Green Eggs and Ham Worksheet

March 3, 2013V.A.N.E.S.S.A Dr. Seuss, Kindergarten Crafts 5 Comments

Sick, sick, sick…. All last week I was sick. WHY??? Right before my beloved Dr. Seuss’s birthday! Doesn’t the universe know it’s my favorite time of year?

On Tuesday afternoon, I was having fun creating bulletin boards in various shapes like hearts etc… (Bought some rolled up cork online). Then I started feeling feverish. It was so quick. I went from feeling a bit unwell to delirious. I started laying on the floor in one of the empty classroom and moving my head from side to side. I had the chills. It was not good. I told my boss there was a high possibility I wasn’t come in the morning and she freaked. Apparently there was going to be a Lion Dance performance for the Lantern Festival and the parents were invited and my white, foreign face better well be there. The next day, my fever was worse but thank goodness it rained! And it was moved to Wednesday. I got text after text to show up on Wednesday. In the midst of sneezing, hacking, and watery eyes, I showed up in the afternoon to greet all the parents and show off all the children’s work. Most of them noticed I was looking close to death and wondered why I was even there. But there was my boss, looking super happy and relieved I was there.

On Thursday, I showed up to work but I was in zombie mode so Dr. Seuss celebrations have been cut short this year.

I did manage to make one last worksheet (illustrations done by me this time!). Half of the kids read the sentences, and half just looked at the picture….so…yeah, it’s best at the end to have the kids one by one read each sentence when they turn it in. You may have to distract the others with another worksheet.

The Early Years of the International division have invited us to eat green eggs and ham with them next week. They will scoop the yolk out of a halved hard boiled egg, mash it with a fork, add green food coloring, then shove it back in the white part of the egg and put a piece of ham on top. Should be cute.

Ok, I’m crawling back to bed.

To get a pdf file of this worksheet, click here to download: Green Eggs and Ham Worksheet

For more Dr. Seuss ideas, check out my other blog entries.

Ten Apples Up On Top Craft (Part 2)

February 23, 2013V.A.N.E.S.S.A Dr. Seuss, Kindergarten Crafts, My Everyday Life 3 Comments

This is part two of “Ten Apples Up On Top”. I freaking love this book. It’s not my favorite Dr. Seuss book, but it’s pretty dang close. My favorite will always and forever be “Fox in Socks.” That is a brilliant masterpiece.

So, I think Ramsey was getting kind of tired of being my resident artist because instead he showed me how to use photoshop to make coloring pages. It really is so simple. This took me literally all of 5 minutes. I’ll break it down for you. Take a picture of a page from the book.

First, turn it greyscale, second, adjust the brightness way up and mess with the contrast, third, get the eraser and erase all the junk you don’t want, and finally fourth use the burn tool to blacken the edges more. Size it to 8 1/2 by 11 and TA DA! Done. Actually there are many ways to to do it like messing with filters, but I just do the easiest. I’m sure it can get way more professional than this. So anyway, you get something like this:

and turn it into this:

and this

Ok, so it’s not that good, but whatevs the kids are coloring on top of it anyway!

The kids then were allowed to choose what animal they wanted to color and thankfully it worked out that they chose randomly because if they chose all tigers I don’t know what I would have done. haha.

Onto the apples. I experimented with different types. Tissue paper, sponge, glitter, crayon with glitter, marker with glitter yada yada yada…

One kid found some pastels and then the rest started using them and man it looked really good! So, yes pastels. Have them use pastels! But in the end, the kids were intrigued with the tissue paper so most of them used tissue paper.

You can have your students do all ten on top or do a few. I let my students choose how many apples they wanted on top. I was actually surprised when one girl just wanted one apple on top.

I have to show off my cute little kids:

If you would like these coloring pages, you can download the pdf by clicking here:Ten Apples up on Top Craft

You can also download a word doc of the apples coloring page: apples

To see more Dr. Seuss crafts from me click here.

Ten Apples Up On Top Craft

February 23, 2013V.A.N.E.S.S.A Dr. Seuss, Kindergarten Crafts Leave a comment

I hate youtube/China internet so much. I’ve been trying to upload Eve’s 7 month video for two weeks now and it keeps failing at 99%. Ok moving on.

Dr. Seuss galore!

Check out my door! My class is called “Brown Bear” so that’s why there is a Brown Bear decal there. And now it’s sporting a “Cat in the Hat” hat!

So I can’t believe it. But my boss is actually on board with Dr. Seuss’ birthday this year. She’s letting me craft it up! And she’s telling the other teachers to decorate our hallway! Wow. This is so dramatically different than last year when she told me to stop doing Dr. Seuss and to focus on reading (lol) and phonics. You know how much phonics I’ve been teaching through Dr. Seuss lady?? Ok, I have been having a bit of fun with the crafts. Tis true, but so much more is happening than she sees on the surface.

Crazy story: So one of the teachers was making a Cat in the Hat cutout. She had plans to hang it up on the hallway ceiling next to some other artwork she was planning out. Well another teacher created this beautiful masterpiece in the other teacher’s intended spot.

For some reason, they said her Cat in the Hat was too heavy for the sign and said she would have to put it up somewhere else. She flipped a lid and I mean really flipped a lid. She shoved her Cat in the Hat drawing in the trash along with her other drawings. No one told her that her drawings were not going to be used, but just that it would fit better somewhere else. I don’t even know EXACTLY what was said because all this was going on in Korean at a screaming volume level between these two teachers. I guess she watched too many Korean dramas. But c’mon? Really? Trash can? Ok, so I secretly rescued it and hid it in my class. The next day when she was calm again and cheerful, I hung it up in my window.

Looks pretty good for being shoved in the trash! Well, you can see where it is bent around the eyes.

She told everyone that she was only going to decorate for her classroom and not for the department anymore. So she made this for her door the next day:

And twice the size!

She walked by my class and saw the first Cat in the Hat that I rescued from the trash displayed in the window. She tried to hide a little smile, so I think secretly, she’s happy someone rescued it and valued her work.

Yesterday I read “Ten Apples Up on Top” to my class. I think I’m getting better as a story teller, because man! They were so into the story. I can raise my volume level and bring intensity into the story. I stop to ask questions. I make sound effects. They. were. enthralled. They loved it and I loved it. I was so proud and mentally patted myself on the back.

So after we read the story, I had them do this worksheet. I got the idea from somewhere, but just designed the worksheet to my liking and added mini pom poms!

If you don’t have pom poms, you could have them draw apples.

Anyway, they have to write in their name and then draw a picture of themselves, (But make sure they draw themselves low enough in the box to fit in the mini pom pom apples).

Then I randomly set the mini red pom poms on their desk to count. Once they counted how many there were they had to fill it in the blank. Then I squirted some glue on a piece of paper on their desks and let them start gluing apples.

Easy, fun, and tactile!

If you would like this worksheet, click here: Ten Apples Up on Top

Enjoy!

For more of my Dr. Seuss ideas click here.

“Hop on Pop!” Worksheet

February 20, 2013V.A.N.E.S.S.A Dr. Seuss, Kindergarten Crafts, My Everyday Life 3 Comments

Well, Dr. Seuss season is upon us! I am getting the itch. The itch that makes me drop everything and Dr. Seuss it up! And thank goodness, my boss is actually ok with it this year and encouraged the other teachers to decorate the hallways. Yay!

Funny, one of the teachers said she was reluctant to help because the Dr. Seuss’ characters aren’t cute enough. I told her of course they are cute! They are sooo cute it’s ridiculous! But she responded, “All of the Dr. Seuss characters are monsters!” in a heavy Korean accent. (Extra emphasis on monsters). Well, we all have different definitions of cute. I think Dr. Seuss characters are the cutest, most lovable drawings ever!

“Pointing at cuteness right here!”

So two days ago, I started looking for Dr. Seuss crafts on pinterest under “Dr. Seuss crafts” and a lot of the search results came back to my blog! What the what!…so now that I know people are searching my blog, I would like to start trying my hand at some original work.

I created a little prepositions worksheet with “in” and “on” using the book “Hop on Pop” as the lesson base. It’s such a great book to help kids practice their prepositions.

So in my worksheet, the students have to cut out various Dr. Seuss characters from the book and paste them in the correct position to match the prepositional phrase. The “cup on pup” one was especially hard because it looks like the pup should be in the cup. But I did this on purpose so I would force them to read. When they got it wrong, I would say. “What does this say?” And then they would read it and go….”ohhhh!”

So first, have them write the phrases, then, have them cut and paste, and finally color. Coloring is the reward!

One of my methods that works very nicely is having them put their hands on their head after each step, so that I can personally direct their actions and keep track of where each kid is in the process. It was pretty effective.

If you would like this worksheet, you can open the pdf file by clicking hoponpop. My husband drew the Dr. Seuss pictures for me! (He’s so good! And he can do it fast! It’s amazing!) You should totally see his Dr. Seuss fish coloring pages.

More CNY pics

February 10, 2013V.A.N.E.S.S.A My Everyday Life 5 Comments

Here are some pictures that Shizhang’s cousin sent me from his camera from Chinese New Year.

Chinese New Year

February 9, 2013V.A.N.E.S.S.A My Everyday Life 3 Comments

Shizhang’s family (that have adopted Ramsey and I and now baby Eve into their family) invited us over for Chinese New Year. Shizhang’s mother is the sweetest, most wonderful Chinese lady in the world and I am lucky to have her! She is Eve’s designated Chinese grandma and adores Eve.

It’s nice to have a Chinese family adopt you into their family. You get all sorts of perks. Like this red envelope. Eve’s first “hongbao” (That’s like 30 bucks!)

First, they took us to a nice restaurant. Hardly anyone could concentrate on eating because Eve was stealing the show. Every one wanted to hold her. It was so crazy how a tiny little coo or sneeze could elicit such a reaction of clapping and squeals of delight. I almost felt bad for Shizhang’s grandmother who was just sitting there looking kind of close to death, staring off into the distance as all the attention was focused on this foreign baby.

After the delicious feast, we went to Shizhang’s uncle and aunt’s home where we watched the traditional t.v. program of comedy routines, amazing acrobatics, dance numbers etc. A few distant family members called over skype and Shizhang’s mother got to talk to them. And they of course showed Eve off. “Look at this foreign baby who is hanging out with us for Chinese New Year! Isn’t this so exciting!”

We played poker, Texas hold em, with chips while munching on sunflower seeds, salted almonds, dates, and other various New Year snacks. I had never played before but Ramsey taught me. (He learned at his brother’s house). So anyway, I was totally killing it for the longest time until Shizhang’s father beat my hand and took a bunch of my chips and then I lost all my confidence and started making some poor decisions. None of them ever bluffed. I learned too late that if they placed high bets, that meant they had a good hand. haha.

Shizhang’s mother aka Eve’s “Waipo” (Grandma in Chinese) gave her this eery talking doll that is reminiscent of “Talky Tina” from the Twilight Zone. It came with a pamphlet of questions you could ask it and it would answer your questions. You could ask it how old it was, what it liked to eat, request it read you a story, recite a poem, etc… then there was 4 possible answers to each question that would come at random. Shizhang’s mother was particularly excited about the fact it could speak English. However, when you asked it questions in English it would simply say, “What are you talking about?” but could answer you when you asked questions in Chinese, making me believe that someone programmed the English questions in questionable Chinglish fashion. Anyway, you could record music of your voice as well and since I had brought my ukulele to entertain my hosts, I recorded “The Moon Represents my Heart” with me singing the Chinese as well. Then the doll and Eve had a dance party since they were about the same height. I figure I will leave it staring at Eve at night in her room until she is aware of the creepiness of it.

“I’m Talky Tina and I’m going to kill you.”

Chinese New Year Crafts: Chinese Zodiac Calligraphy

February 8, 2013V.A.N.E.S.S.A Kindergarten Crafts, Misc Crafts, Teaching Kindergarten 1 Comment

My example

Ok, so this craft is something I’ve been itching to do for awhile now. The kids don’t ever have a chance to do Chinese calligraphy with the traditional brushes and paper etc… I thought it would be fun if they wrote all the characters of the animals of the Chinese zodiac. Then they could draw pictures of them. I don’t think I got the end result pictures of all the cute little animals they drew around the character, but you can use your imagination. Anyway, some of the Chinese teachers were looking at me like “Why the heck are you doing this in your English class?” so I had the kids write the English word under the Chinese character. haha. I thought it was so fun and afterward one of the teachers added a little handle on the top made out of red ribbon and it just looked so perfect!

I took a Chinese calligraphy class during the summer two and a half years ago so I attempted to teach them stroke order and how to hold the brush high up toward the top. But they weren’t listening to me so I gave up. hehe. I just let them get ink all over their fingers. Guess it’s part of the experience!