Lunch and Learn

I couldn't have been more excited to get back to school this morning!  I will be leading a program called "Lunch and Learn" this week.  Funded by a grant, I get to teach a group of Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade students for two hours and feed them lunch.  Oh, but don't worry, I don't have to actually cook or make the lunch...the school district does that!  Thank goodness...

The main goal of the grant was to provide lunch for a group of 50+ children in need at our school.  We added on the "Learn" part, and it is, as Amber calls it, just icing on the cake!

During planning, our group of teacher leaders decided that it was ok to have a little fun too.  I got to thinking about this and decided that this "opportunity" may be the closest thing some of these children will ever get to a summer camp type of experience. 

So, the crafty, artsy side of me is coming out!  I am planning on this week to be a complete "Ocean and Beach" theme.  Here is a little of what we did today:

I started off by reading one of my favorite ocean books, Commotion in the Ocean.  Then, we sang some songs from this "What's In The Sea" CD. 

I recopied these three poems from the read aloud.  The children helped me by reading along!

  

Then, they had to choose their favorite one to create a handprint picture of. 

Here are two of them:

Handprint Octopus

Handprint Crab

I can't wait to see what tomorrow has in store for us!