Special Delivery

   I wanted to end our week with a BANG and have my kiddos excited to come back to school on Monday. So they were so excited when our vice principal came through the door during our read aloud with this...

   As you can see many of my kiddos were excited and some were a little scared. We started by looking at the shipping box which had a bunch of Live Animal stickers on it, holes all over the box, and a return label from Antarctica. I just happened to have an anchor chart (my kiddos didn't even question the coincidence) where we made predictions as to what was in the box. My kiddos then went back to their chairs and began working on a recording sheet.



   This little cutie drew a picture of his prediction in the matching Live Animal shipping box. He was hoping it was a puppy. As a class we used clues on the shipping box and wrote them on the recording sheet; from Antarctica, animal, and wild. My kiddos then used their schema and clues from the box to come up with a new prediction as to what was in the box. As a whole class we wrote our new guesses back on our anchor chart.

   Please disregard the spelling of snow leopard. By this time we were 45 minutes into our lesson, my kiddos were so excited they were all over the place, and I swear the August heat in my classroom was 150 degrees and playing with my brain. I was amazed at how much their predictions changed and it reflected the three clues we discovered. Now the fun part. Time to open the package!!!

   Can you just handle the cuteness?!? They swore they heard sounds coming from the box. After we got back in our circle it was time for Ms. White to cut open the box. We found this first...



   It was a letter sealed in a manila envelope with a sticker on the outside from the World Animal Organization. The label matched the same label as the outside of the shipping box. My kiddos were so silent you could hear a pin drop as I read the enclosed letter from "Dr. Joe." We learned that he had sent us a special animal that we were in charge of taking care of. He even mentioned that each of my kiddos could take it home every weekend and write about their adventures together. We pulled out a small animal carrier, opened the door, and found a baby...

   For the life of me I cannot find one picture that I took with the cute little penguin! It was probably because my kiddos were ohhhhing and ahhhhing over the little guy. We also noticed in his carrier that he had several penguin books, a penguin puzzle, and a writing journal for each kiddo to take home. Before we ended our lesson (and had the difficult task of choosing who he went home with first) we decided to vote on his name. It came down to Flipper, Happy Feet, and Fluffy. My kiddos wrote their choice on a ballot and we tallied them all up. And the winner was......

 

HAPPY FEET

   It was so fun to watch my kiddos tell all the kids out on the playground what had just been delivered to our classroom. I am pretty sure they went home excited to share our activity and ready to come back on Monday to hear about Happy Feet's weekend adventures!

 

   You can get this take home writing unit in my TPT store. All the labels for the shipping box are provided, mock letters, various writing journal pages, anchor chart pieces, recording sheets, pictures of my lesson, lesson ideas, and more are included. Click on the image below to go to my store.