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!

Restaurant Investigation

So last year we did a fun bakery investigation. This year our kids told us they wanted to learn about cooking. We brainstormed ideas and what started as a cooking investigation became a study about restaurants.

 This investigation ended up with a lot of play in centers with foods and restaurants. Here are the centers we did:
Painting with Spices
One of our art explorations was to allow the children to explore spices. We put spices, glue and water in a jar and students painted with them.

 Our Restaurant
One of the things we always do is change our dramatic play area to match our investigation. For this one we created a restaurant. We read books and watched video clips about restaurants then we made a list of everything we would need. The students made menus and we talked about jobs in the restaurant. The students decided to name our restaurant Yummy Tummy's. Students had to place their orders and the servers would write down the words from the menu and give it to the cook.

 Painting Healthy Plates
In conjunction with restaurants, Ms. West's researched with the students about the food groups and healthy plates. One of our art centers was for the students to use the My Plate model and draw/paint healthy plates.  They also worked on labeling their foods.

 Our Pizza Shop
In our clay area we combined clay and loose parts to make a pizza shop. The students named it Cheezy's Pizza Shop. They used white clay to make the dough and red clay for the sauce. Then they used loose parts to represent the toppings. They practiced counting skills by counting how many of each topping they used and writing it on the recording sheet.

 Blocks
In our block area students used the pretend food in various ways. These boys made grills to cook the food on.

 Looking Closely at Fruits and Veggies
In this area we provided real fruits and vegetables for the students to observe. They drew them after observing with magnifying glasses. Then they traced with a permanent marker and painted with watercolors.

 The best part of our restaurant investigation was our field trip to Applebee's. I contacted the gentleman in charge of the franchises in the area and he agreed to let us come to the Delco Park location. This trip was amazing. The students got to go in the different parts of the kitchen to see how everything worked. They toured the dining room area and then got to have lunch! It was a terrific experience and the staff were so wonderful with our children. They even made them little treat bags! My only wish was that we would have been able to take the trip at the beginning of the investigation vs. the end so we could have researched more after our visit.  When we got back to school we incorporated writing by making Thank You cards.

The last part of our investigation concluded with students designing their own restaurant. We talked about what they would want it to look like on the outside to attract customers and what they would need on the inside. Then they made a food menu. Last they wrote about what their restaurant looked like and what they served.

This study did not go the way we planned and we took a lot of breaks in between to do other things. The students favorite things we're working in the pizza shop and restaurant and the trip to Applebee's. This investigation did not have a huge project piece but nevertheless the students did learn about food groups and restaurants!