I used large construction paper to cut out the kites ahead of time (took about 5 minutes... if that) and I wrote the headings myself.  You could have the kids write the heading themselves if you'd rather... I just chose to do it ahead of time.  Our kites are now hanging from our classroom ceiling and they turned out to be fantastic decorations!  Each year, this turns out to be one of their favorite projects.  They all wanted to go out and see if they'd fly!  Melissa ended up taking her class out to fly real kites in the PE field hahaha it was amazing and chaotic all at the same time!!! Picture 19 kids running around with 19 different kite strings on a windy day and one teacher tangled up in the middle of all of it!!! haha It was the perfect way to finish the week and head out on spring break!  Hope you all had a wonderful spring break - hang in there, summer is right around the corner!