Theme - Picnic Theme

Use red/white gingham cloth for background (or purchase paper checkered tablecloth). Have a large picture of a picnic basket in center with die-cut black ants crawling in and out of. Each student can decorate their own placemat, having a colorful plastic coated plate in center. On the plate can be a typed essay/picture about themselves for an Open House display. "Picnic Perfect Students"

How about "Get carried away with Learning" and you have red/white checked cloth on the BB as the background with 3-D ants attached that are carrying away some styrofoam plates (with forks glued on). On the plates you can spell out the saying, or put the saying above and attach fake food to the plates like plastic grapes.

You can easily make the 3-D ants out of those little styrofoam balls they sell at the craft stores. Just paint the balls black, attach them to each other with toothpicks to make the body of the ant, add some legs and feelers and you're set!

I made a mobile for students to choose what lunch they are having that hangs by the door. It is made of plastic picnic plates with plastic silverware hot glued to the plates. The top one says "What's for Lunch" where students names are attached to clothes pins. Students move their lunch to "A" "B" "yogurt" or "cold lunch". The lunch attendent for the week is in charge of recording choices, marking who is absent, and at the end of the day putting all the names back at the top plate. It doesn't take much room and makes it very easy for students to take care of the lunch count.

Although I do teddy bears at the end of the year, we always have a teddy bear picnic. This just means that we eat teddy grahams for snack sitting on blankets on the floor. Also, we sit in a circle and each child has the opportunity to introduce their bear. My end of the year students usually have a lot to say, but it may be a way to get your new K students used to speaking in front of their class.

The first day of class we play going on a picnic. I start the game by saying Mrs. Griffin is going on a picnic and I'm taking marshmellows. Then I point to another child & they have to repeat what I've said. Example: Mrs. Griffin is going on a picnic and taking marshmellows. My name is Tammy and I'm going on the picnic and taking Taco's. The next child would repeat what was said, & add their name and food. Their first letter is also the first letter of the food. It gives the kids a good feeling about remembering names and helping each other.

Would you have the room for a picnic table? That would be fun - if you couldn't do that, you could get a tablecloth that the students could put on floor and sit around. Then you could fold it up when not in use. Having books in baskets would be a good way to keep them in their genres or reading levels. Plan a real picnic and if you dare!

My students use Accellerated Reader. When they make fifteen 100's on AR tests, they get to choose anyone in the school they'd like to have lunch with. I provide a picnic basket filled with battery operated candles, checkered tablecloth, plastic stemmed glasses, cloth napkins with napkin rings, salt and pepper shakers, and a silk flower arrangement. They eat their lunch in a prominent place in the cafeteria. They are also served iced tea. They feel very special during this time.

I teach first grade this is what I use for behavior --- I have a section on the wall with a red and white table cloth. Each student has a paper plate and pictures of food (they colored). In a bag I have black ants if they misbehave they have to put an ant on their plate. I send home a sheet in their homework folders, letting the parents know if they received any ants. The student can only get 3 ants. After 3 ants they have to loose some p.e. time or their talking time.

I give rewards/praises to my students. Many children have parents who do not show any or much affection. When a student comes to me and asks me how I like something. I make a big deal out of it. The look in those eyes make me feel so good, when they hear how I love what they did. When I see a student who is doing something right, I praise them for that too.

When I taught 5th grade I used a system for grades that could work for behavior. I called it the 500 club.Every student had a card with 25 squares. For every 100 the student would get in Spelling, they put a sticker on a square. With 5 squares the student would receive a special coupon to use in the class. The class as a whole had to get 100 squares ( I used a 1-100 chart to keep up with this). When we reached 100, we had a special day. For example, the students could wear their slippers to school. At the very end of the year, the last special thing I did was give a pizza party for the class.

I have a picnic theme in my room and each student has four straws. If I have to take one it's a warning, two=5 min. off recess, three=no recess, four=call home. If students haven't had any straws pulled I give them a sticker at the end of the day. They love the stickers! They show it off as they walk out of school. I use the straws as points to calculate their conduct grade. Some days they might have 3/4, 2/4... The important thing is to stick with your behavior management plan. It can be hard to be consistent but you need to!

We created at "ANT"HOLOGY - the children had to take a magnifying glass home and look around their house/community for places where ants lived. They had to draw a picture and write about where they found the ants. We put the book together as an 'ant'thology! It was really neat!

Two Bad Ants by Chris Van Allsburg is the first that comes to mind.

One Hundred Hungry Ants is a book about division.

Truman's Aunt Farm is a funny take on a little boy who gets asks for an ant farm for his birthday and gets an aunt farm instead.

I think there was a magic school bus video about ants and there may be a book tie in, I will have to check my list at school.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head, but I know there are more on my list.

Lori

Another fun book to do with ants is Truman's Aunt Farm. Truman has asked his aunt for an ant farm for his birthday and she sends him aunts! It is a wonderful fun book and a great language arts/science tie in -- a really fun way to study homonyms.

A fun experiment to do outside is to get jar caps and fill each with something different -- salt, honey, sugar, flour, etc. and see which attracts the ants fastest.

Their is a Magic School Bus Video that is very informative and fun called The Magic School Bus Gets Ants in Its Pants.

A nice science read is Ant City by Arthur Dorros. It is a Let's Read and Find Out Science Book.

I have my students do this book as a Lit. Study Group and they always love it. In the end, they researched the ants and had an ant farm. They educated the rest of the class on the variations of ants, poster of the body parts, and other facts. They also made snacks where they take purple grapes, put three on a toothpick. For legs they used either licorice whips or pretzels and attached with peanut butter. They also made ants on a log (celery, peanut butter, and raisins). They really enjoyed them!

The book is about a fourth/fifth grade level. Two brothers make a bet about whether they can find anyone who eats chocolate covered ants. It is a great story about relationships with siblings and making dares. Very humorous!

I just purchased a book called "How to Plan Your School Year" it is from Evan-Moor. The ISBN # is 1-55799-793-4. Anyways, at the back of this book they have some emergency sub plans and they build a few days of teaching around an ant theme. There is "An Ant's Voice" - an East African Tale, to read. Then there are some wksts that go along with that. They talk about opposites (with ants being so small). There is an ant fact families lesson with cut out ant cards for counters. "There's an Ant of the Rug" song with little ants to cut out and put on a stick to use during the song. And there is a worksheet that distinguished between insects non-insects. It's very cute - could be a starting point for you.

I have used an Ant Farm in the past as a class pet for my first graders. They are very co-operative creatures and when you get them via the mail they only send you the worker ants. :) No queen or soldier ants are allowed to be sent. Feed them and add water to their "nest" once or twice a week and that is basically it. I often kept them covered up as I found they did more digging this way - in the dark. Then I would have various times when small groups could go and take the box off and observe the ant farm with all their tunnels. I do prefer the ant farms that are thin and tall and not the hill like ones out there but either would serve the purpose. :)

I had planned to do one this year as well but wanted to wait until March or April to order them via the mail as it gets very cold here. I might order them right away and have them come in September but will have to bring them straight home at Christmas and get them into a warm house. Cold is not good for them although I have never needed heat lamps or anything like that, just a warm room temperature and they are good to go.

I had tried last year to order ladybugs but was told that they are a pest and could not order them and bring them into Canada. The K teachers do butterflies and then let them go and I was hoping to do the something similar in May or June. I'll have to look and see what is available but will probably just stick with ants.

sdwl;)

Last year I did a Picnic bulletin board with the words "Ant"icipating Great Things in Fifth Grade. I used ant die cuts from our ellison machine, a red and white checkered fabric (from Walmart) to replicate a table covering, and paper plates. Inside each paper plate I displayed photos from last year's class and included words of all the events students might look forward to in fifth grade such as D.A.R.E., the fifth grade trip, fifth grade week, field day, science labs, acing the standardized test, graduation, etc. The kids loved it!

This past September we made a board for 3rd grade with a fabric backdrop. It was a picnic table cloth pattern (red and white checker board) with ANTS! It looked fantastic! I bought the fabric on discount at WalMart. Then using paperplates the kids wrote a short story about their summer. It Looked just like a picnic! We even attached napkins and plastic food. Hope this gives you a spark for an idea!

The background was a red/white, checkered background, plastic tablecloth.

I made a place setting for each paper plate with a paper napkin, plasticware, and a paper cup cut in half so that it is 3-dimensional. I also found some paper watermelon paper plates (in a party supply store) that I cut in half to make it look like each setting has a slice of watermelon. I use straight pins to put up the 3-D items.

In the middle of each plate was the name of a subject in large letters (Reading, Math, Social Studies, etc.) along with such words as Critical Thinking, Ideas, Good Choices, etc. I think I had about 8-10 'settings' in all.

Across the middle of the 'table' is a banner that says: "Fourth Grade is Food for Your Brain".