Our Superhero Investigation Part 2

We had a great time learning about superheroes and working in our centers. The biggest job for us to do with our learning was to apply it o our recognition program theme and prepare for the show!

We started practicing our song and script in April. We practiced everyday! During our center rotations Ms. West and I worked with the students on two different things. She helped them create personal superhero logos for their capes and I worked with them on the set design.

Cape Logos
You can't be a superhero without a logo! As part of their costume for the program we ordered capes for them to wear. Ms. West created a list of basic symbols for the students to choose from and each student made a sketch of the logo they wanted. She then used foam sheets to have them cut apart their pieces. Once they were assembled we traced them with puffy paint and they were placed on the child's cape.

Set Design
We always feel that it's important to have the children be part of the process of making decorations. For our stage the students made action bubbles by using black paint and Q-Tips to make the pop art look then painted the letters. They also painted our superhero training headquarters sign and drew superhero logos. They made clouds using white paint and glue and we used their art work from centers to decorate the walls.

In addition to prepping costumes and the stage we also took superhero pictures to give to the parents. Here are a few cuties!

I had a great t-shirt designer in California named Lindsay Cochran who has an Etsy shop at www.etsy.com/shop/lindsxopresses
They said Knowledge is Power because that was one of our songs!

It's become a tradition that our kinders also cross over our special bridge into first grade. With the help of my dads I had the bridge that was built for last year's show and awesome cardboard buildings.

Our big day came and the kids were ready! I never get to take many pictures because we are so busy running the program but we got a few shots of the kids in their outfits. This turned out to be a great investigation and led to a great program! After the show we bid farewell to this class and they celebrated with their families. We are looking forward to seeing what super things they  do in the future and can't wait to see what our new group will want to investigate next year!

Our Superhero Investigation Part 1

Since the beginning of the school year our students have expressed interest in superheroes. We planned to wait until the end of the school year so we could tie it into our end of the year Kindergarten Recognition Program.

We started with what we knew and did some research. We made a list of superheroes the students knew. We made a web of things we knew about superheroes. We made a list of questions and started reading books. We then made a CAN, HAVE, ARE chart and then made a Venn diagram to compare superheroes and villains.

Each student also made their own superhero, discussed verbs and they chose 3 things their superhero could do and then finally made a story with 3 events.

Superheroes

Superhero Actions

Superhero Stories

They also designed masks.

In addition to our research and creations we had several play based centers to explore superheroes. A few of which I borrowed from the wonderful Darla Myers at:
http://mrsmyerskindergarten.blogspot.com/2017/03/what-we-learned-by-investigating.html?m=1

Here are the centers we did:
Superhero Headquarters
In our dramatic play area we created a superhero headquarters. The students created the walls and I hung them from the ceiling. Ms. West read a book to them about what was needed in a superhero headquarters so we made sure to include everything. I used old t-shirts to make the capes and they loved dressing up. We had a superhero phone book that they loved using which also helped with number recognition. Many of the groups created "secret missions" while in this center.

City Scapes
One of our art areas that really helped with cutting skills was to have the students create their own cityscapes. They used construction paper and scissors to make their own cityscape just like the ones we saw in many of our superhero books.

Superhero Headshots
When I saw that Mrs. Myers' class had done headshot paintings of pets I thought how nicely that would fit into what we were doing. The students looked at photos of superheroes faces, drew them, traced with a black marker and then painted. They did a great job looking for details.

Word Bubble and Comics
In our literacy area students really enjoyed looking at the superhero books. They also loved making the word bubbles. We actually watched a PowerPoint show that taught us about the different types of bubbles like word bubbles, thought bubbles, scream bubbles and action bubbles... That was new learning even for me!

Clay Superhero Models
In our clay area students used clay to make superhero models. They struggled a bit more with this one because it was so time consuming but they still worked really hard. I'm not sure anyone​ ever actually finished one though!

Glitter Spider Webs
Thanks to Mrs. Myers again we had the students create spiderwebs like Spiderman. We tried a lot of different ways for them to use the glitter and glue independently but the best way was when Mrs. West made "piping" bags like you use to decorate a cake with. That way the glitter and glue was already combined.

Superhero Ramps
We talked about how superheroes need fast cars to travel quickly so I used some old hot wheels and painted superhero logos on them with puffy paint. The students used our long wooden blocks and tubes to make ramps and have superhero car races.

Building Superhero Hideouts
In our block area the students made superhero hideouts for our action figures... The funny thing is they started building other things like superhero movie theaters...

Check out my next post about the Superhero Investigation Part 2 to see how we got ready for our kindergarten program!