Today was pink

Today was pink....all pink....all day.  Well, maybe not ALL day. It is my favorite color day and I did up my favorite teacher  for-e-ver  factor by letting my students chew gum....pink gum.  And then just to cement my place in their hearts, I gave a bubble blowing lesson.

All the kindergartens in my school teach the colors.  We know they are not set out specifically in the common core as a standard.  We know most of our students come to us knowing their colors, but some still do not.  It is good vocabulary practice for our little ELL kiddos and it gives us common vocabulary to build from.  We stress not just the color, but the color word as well.  (I use the very, very old color monsters..."Pink Pink sat in the sink", and Julie Lee's Color and Shapes with Brown Bear unit) The color words are not on our school's list of tested sight words...but…it is a good challenge for those who are ready to learn them, and learning a little extra never hurt anybody.

As we (yes I had a piece too) chewed that pink gum I was reminded why I hate gum in the classroom...26 little mouths all moving up and down at different speeds.  I told my kiddos they were driving me crazy.  My eyes were spinning into the back of my head.  With my giggles growing, I proceeded with my bubble blowing lesson calling out for some help from my high school aide.  He manged to blow us a nice big bubble that then popped all over his chin.  I just about lost control (insert a carpet full of giggles here).  We graphed the results of our practice…and trust me, at 5 years old they are either pretty darn good, or totally clueless.

After graphing, discussing our data, and writing sentences together to tell what we noticed, we worked on pictures of ourselves, complete with a little pink sentence.  I helped add the bubble blowing part.  (if you really want the sentences click here).   All the time we chewed away at our gum…until the flavor was gone and it was lunchtime.  That was the end of gum in the classroom (until next year).

And now the results of our hard work is hanging up in the hallway.