Whale Craft, Writing and a Game

In the Pond Coloring Club free library we have a craft cut-out page for recording some wh words! 

Here are some ideas to help you prepare some lessons for it!

Word Work Activity - Whale Watch

Tell students that they are going to the seaside to whale-watch! They need to look carefully at all the words in a shared text as you read and signal when they see a word beginning with the letter w. 

Now read a whale themed book to your class and chart the words as they notice them. After the reading and chart are completed you can review the word bank with your students and have them distinguish the w words from the wh words. 

Highlight the wh words on the chart. Talk about consonant digraphs.

I have Elmer and the Whales by David McKee in our home library. Here are all the wh words you can gather with your students and chart on paper for collaborative writing:

whale, Wilbur, when, watch, what, which, we're, we'll, with, walk, way, wow, we, wait, we've, way, wonder

Now your students can record some of them on the whale they cut out - or think of their own words.

If you are a member of the Premium Coloring Club, you can find a plain whale for scissor skills and art.



Students may like to simply color, cut and glue however you can also:

• ask them to crayon some patterns or scribbles before painting with watercolor

• concertina fold a piece of paper to glue between the head and tail to make a stretchy whale

If making the stretchy whale, take some time to include some positional math language. For example, encourage some discussion as they work on their whale that includes talk about:

• first, second, third
• in between
• in the middle
• at the front, in the middle and at the back
• first, next, last

It may also be a good time for a quick, fun no-prep math game. Here is one with an ocean twist:

Whale Trade Math Game

You need:

• dice (use a standard six sided or for a faster game a 10 or 20 sided dice)
• counters
• craft sticks
• craft stick bundles (tie an elastic band around 10 to make a bundle) 

To play:

• tell students the counters are krill, the craft sticks are fish and the bundles are whales
• tell students that the aim of the game is to win a whale (or 5 whales etc)
• let students roll a dice on their turn and take the matching number of krill
• once they have 10 krill they may trade for a fish
• they keep rolling and taking krill and trading for fish until they have 10 fish
• upon 10 fish they trade for a whale and may be declared the winner

I hope you find these ideas useful! Find more over on the website page.

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