Halloween

 

 

A good time was had by all at our Halloween Party last Thursday.  Thank you to everyone who helped make our kindergarten party a success whether it was by donating something or your time. We couldn't have done it without you!The kids enjoyed parading around the school and seeing all of thier friends and buddies and costumes. Today they shared with me that they enjoyed making the crafts and all of the yummy snacks. They are very excited for the upcoming holiday party in December! Please remember Bemis Round Table is collecting any Halloween candy that your children either don't want or need. :) The last day to send it in is on Wednesday.  The candy will be donated to the Ronald McDonald  house and area children's hospital.  Our class already sent a grocery sack size down! Way to go!

Boulan Buddies

On Thursday we met with our Boulan Buddies for the second time.  Our buddies are in the "Effective Teens" class offered as an elective at Boulan Middle School.  The middle school students train and debrief weekly on how to be good mentors to the kindergarten kiddos.  Both Mrs. LaTarte and I have participated in this program the past 4 years and have found it to be very beneficial for both the kindergartners and middle school students. It is also fun to see some of our former students!  This week the buddies helped us with a Pete the Cat art/math project.  Pete was constructed completely out of the shapes we have been working on.  Students were able to make Pete's shoes any color.  The Pete the Cat stories has been a favorite in Kindergarten this year!

5th Grade Buddies

Today we met with our 5th grade buddies from Mr. Cottone's class! We try to meet every Wednesday afternoon to do something together.  Today we started working on a Keynote project on the IPAD.  5th graders worked with their kindergarten buddy to create a project that is centered around all of the important places in our room that they know about it.  For example, they made a slide featuring our math routines and what we do each morning in this area of the room.  This was a great way for the kindergartners to verbally explain to the 5th graders all of the important places/things in our room and what they do there.

New Playground Fun

The kiddos were so excited to use our new playground equipment that was bought for us by Mr. Whan! They loved walking on our new stilts, playing with the playground balls, jump ropes, kicking balls into the soccer net and and bouncing on the new bouncers. They couldn't stop smiling! Below are a few pictures from our morning recess today.  It was hard to catch them!

Welcome to a New Year!

We are so excited to be starting our fourth week of Kindergarten!  The kids are off to a fantastic start this school year! For the past few weeks we have been learning many new routines in our classroom. Children are learning how to line up, how to share their ideas, eat snack, have lunch at school, use the smart board, listen to stories, complete their work nicely, use math tools and much more! We have also been focusing a lot on making positive choices and being a bucketfiller. Children are learning how to use their BIG voice if someone is bothering them. We have been noticing a lot of very helpful behavior and friendships forming as a result. I am so proud of the kiddos! These first few weeks of school are critical to creating a safe and caring classroom environment. They are the foundation for the rest of the school year! 

They are doing a great job! It makes me so excited for what's to come!

Insects Eat Too!

On Friday we learned that there are four different ways that insects eat. Butterflies and bees have tongues that work like a straw to drink nectar. Flies have a mouth like a sponge that soaks up food. Mosquitos have a mouth like a needle and ants have pincher like mouths like a clothespin. I set supplies at the kids tables and they got to pretend they were different insects. We used large tweezers to pick up items like an ant. They soaked water up with a sponge an drank with a straw. They used a syringe to suck the water up like a mosquito. We talked about what the different insects ate and why they had a special mouth to help them eat. Then we learned how to draw each insect and created a book today about how they ate. 

Plant Tasting Party

After two weeks of learning about plants and how they grow, today we had the opportunity to eat several different parts of plants. We set up a buffet in the cafeteria and divided all of the plants into groups. There were seeds, roots, stems, leaves, flowers and fruit. The children went down the line and helped themselves. After they recorded what they ate and what they liked or did not like. I was so proud of how adventurous they were! Everyone was willing to try a bite of everything! Well as least a nibble!
Checkout the Photo Link for pictures!

Earth Day Trash Bash

Today we celebrated Earth Day by learning of big and small ways that we can help take care of and protect our planet. We read several stories and talked about what it means to reduce, reuse and recycle. One story we read was "The Great Trash Bash."  In this book a town had a trash bash and picked up litter around their city. The boys and girls sorted pictures of different recyclables into the appropriate category, graphed their results and then answered some questions about their graph. We listened to a song, "What a Wonderful World," and illustrated pictures for a book about the song. In the afternoon, the kids were given plastic gloves and grocery bags and we went around Bemis and picked up garbage that we found. We had our own Trash Bash. We filled up almost 25 bags with paper, snack wrappers, cardboard and plastic water bottles.    We will spend the next few days talking about ways we can make the earth a cleaner and better place to live. 

Word Work Practice

Today with our Boulan Buddies we practiced our sight words.  We started off the morning cutting up our individual word cards and putting them in a bag. Each bag had 24 words in it that we could practice!  We then took our bag of words around to differnt practice stations that were set-up in the cafeteria. We were able to practice in so many different and fun ways. 

Some examples of  practice stations were:

• white boards
• stamps
• salt trays
• stringing words on necklaces
• stringing words on pipe cleaners
• typing them
• chalk boards
• bumpy boards
• swatting them on shower curtains
• wikki sticks

We also practiced sorting them in many different ways. Thanks to our Boulan Buddies who helped us too!  Please see the photo link for pictures from this morning.

Literacy Stations

Today was a very exciting day for the Kindergartners because today was the first day of Literacy Stations! Literacy Stations is about 30 minutes each day 3 days a week. That equals out to 2 stations per day your child will be going to. During this time your child will be going to a specific station to work on specific targeted tasks. Literacy Stations is an opportunity for your child's needs to be met at their own level. Children can use this time to challenge their own learning. A brief description of the stations is below. Be sure to ask your child what stations they went to today.
1.Writing Station-Children will be practicing a handwriting, personal narratives, letters, post cards, lists,etc. This can be an extension to what we are working on in Writer's Workshop or also allows children to practice their handwriting skills.
2. Word Work Station-Children will be working on different word work skills such as word families, rhyming, sounds, sight words, etc.
3. Bookmaking Station- At this station children will be making a book to add to their book box. These books highlight sight words we are practicing. When children are done making the book they may read out of their book box until time is up.
4. Library Station-At the library station children practice different skills such as working with fiction/mom-fiction books, finding specific words, reading specific themed books. They will also be using different fun tools to help them read such as fun glasses, pointers, etc. Today we read in partners and individually and searched for punctuation.

5. Listening Station- At this station children will be listening to a story on CD and then doing a response to it. For example, this week children are listening to a story and then drawing and labeling the characters from the story.

6. Read and Write the Room-At this station children will be going around the room with specific tasks that will be asking them to either read or write words they see in the room. For example, their task may be to go around and make a list of all the 3-letter and 4-letter words. Or they may be asked to use pointers to find specific sight words and read them. Today children used clipboards and walked around the room and recorded words they found.

There are a few photos in the class photo link.  i noticed that if you scroll all the way to the bottom you will find the photo journal for Literacy stations and also from the The Mitten Retelling in case you missed it.  Also please note I don't have a photo up of every child from stations this week. Some children were up and around and working. Be sure to ask you child about stations today!

Mitten Retelling

This past week we have been reading one of my favorite stories by the author Jan Brett, The Mitten.  We have also read a few other versions of the tale.  As a class we had many discussions comparing the different stories and also practiced our retelling skills.  On Thursday we used puppets and yarn on the floor made into the mitten to retell it as a whole class.  Then on Friday the kids made their own characters and mittens out of paper and practiced retelling the story in pairs. See our class photos for some pictures! They had a lot of fun!   They should of came home on Friday so that they could retell it at home. Jan Brett is one of my favorite authors and illustrators and she has a wonderful website that features coloring pages, games, activities,printable flashcards and other fun things.  www.janbrett.com