Category Archives: Early Enrichment

Early Enrichment #45 Improve Our School

Design Challenge: Improve Our School

You will need to collect a small quantity of three types of materials .

Here are the items you will need

Your job is to imagine and build a prototype of something that will make our school a better place.

A prototype is a model that represents an idea. It does not have to be built to scale or actually work.

The purpose of the activity is to dream and imagine new solutions. 

You only have 10 minutes of work time. 

Afterward your timer goes off, make a pic collage and present your prototype and describe what they chose to build and why it will help our school.  Share your idea with your teacher. 

Post idea: Ann Gadzikowski

Early Enrichment #41: Spooky Halloween Tongue Twisters!

Tongue twisters are a great way to practice and improve pronunciation and fluency. They’re not just for kids, but are also used by actors, politicians, and public speakers who want to sound clear when speaking. Below, you will find some spooky tongue twisters. Say them as quickly as you can.

Spooky Halloween Tongue Twisters

  • He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
  • Creepy crawler critters crawl through creepy crawly craters.
  • Dracula digs dreary, dark dungeons.
  • Ghostly ghouls gather gleefully to golf on ghostly golf courses.
  • Gobbling gargoyles gobbled gobbling goblins.
  • Horribly hoarse hoot owls hoot howls of horror in Halloween haunted houses.
  • If big, black bats could blow bubbles, how big of bubbles would big black bats blow?
  • If two witches would watch two watches, which witch would watch which watch?
  • Professional Pumpkin Pickers are prone to pick the plumpest pumpkins.
  • Transylvanian Tree Trimmers are trained to trim the tallest Transylvanian trees.
  • Several spooky, slimy spiders sulkily spun by the sea.
  • The ochre ogre ogled the poker.
  • Which witch wished which wicked wish?

Now that you’re an expert at saying them, can you write your own Spooky Tongue Twister?

Add it to the comments section!

Early Enrichment #40: Mary DID Have a Little Lamb!

Everyone knows the nursery rhyme “Mary Had A Little Lamb,” but you probably didn’t know this was based on true story!!

The nursery rhyme, which was was first published in 1830, is based on an actual incident involving Mary Elizabeth Sawyer, a woman born in 1806 on a farm in Sterling, Massachusetts. Spoiler: its fleece WAS white as snow.

Birthplace of Mary Sawyer and the Little Lamb

In 1815, Mary, then nine, was helping her father with farm chores when they discovered a sickly newborn lamb in the sheep pen that had been abandoned by its mother. After a lot of pleading, Mary was allowed to keep the animal, although her father didn’t hold out much hope for its survival. Against the odds, Mary managed to nurse the lamb back to health.

“In the morning, much to my girlish delight, it could stand; and from that time it improved rapidly. It soon learned to drink milk; and from the time it would walk about, it would follow me anywhere if I only called it,” Mary would later write in the 1880s, many decades after the incident. And, yes, the lamb would indeed follow her wherever she went and did have a fleece as white as snow.

Sometime later, Mary was heading to school with her brother when the lamb began following them. The siblings apparently weren’t trying very hard to prevent the lamb from tagging along, even hauling it over a large stone fence they had to cross to get to Redstone School, the one-room schoolhouse they attended. Once there, Mary secreted her pet under her desk and covered her with a blanket. But when Mary was called to the front of the class to recite her lessons, the lamb popped out of its hiding place and, much to Mary’s chagrin and to the merriment of her classmates, came loping up the aisle after her. The lamb was shooed out, where it then waited outside until Mary took her home during lunch. The next day, John Roulstone, a student a year or two older, handed Mary a piece of paper with a poem he’d written about the previous day’s events. You know the words (except maybe for the 3rd verse):

Mary had a little lamb;
Its fleece was white as snow;
And everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go.

It followed her to school one day,
Which was against the rule;
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at school.

And so the teacher turned it out;
But still it lingered near,
And waited patiently about
Till Mary did appear.

Watch the video below to hear the tune that goes along with the words above.

Now, here’s your task:

Write your own words to go with that tune in the style of the poem above.  Submit your poem to the EY coordinator at your school!

Early Enrichment #38 Create your own National Day

Did you know that November 3rd

is national sandwich day?

December 7th is national letter writing day,  and January  7th is national bobblehead day.

Click on the red link for each these days and write a few sentence telling us about each

one.

What day do feel deserves to add to the list of national celebrations?

Pickle day? It’s observed on November 15.

How about National fuzzy sock day? It’s a day people celebrate it on December 21st!

What would be a day that you would LOVE to celebrate? Start brainstorming. Create a list of 10 days that you would enjoy having as special days on the calendar.

After you create your list, choose your very favorite day. Create your own informational apple clip project about your day.

Include this information:

The name of your day

3-5 facts about your topic

How we can celebrate this day?

Why it is important enough to be a national day?

Add color and illustrations to your clips.

EXTRA: Do research to find out if your day is already celebrated. If so, add that date to your clip project.

Share your project with your teacher or the EY coordinator in your building.

 

 

 

 

 

Early Enrichment #37: Shark Teeth and Shark Rules

There are so many cool facts about sharks to learn.  There are a also so many rules for sharks to follow at school.
                        What!? Sharks at school?
Get out your notebook and dive into this mini shark lesson.
1. Please read this Wonderopolis article about sharks and take notes.
https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/how-many-teeth-do-sharks-have
Please record at least 4 ideas and/or drawings from the article in your notebook.
2. Listen to the book Clark the Shark

Write down all of the rhymes that Clark creates in your notebook.
You should have at least 4 of Clark’s rhymes written in your notebook when you are done.
Your assignment
Create 3, 4 or 5 of your OWN rhymes that would teach Clark how to behave at school and follow school rules. Write or type your rhymes and share them with your teacher. 

Early Enrichment #36: Sign Language

Do you know sign language?  Can you spell your name in sign language?  The next 5 Early Enrichment Mini Challenges will help you to learn how to sign your name, common requests, and more!

Week 1:  Animals

After watching the videos, you can…

  1. create a video of yourself doing 5 animal signs.
  2. work with a partner (if it’s OK with your teacher) and create a video of 10 animal signs.
  3. make a class video where each child does a different animal sign.

Image taken from: https://pixabay.com/p-28716/?no_redirect