Kids!! (at work)

Usually my aide does my bulletin boards at school (she retired after teaching first grade for 36 years, so she's had plenty of practice at bulletin boards!), but this year I've been on something of a roll. I think because the class is so much better that I have time and energy to thing about something besides dragging myself through the next day.

Anyway, I have actually been inspired this year with a couple of neat ideas. The one I'm going to show you (if you haven't already lost interest and gone back to the main page) is what I just put up. We've been working on adjectives in English, and I wanted to incorporate that into a seasonal bulletin board.

The board is based on the book Go Away, Big Green Monster, by Ed Emberly. It describes a monster and then makes it disappear. Well, first I read a description of the monster to my students without adjectives and had them draw the monster. "The monster has eyes, a nose, a mouth with teeth, ears, hair, and a face." The pictures were all very different. Here are a couple of examples...

Now, this next one has me a little upset. Look and see if you maybe see a resemblance...

Haha...that kid is SOOOO getting a detention!! (Not really)

Then, I read them the description complete with the adjectives and had them draw the monster again. "Big Green Monster has two big, yellow eyes, a bluish-greenish nose, a big, red mouth with sharp, white teeth, two little squiggly ears, scraggly purple hair, and a big scary green face." This time, the pictures looked much more like the monster in the book.

The kids really enjoyed the activity. I was pretty impressed with their drawings (except the mini-me)...usually drawing is really painful in our room. They were very engaged with the activity, though, and now I have a cute, seasonal, and curriculum-related bulletin board (talk about your adjectives!!) that'll last me through the end of October. Yea!!