Visual/Spatial Bag!

Action Jackson by Jan Greenberg & Sandra Jordon illustrated by Robert A. Parker
• A fictionalized account of Jackson Pollock’s process of action painting, where the author describes how Pollock worked to make such paintings as Untitled, 1950 (Lavender Mist).
• Read the book Action Jackson to the class.
• Discuss how different artists use different techniques for creating art. Talk about how the author describes how Jackson Pollock used his materials.

Moving the Action
• In groups of 4-5, choose a variety of scarves, ribbons and yarn. Create a creative movement piece, considering levels of high, medium and low, inspired by Pollock’s paintings. Choose colors of materials from paintings or their own color scheme. Consider the speed, direction and emotion of your movements.

Action Poetry
• Before making creative movement pieces, brainstorm action words that describe the movement of the paint in Untitled, 1950 (Lavender Mist).
• After creative movement piece, teacher leads a brainstorming session to make a list of action and emotion words that describe the student movement pieces.
• Create “list poems” describing the emotion and action of their creative movement pieces. Teacher could also facilitate a collaborative class poem as an alternative activity.

3D Mixed Media Sculpture
• Look at one of the artist’s paintings, like Lavender Mist, and discuss the layering Pollock used.
• Explore the idea of layering 3D materials: including construction paper scraps, wall paper scraps, chenille stems, fabric scraps, cardboard tubes, chipboard or cardboard base, scissors, glue,
• As a follow up activity, compare and contrast your work, or that of a peer, with Pollock’s. Consider the questions: What is the same between your process and Pollock’s? What is different? What feeling do you get from your piece? From Pollock’s?

This link provides more information about Jackson Pollock, including images of his paintings: http://www.nga.gov/feature/pollock/pollockhome.shtm.

Jackson Pollock
Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), 1950
Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund
1976.37.1
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Retrieved May 24, 2008 from: http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?55555+0+0+20centpa


Resource List
The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds ISBN: 0763619612
Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh ISBN: 0152560254
Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold ISBN: 0517580314
Just Like Me: Stories and Self-Portraits by Fourteen Artists
ed. Harriet Rohmer
ISBN: 0892391499
Pot That Juan Built by Nancy Andrews-Goebel & David Diaz ISBN: 1584300388

Musical Bag!

Ty’s One Man Band by Mildred Pitts Walter

• Brainstorm a list of answers to the following question: What is music?
• Read the story Ty’s One Man Band
• After reading talk about whether their idea of what music is has changed.
• Create a found symphony using objects found in the classroom, brought from home or from outside.
• Have students work in small groups to create a rhythm
• Have students work as a whole class to create a rhythm

Extra Activities
Musical Me!
Get a large piece of butcher paper and trace the outline of the students. Next turn on some music and fill in the outline of the body to make a musical you!

Matchbox Guitar
With a matchbox empty out the matches. Slid the box half way out of the container and glue into place or use a brad to hold in place. Cut out a bridge for the guitar out of lightweight cardboard or heavy weight cardstock. The bridge should be in the shape of a rectangle the length of the matchbox, with the upper edge slanting slightly down. Cut four notches in the top edge and glue bottom straight edge to top of matchbox towards the back half of guitar. Once dry place four rubber bands lengthwise across the box, rubber bands should have a little slack in them as not to pull to tight and collapse the box. Sometimes reinforcing the outside walls of the matchbox with help make it more rigid.

SHAKE<>
Use any container that has a lid or can be closed easily.
Fill container with beans, rice, beads, or any other small objects. Have students experiment with sounds based on volume in containers. What are the differences? Close the lid of container and shake away.

Rainstick
Make your own rain stick. Collect cardboard tubes all different sizes. Seal off one end of tube. Take nails and hammer them into the cardboard tube and then tape over the top of the nails to assure that they don’t put back out. You can decorate the outside of rain stick with glue and tissues paper. Once dry drop beans, rice, pennies, toothpicks, nails, beads or any other small items into the open end of the container. Seal the other end of the tube. Have students go one at a time to hear the variations in the different sticks.
Extension: Write a poem or short story from this prompt- “I up ended up rain stick and…”

Sound Journal
Make a blank journal, you can use the template from the bag or make your own type of journal. Talk to the sounds about their own soundscapes, the noises they hear around them. As a group, take a moment in silence to listen to the noises they hear. Make list poem of the sounds they reflect on. Hand out the journals, and have them write or draw about the noises they hear in different parts of their day. They can take it home and reflect. Ask for a volunteer to share one of their entries.

MOVE>SHAKE>JUMP
Each student needs a scarf or ribbon. Standing in a circle or around their desks, have students take turns calling out directions, “Move high, move low, fast, slow, small or tall, etc.” Put on some music to have them make their own creative movements to the music.


Booklist
Mole Music by David McPhail ISBN 0805028196
Once Upon an Ordinary School Day by Colin McNaughton ISBN 978037435647
101 Music Games for Children: Fun and Learning with Rhythm and Song by Jerry Storms ISBN 0897931645

Mathematical/Logical Bag!

Fraction Action by Loreen Leedy
An entertaining book that looks at the fractions through lively stories with animals doing various daily activities. Mrs. Prime and her students look at fractions in a fun and explorative way.
Fruit Split- Hand out a variety of fresh fruit and with butter or plastic knives have them try to divide the fruits into equal sections, half, quarters, thirds, etc…

Bug Dance by Stuart Murphy
All the insects are learning the bug dance in gym: "Two steps to the left. Two steps to the right. One hop forward. One hop backward. Turn right!" But Centipede has too many feet to dance gracefully. Illustrated with dynamic cartoon artwork, the story unobtrusively demonstrates directional concepts, while Centipede finally succeeds through practice. Related activities are appended.

Private I. Guana by Nina Laden
Finding Leon the missing chameleon isn't easy, even for ace detective Private I. Guana. Who knows what color the chameleon might have turned? Although Leon blends into his new surroundings, I. Guana's luck holds, and all ends well. The story, based on the hard-boiled detective novels of the 1940s, is told with tongue-in-cheek humor, supplemented by richly detailed pastel illustrations.

Grid Images
Select an image. One with a lot of light areas and dark areas, it could be of Albert Einstein, Ben Franklin or the Fibonacci sequence. Make a grid on the backside of image and number (1A, 2A, etc.). Each child gets one square and reproduces the image, shapes or lines in their section. White chalk on black construction paper works well. As a class arrange the sections according to grid number. Tape the backside and hang.

Walk the shape or angle
Give simple directions for students to follow. Such as move in a straight line, walk the outline of a triangle it has three sides, walk a square it has four sides, turn 90 degrees, 160 degrees, walk an obtuse angle, an acute angle, etc.

Build a Pizza
Make a large 22” butcher paper circle. Preferrably brown in color. Have a discussion about pizza and the many toppings you can add. Have each student choice a topping out of paper and place it on the pizza. Once everyone has their topping, pretend to “bake” the pie. With scissors cut the pizza into parts, first half, then quarters, thirds, fourths, etc. until everyone in the class has a slice.

Stories to Solve
Do a maze or brainteaser. Stories to Solve by George Shannon has a variety of levels of stories to solve as a class or individually.

Resource List
Bug Dance Stuart J. Murphy ISBN 0-06-446252-8
Animal Mazes Kim Bludell and Jenny Tyler ISBN 0-7460-1323-X
Count Denise Fleming ISBN 0-8050-1595-7
Hide and Seek Keith Baker ISBN 0440836549
What Comes in 2’s, 3’s, & 4’s Suzanne Aker ISBN 0-671-79247-4
The Best of Times Greg Tang ISBN 0-439-21044-5
Fraction Action Loreen Leedy ISBN 0-8234-1109-5
Math Detectives Lalie Harcourt and Ricki Wortzman ISBN 0-8069-7893-7
Logic Puzzles Mark Fowler and Radhi Parekh ISBN 0-88110-527-9
Private I. Guana Nina Laden ISBN 0-8118-0940-4

Linguistic Bag!

F licker Flash! by Joan Bransfield Graham
Concrete poems based around the theme of light, including spotlights, candles, camera flashes and more.
Splish Splash by Joan Bransfield Graham
Concrete poems based around the theme of water.
Doodle Dandies: Poems that take shape by J. Patrick Lewis
A variety of concrete poems including those about animals and buildings.

DIY Concrete Poetry
• After exploring the concrete poems in the book, write your own concrete poems collaboratively or individually. Draw a related image. Overlay your drawing with tracing paper and add the words of your poem, considering the appropriate direction, size, shape and color to create a unified composition.

Move to the Words
• Individually or collaboratively, choose a poem from the book and create a creative movement piece, giving each word an action. Consider levels (high, medium, low), frequency and speed of movement, shape. Poems could be read during movement pieces, or the poems could be projected behind the movers if a document camera is available.

Act it out!
• Pantomime or act out a poem from the book or an original concrete poem. Take turns guessing the subject of the poem.
Word Portfolio
• Create an accordion book with pockets. Keep a list of different kinds of words you could use for poetry in each pocket. Examples: adjectives (descriptive words), verbs (action words), nouns (person, place or thing).

Resource List
The Alphabet Keeper by Mary Murphy ISBN 0375823476
The Random House Book of Poetry for Children by Jack Prelutsky ISBN 0394850106
Pizza, Pigs and Poetry: How to write a Poem by Jack Prelutsky ISBN 0061434485
Don’t Bump the Glump and other fantasies by Shel Silverstein ISBN 0061493384
Max’s Words by Kate Banks ISBN 0374399492

Kinesthetic Bag!

From Head to Toe by Eric Carle

• Read and move with the animals in the story.
• Have student same other animals and share their movements.
• Make a list of words describing an animal and the way it moves. Write a poem using those words.
• Draw, paint or color an abstract picture using only line the show movements of animals or people.
• Put on some music and move like an animal.

• Think about how animals move and why they move certain ways.

• How do they move when they are excited or scared?

• Go for a walk outside and listen for interesting sounds made in nature. Write them down or draw a picture to show the sound.

Snow Dance by Lezlie Evans

• Use the book to inspire you to move. Move while your reading the book or make a list of the movement words and act them out after the story.
• Put on some music and create your own snow dance.
• Talk about other kings of weather. Can you create a rain dance, hail dance, wind dance, etc.
• Use shakers or other instruments to create a rhythm to go with your snow dance.
• Look for rhyming words in the story. What makes words rhyme? Come up with your own pairs of rhyming words.
• Go for a walk and observe the weather. Write a poem about what you notices.
• Review verbs/action words. Make a list of interesting ones from the story.
• Create a snow scene using blue paper and white crayons or white pencils.
• Act out different seasons and have your classmates guess what season it is.
• What animals would be out in different types of weather? How would those animals move? A cat in the snow? A bird in the wind? A dog in the sun?

Little Green by Keith Baker

• Use the words in the story to inspire different types of movement. Use your whole body, your elbow, knee, nose, eyebrow, toe, head.
• Have some one move and use lines to draw their movements.
• Call out words and have the students make that movement, dipping, diving, zig-zagging, etc.
• Try the above in a dark room using glow sticks. You can buy 15 for $1 at the dollar store.
• Go outside and observe something move. Draw it in your sketchpad.
• Create a list of words describing how something move, write a list poem or concrete poem with those words.
• Share the meaning of alliteration. Look for examples in the book, i.e. stopping, starting and dashing, darting. Write sentences using alliteration to describe other animals’ movements.
Extra activity ideas:

• Each student needs a scarf or ribbon. Standing in a circle or around their desks, have students take turns calling out directions, “Move high, move low, fast, slow, small or tall, etc.” Put on some music to have them make their own creative movements to the music.

Booklist
Little Green by Keith Baker ISBN 0152928596
From Head to Toe by Eric Carle ISBN 0439163021
Snow Dance by Lezlie Evans ISBN 0395778492
Water Dance by Thomas Locker ISBN 0152163964
Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! By Candace Fleming ISBN 0689831528
Puddles by Jonathan London ISBN 0670872180
Beetle Bop by Denise Fleming ISBN 9780152059361
Dig, Wait, Listen: A Desert Toad’s Tale by April Pulley Sayre ISBN 0688166148

The Emotional Bag: Intra/Interpersonal

Intrapersonal
• Self-Portrait-Take a mirror and look at your face for a couple minutes. Make a self-portrait of just your head and neck. Look for all the shapes you see in you face, the lines that make your nose, eyebrow, or hair. Use a pencil first then outline in black marker. Talk to the kids about the color of skin. Each person has a unique color, take skin tone pencils or crayons and try to have them match them to their own skin tone. Last step is to include a background of either a single color or pattern.

• Personal poem-Write or Draw ten attributes that you like about you. (Example, I like my blue eyes, my pinky toe, when I twirl my hair in a circle, my gold tooth.) Transform those attributes into a list poem of characteristics about you. Have volunteers come up and read another persons and guess to see if the students know who it is?

Intrapersonal
• Friends are…- Each student gets five cards and either writes or draws a picture of “what friends means to them”. Example: Friends are funny, helpful. Once everyone has their cards, stand in a circle and toss them gently into the circle one at a time as they call out what friends are… You could also collect the cards and have them stand in a circle while the teacher call them out. Make a classroom chart of Friends are….

• Conversation Starts- Start a class discussion about topics that reflect the students, such as: Where do you see yourself in next year? Five years? Ten years? What is the silliest thing you have ever seen? When your parent made you dinner and burned it what happened?

Resource List
Peter’s Chair Ezra Jack Keats ISBN 0670880647
Tacky the Penguin Helen Lester ISBN 0395455367
The Grouchy Ladybug Eric Carle ISBN 9780060270872
Harriet, You’ll Drive Me Wild! Mem Fox ISBN 0152019774
Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse Leo Lionni ISBN 0394909143
Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! Mo Willems ISBN 9780786819881
When Sophie gets angry, really, really angry Molly Bang ISBN 0590189794
The Grumpy Morning Darcia Labrosse ISBN 0-590-05722-7

Naturalist Bag

Bag designed for Pre K- 5 grade. In the bag you will find three of the following books:
Trees, Leaves and Bark Diane L Burns
Miss Rumphius Barbara Cooney
What Makes Day and Night Franklyn M. Branley
Feel the Wind Arthur Dorros
Pumpkin Pumpkin Jeanne Titherington
Cactus Hotel Brenda Z. Guiberson
Bugs! Bugs! Bugs! Bob Barner

Activity cards:

Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
• Alice Rumphius wants to travel the world as her grandfather did, but he tells her there is something else she must do and that is to do something to make the world a more beautiful place.

• Read and discuss the story with your class.

• Brainstorm a list of things that they could do to make the world a more beautiful place. These can be things they could do now or things they might be able to do in the future. Discuss the idea that the “world” can be as small as their home or as big as the globe.

• Have students make individual “around the world” books of what they want to do to make the world a more beautiful place. An example is in your bag.

• Bring in lupines and create water color pictures.

• Plant flowers or seeds.




Rock Hunting

• Go on a nature walk. Have each student choose a rock.

• Use a magnifying lens and really look at your rock.

• Sketch the rock.

• Make a list of words describing the rock.

• Create list poem or concrete poem about your rock.

• Using safety glasses and a hammer, with adult supervision, smash and rock and investigate what is inside.

• Read the book, Everybody Needs a Rock by Byrd Baylor. This would be a great book to read before going on your rock hunt (if it is in your school library.)



Bug Observations

• Use your bug catcher and observe some bugs.

• Draw a bug. Observe a live bug in your bug catcher or use a plastic one.

• Make a list of the attributes of a bug. Create your own bug using art supplies, paint, crayons, clay, paper, pipe cleaners, paper clips, etc.

• Imagine you are a bug. How would you move, eat, etc.

• Read the book, In the Tall, Tall Grass by Denise Fleming


Extra activity ideas:

Go for a nature walk. Choose a rock, leaf, or stick. Make a list of words about your object and then write list poem or a concrete poem.

Go for a nature walk with your sound journal. Write about what you hear. Draw a picture of what you hear.

Go out side with a sketch pad. Draw what you see, bugs, weather, trees, flowers, etc.

Collect leaves. Make rubbings or create a collage with them. Read the book Leaf Man by Lois Elhert

Check out the weather. Make a list or concrete poem describing the weather or season you are in.

Show different seasons or types of weather through your movements.

Create a collage of things found in nature.

Book List

Weslandia by Paul Fleischman ISBN 0-7636-0006-7
The Empty Lot by Dale H. Fife ISBN 0-316-28167-0
My Life as an Insect by Megan McDonald ISBN 0531068749
Fireflies by Julie Brinkloe ISBN 0027133109
White is for Blueberry by George Shannon ISBN 9780060292751
The Table Where Rich People Sit by Byrd Baylor ISBN 978068419654
Up North at the Cabin by Marsha Wilson Chall ISBN 9780688097325