A is for Alligator

I recently asked Kaleb what he wanted to learn about in school. His reply was "Alligators." So, since we finished the farm unit and he seemed so disinterested in the way school was moving currently, I decided to take his suggestion and run with it. Alligators it is:) At this point, if he said roaches, I would have ran with it. I am putting away the Journeys curriculum and creating my own. We will be learning about animals through the alphabet, suggestions will be from him. The need for an easy curriculum (open and close) has changed and we are back on the kindergarten track. I just hope this gets him interested in school.

We started with the letter A and made it into an alligator.

Not the best smile here, but he liked his A alligator.

He also made an alligator pocket that we filled with cards that began with the letter a. He liked sewing these and has asked for the next one - b.

I ordered a ton of alligator books from the library. One book was The Watermelon Seed - cute book about an alligator that swallows a watermelon seed and is afraid that a watermelon will grow in his tummy!

We made an A chart and added all of the words we could think of that began with the letter A. When we needed help, I had him look through a picture dictionary for some ideas. I wrote the word and, if possible, I drew a simple picture to help him remember. I am not the best artist but I think I did okay.

We played Alligator math. I made a simple greater than/less than chart with alligator teeth and I used the green Uno cards. He picked two cards and placed them on the mat. Then he turned the alligator to the largest number so he could eat it! Kaleb loved this game.

I found an alligator Toob so we had some fun checking out the alligators. You may not be able to tell here but Kaleb placed the soft shelled turtle in the mouth of an alligator. I guess he was listening when we talked about what an alligator ate.

After he played the gators, we made some treasure rocks or "Alligator Eggs" as I called them. It was a simple recipe with coffee grounds and flour (link below). Our Riley was helping the project along:) These took several days to dry, so do them early.

He painted a cute alligator that I found at Color Me Michelle (link below).

As we read those alligator books, we added facts to different shapes and he glued them onto his alligator. Cute!

We learned the poem, Alligator Pie. He made a simple mini book about the pie and then we made the pie (below).

He thought we were going to add cut up alligator but he was glad we didn't. (You can get alligator meat here at the fair.) Instead, our alligator pie was banana cream pudding pie tinted green I added cookie eyes and whipped cream nose just before serving.

He made an alligator briefcase, after reading The Lady with the Alligator Purse.

After the alligator eggs were dry, I hid them around the yard and had the kids find them. I hid some harder than others, so it took some time to find them. Then, they broke them to rescue the alligators inside.

Lastly, just for fun, I found an alligator that would get larger when submersed in water. We started out with the measurement before adding water and then, we waited to see just how big it would get. My tot Riley did not like the look of that thing. Whenever he was sitting on the counter while I was making dinner, he asked me to move it.

It was a fun week of alligator learning, a full week. It looks like he enjoyed it. If not, I give up...haha. We are on to bears, dinosaurs, sharks etc... See you soon.


Links for Alligators

PreK Projects - has the idea for dinosaur eggs which we in turn made alligator eggs.

Narrating Tales - has a free printable alligator template for a cute craft.

Color Me Michelle - has a super cute alligator craft. We used it to record alligator facts on the squares.

I Heart Crafty Things - has a cute stand up alligator craft with free template.

Recipe for Teaching - has an alligator number comparing cards freebie.

Crazy for Crust - has the recipe for Alligator Pie, easy to do.

Shannon's Book Nook - has a free printable template for an alligator purse that will go-along with The Lady with the Alligator Purse book.

Welcome to Mommyhood - has the free alligator printables, if you are looking for some:)