Here is another SUPER fun lesson that I do every year in my class.
I think the most fun part of this lesson is that I can’t plan exactly what day it will be on. I just know the morning of when I am driving to school that it’s WORM DAY. How do I know? Because as I head out to my van to drive to school, I notice the driveway is covered in worms. You see….it has to be Spring. And it has to be warm enough that the worms are not frozen. But also wet enough that the worms have all come out of the ground.
And since I can’t predict when the perfect conditions will be, I just always have my Worm Day papers printed and copied and ready to go!
Worm Day is just another theme day that I do everything I possibly can involving WORMS.
We might start our morning meeting time with a picture book about worms.
Then, first thing, we head out to the blacktop and see how many worms we can find. We set a goal before we get out there: maybe 1 worm per student. We blew our goal way out of the water and I think we found at least 15 worms per student. I always tell my students that if they don’t want to touch the worm, they don’t have to! But they do have to look, and then they can ask someone else to pick it up for them.
After we filled our bucket with worms, we head back to the classroom.
We scratch most of our curriculum lessons for the day and instead do worm-related stuff all day long.
Math– Worm Measurement
KWL Chart– We make a KWL chart on the board- what do we KNOW about worms, what do we WANT to know about worms, and then what did we LEARN about worms. The kids will shout out things that they know, or questions that they may have and we write it all down. Then we use our handy Alexa to check our answers. We learned a lot!
Comparisons: I bring in a bag of gummy worms and put a gummy worm and a real worm on a paper towel (separate ones!) on their desks. We then compare and contrast the two worms. Some of my classes are ready to write down their observations, but for my class this year we just talked about the similarities and differences.
Writing– I come up with some fun worm related writing prompts like
What would you need to be paid to eat a worm?
Or write a story from the perspective of a worm.
In 1st grade, the writing is still very much guided so we might decide what to write as a class, I will write it on the board, and they will copy it down on their papers.
Reading– I will read another worm related picture book and have the kiddos read a guided reader about worms.
This is really just the beginning of what a worm day could look like! There are so many other activities and subjects that can be pulled into worm day. I love me a good theme day and worm day is a favorite!
What do you think? Would you have loved worm day as a kid, or hated it? I will admit that I nearly gagged when I had to reach my hand into the worm bucket to pull one out at a time- otherwise, worm day doesn’t bother me too much!