Bat Week!

I never knew how much I enjoyed bats until this time last year.  I had been seeing some great activities from my favorite bloggers, so I decided to jump in.  My kiddos last year ATE THEM UP.  They may has well have been bat experts.  I was so impressed by their engagement and fact retention.  When my principal and I had a meeting at the beginning of this year he asked me what is one thing that I am looking forward to this school year.  My answer... BAT WEEK! I knew that it had to be just as exciting as last year, but with a little extra.


I got our team of 7...yes SEVEN... 1st grade teachers all on board with me.  We all agreed the hallway needed to be a bat cave. I was inspired by Jodi from Fun in First.  My awesome hubby and I spent about 4 hours on a Saturday setting the stage to engage.  My other coworkers got their activities together and cut bats for the lockers, one took some of the pics for this post, and Mel D from Seusstastic created the amazing fact posters and spooky eyes.
 Before

 I seriously love him.  He has learned to just go along with all of my zany ideas.

After
Dream accomplished!



 The fact posters were created by Mel D.

We cut out about 250 black bats with a pattern.  So worth it!

Almost nothing sticks to our paint for some reason.  I had my husband put up about a million pieces of tape to keep the cave walls up.  We aren't allowed to staple anything, but there may be one or two staples.

The kids were in a quiet awe when they first walked down the hall Monday morning.  There were spooky bat cave sounds playing from my Bose bluetooth speaker.  I actually expected there to be mass chaos, but they were in so much shock as they entered the bat cave.  Perfect!



On Monday, I decided to do the same KWL chart that Jodi did.  I wanted to see what they knew before we began.  They basically knew that bats hang upside and eat mosquitos.  Boy did we have a lot to learn.  I also introduced them to the vocabulary we would be hearing a lot this week.  They were eating it up.  We also, read Fly Guy Presents Bats.  Such a cool book full of Bat Facts.

Pic from last year.  I forgot to take one on Friday I guess...

On Tuesday, I taught them some cool batty facts and we labeled the parts of the bat.  We read National Geographic Kids: Bats.

On Wednesday, we needed to use commas in a series.  So I turned things that make me batty into a writing assignment using commas.  We added them to these adorable bats from First Grade Fever. We read Bats at the Beach.  Such a cute book!


My awesome parent helper came and helped us assembly this craft and she even stayed to hang them up!

She also knows my love for EVERYTHING pumpkin and brought me this pumpkin themed treat.  Wasn't that sweet?


On Thursday, I had a substitute.  So they did a bat fact true or false sheet and made a bat from A Cupcake for the Teacher and added adjectives to the wings.  Then we read Bats at the Library.  This book is the same author as yesterday's book.



Friday was the day for me to add as much excitement as I possibly could.  Needless to say, we did not fit it all in and will be continuing on Monday. :)  Yay, Bat Week continues...

First, we made bat hats to wear for the festivities.


Then, we began our sunset paintings that I found from Reagan Tunstall.  I did this project last year and fell in love!  We finished the watercolor portion, and will finish the facts and the rest of the painting on Monday.


These are from last year.


Next, we got together with Mel D's class and found our bat families using our sense of smell.   We soaked cotton balls in 5 different essential oils (peppermint, lemon, lavendar, eucalyptus, and patchouli).  The kids were given a random cotton ball and had to smell others until they found what matched. What did we learn??? Humans definitely do not have as keen of a sense of smell as bats.  Thanks Queen of the 1st Grade Jungle and Holly Ehle for this fun idea!


The kids brought flashlights with them and read our huge collection of bat library books with them.  They thought that was super fun!




We ended with watching Magic School Bus Going Batty.

I'm looking forward to doing more bat activities on Monday. Hehe! Maybe I planned that!

Oh I almost forgot! On Monday, October 24th we are signed up to watch a bat webinar.  You can too (for free) by signing up at Field Trip Zoom.  I have never tried this before, but I am so excited to see what they will be sharing with us!



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