Photo Essay about Ms. Arrendale's trip to the Shedd Aquarium

This summer in a training I learned about creating photo essays as another way to tell a story.  I went last week to visit my brother, sister-in-law and niece in Chicago.  My other sister who lives in St. Charles and my Almost First Grade niece went to visit with me.  One our first day there we went to the Shedd Aquarium.  It was by far the most amazing Aquarium I have ever visited.  I took almost 700 pictures while I was on vacation.  I wanted to try to put together a photo essay (which is another way to write a non-fiction or informational text book).  I wanted to share my book with you on the blog.  I hope you and your families consider creating a photo essay to make your own books.  I am going to print this and bind it together into a book this year for school.  Here are the pictures I wanted to share with you.  Photo essays do not require a lot of text (although you can add as much text as you want).  In order to understand what a photo essay is, think about the really cool coffee table books they sell at book stores that are full of pictures on one particular topic.  The topic of my photo essay is the Shedd Aquarium.  I hope you enjoy this little book (in blog form) that I have put together for you.  Maybe you could make a photo essay of what you did this summer to share with your new First Grade Teacher.  Wouldn't they be so impressed if you came to school with your photo essay!  Your new teacher would be blown away at what a great author and illustrator you are.  Be sure to share them with your past Kindergarten teachers.  Enjoy my photo essay!

My Trip To The Shedd Aquarium

By: Carole Dawn Arrendale

This is the skyline of Chicago.

 

This is the entrance to the Shedd Aquarium.

 

This is a close up of a really cool statue outside of the museum.

This is the round statue outside of the museum.

I saw a neat dolphin show.

I saw a diver in a huge fish tank.

 

I saw an enormous sea turtle.

What a strange looking creature!

This woman is a scientist and an animal trainer.

This is a Beluga Whale.

This is a starfish.

Here are a lot of starfish.

These are two different kinds of stingrays.

I got to pet this stingray.

My sister petted this stingray.

These are called moon jellyfish.

These were my favorite jelly fish.

I think these jellyfish are beautiful.

I am pretending to hold a jellyfish.

This jellyfish looks like it is flying!

These are a different type of jellyfish.

These jelly fish are blue.

This jellyfish is very little.

I saw this penguin.

I think seahorses are very weird looking.

This seahorse was very strange, but very pretty.

The eels scared me.  They are so creepy looking!

This is me being silly in front of a giant fish tank.

This is the giant fish tank.

I love all of the different colors of the fish.

I don't remember what this was called but it is really cool.

The coral was very colorful.

I like the patterns on this fish.

These fish are very bright.

Shark!

The sharks are so graceful.

Nemo!

This is how they grow the coral for the fish tanks in the museum.

This is coral they grew and now it is ready to be placed into the fish tanks.

THE END

 

So that is my photo essay for my trip to the Shedd Aquarium.  See how easy that was to create?  The pictures tell most of the story.  I only used one sentence under each picture.  I want you, the reader, to really study the pictures and see how much information you can gather from looking at the photos.  I hope you enjoyed my essay.  Try to create one yourself.  It is very easy if you have a grown up to help you with the pictures.

 

On a different note, all of the Kindergarten teachers and many of the First Grade teachers are already back in their classrooms this week creating a wonderful learning environment for you.  The First Grade teachers are so excited to have you come into their classrooms.  They are working so hard to make your first day (and the whole year) a fun and exciting learning adventure for you.  I am hoping to get some of them to read a book out loud to post on the blog for you.  This is going to be an amazing year for you.  We (the Kindergarten teachers) are so excited to see you grow and learn in First Grade.  Just a few more weeks and your amazing journey begins.

 

A pen pal, some websites and a video!

Template for writing a letter to the new Kindergarten Students  click here to download the writing paper, three to choose from!

I thought this might be a nice idea to get you writing and to welcome the new kids to Kindergarten in a few weeks.  Go to the link above and print out one of the pen pal forms.  Have your child write a nice letter to the new Kindergarten kids and bring it to school the first day and give it to your past Kindergarten teacher to read to the new students!  This will get your child writing and will help the new children feel welcome.  Make sure they use a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence, proper spacing, use a pencil, sound out the words and use punctuation at the end of the sentence.  I am hoping every Almost First Grade kiddo will bring one of these sweet letters to school the first day.

 

 

Next, I found this resource of lots of free websites for kids!  Next time your child says "I'm bored" just bring up one of the sites for them to discover.  There are lots of educational games, stories and activities on these sites for them to explore.

Next, play this cute video to get your child excited about the first day of school.  I love this video!

 

Ms. Arrendale is off to Chicago tomorrow to visit my niece!  I hope to take a lot of interesting pictures to share with you.  I learned this summer about making a photo essay and want to try that.  I want to post it on here so you and your Almost First Grader can make a photo essay to share when they come back to school.  Enjoy the rest of the summer.  I will be posting again soon!  Enjoy the cooler weather coming for this weekend. 

 

 



 

Important Update on the Sunflowers

Today I went to the school with Ms. Allen to check on the Kindergarten and First Grade gardens.  We were amazed that they are still doing so well in this terrible heat!  We even saw one plant with a small sunflower blooming!  Wow.  We were so excited.  If you haven't written a story yet this summer we challenge you to write a How To book about how to plant and care for our sunflowers.  We would love to see your books when you come back to school and you could share them with your new First Grade teacher and with the new Kindergarten kids.  Your new teacher would be so excited to see that you are such dedicated students to practice your writing skills over the summer break.  What a great way to impress your First Grade teacher with your amazing skills as an author and illustrator!  We know you can do it!  Here are some pictures for you to use in your research on sunflowers.  With an adult you could get a sunflower book at the library.  You can also look at the pictures on the blog and use that awesome brain to remember what the gardens looked like before you left school in May.  You learned how to research in Kindergarten when we did our animal studies in Book Clubs during Reading Workshop so go ahead and use those skills to write your how to book. 

Look at how tall our sunflowers are growing!  Even with the very hot temperatures and little rain over the past two weeks our sunflowers keep on growing!  I do see some weeds creeping up in our gardens.  I also notice that the ground is cracking from lack of water.  What else do you notice?

See how the plants are getting brown at the bottom?  I think they are very thirsty.  I need to take up a hose and water our gardens!  Mr. Lee said there is a water valve outside so I need to bring the hose to school, hook it up and give our gardens a great big drink! 

This is the First Grade garden.  Some of their wild flowers are blooming.  They are so pretty!

If you look closely you can see the plants forming the flowers.  It is really interesting.  Maybe if you live close to the school you and your grown-up (and please take a grown up with you) can walk up to the garden and study/observe the flowers.  You could take your notebook and draw what you observe.  Maybe you could pull the weeds.  Do you think that would help or hurt the flowers?  Why do you think that. Could you draw a picture of that an put it into your book explaining why weeding a garden is helpful?  I know you can!

This little sunflower is almost ready to bloom.  Do you see the flower forming?  How long do you think it will take before the flower comes out to greet us?  Do you think it will take a day, two days, a week, a month?  Why do you think that?  Justify your answer to your grown up.  Do you think we will have flowers when we come back to school?  What color do you think those flowers will be?  Will they all be the same size?  Will any of the plants have more than one flower on it?  Write down your thinking.  People that study plants are called botanists.  Maybe you will want to be a botanist when you grow up and study plants!

Here are the Kindergarten and First Grade gardens.  I can't wait to see all of the flowers when they bloom.  I think it will be very pretty.  We can harvest the sunflowers this fall when it gets cooler and the days get shorter again.  We can take those seeds from the flowers and plant them again!  We can also toast and eat some of the seeds!  Yummy!

 

These flowers are reaching toward the sky.  See how I got down on the ground and took the picture looking up toward the sky so you could get a good perspective on how tall they are getting?  We use perspective when we draw illustrations in our books we create.  Tell your grown up what you learned in Writing Workshop about how to draw pictures to show perspective.  You will learn in art class about perspective in drawing and painting too!  This will make you a better illustrator!  It is a lot of fun to look at the world from different perspectives.  So, go start that book.  We can't wait to see them.  We may even have Golden Paws for those that write stories this summer!  Wouldn't that be amazing to get a Golden Paw your first week back at school?

 

 

Ms. Arrendale reads for you!

Hello almost First Grade friends.  Ms. Arrendale stopped by school today to read a book for you.  She knows that David Shannon is one of her students favorite authors and illustrators so she decided to read one of his books for you.  She knows that you all are reading at least 20 minutes a day to keep your super reading powers sharp for First Grade.  It is still very hot outside so taking a break from the sun and snuggling up with a favorite book is a great way to stay cool.  Keep reading.  School starts in a few weeks and we know you will be ready.  Enjoy.  Just click the link below to listen to this funny story.

 

Ms. Boatright reads Piggy and Elephant

Hello Almost First Grade Friends.  Ms. Boatright read a book about Piggy and Elephant that she wanted to share with you.  Enjoy!  Just click on the video below to watch Ms. Boatright read this really funny book to you!

 

Ms. Allen reads a book for you!

Ms. Allen wanted to  share this book with you.  Click below to hear her read to you.  There is a little stutter start to the video and I could not get the video to edit so please just ignore the "false start" at the beginning of the video.  Enjoy!  Keep reading 20 minutes a day this summer so you are ready to start First Grade ready to roll!  It is hot outside this week so this is a good time to take a break and read a book.

 

update on the sunflowers

I went up to the school today to check on the sunflowers and my friend Audrey came up to help.  We checked on Mrs. Walker's flowers as well.  Look at how tall all of the flowers are getting.  They could use some rain, the ground looked a little dry, but the flowers seem to be growing very well this summer.  Take a look at the pictures we took.

Our outdoor garden and Mrs. Walker's outdoor garden.  Both are growing wonderfully!

I wonder how long it will be before the sunflowers start to bloom?

Look at how tall the flowers are getting!  They are almost as tall as Audrey!

They look a little thirsty to me.

Getting taller and taller!

Flowers are starting to bloom on some of the flowers.

See the blooms?  You have to look very closely to see them.

Here are Mrs. Walker's flowers.  They are so pretty.

 

How tall do you think the flowers are going to get?  Do you think they will bloom before you come back for first grade?  How many flowers do you think we will have?  Do you think we will get enough rain to make the flowers grow taller?  Do you remember what three things living things need to stay alive?  Try writing down your estimations or hypothesis about the gardens (which one will have more flowers, how tall you think they will get, if they will bloom before or after you come back to school).  Can you write a story about the flowers and how they feel about the kids not being at school and how they might feel about meeting the new kids in Kindergarten and First Grade?  I know flowers can't feel, but you could write a fictional story about the flowers!)

 

 

All of the Kindergarten Teachers are so excited to see you tonight at the Kindergarten Picnic!  Don't forget to bring lots of water to drink.  It is so hot outside today.  See you soon!