These kids are so ready for First Grade.
Have a wonderful summer!
Somehow it is already the last day of school. I cannot believe how fast the year flew by! What a special year it was. These students accomplished so much this year and it has been amazing to be their teacher. My favorite part was building our classroom community and watching the student's form friendships with each other. I really loved the culture of our classroom this year and I hope the students did too.
These kids are so ready for First Grade. Have a wonderful summer!
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We had the best time celebrating 100 Days of School! We started the day by counting out 100 Froot Loops to make our necklaces. Our centers in the afternoon included:
- Building with 100 cups - How many balls can you throw in 100 seconds? - Can you build a bridge that holds 100 pennies? - 100 gumballs art project - What can you make using the number 1-0-0? Thank you to the moms who came to help! Wow! What a great first week of Kindergarten! We did so much and had the best time playing and getting to know each other. Here are the highlights from our first week.. During our first days of school, we are beginning to build our community, learning about one another, and becoming comfortable with our daily routines. Please ask your child about friends they have made. The students have enjoyed exploring all the different toys and materials in our classroom. The favorites have definitely been blocks, dolls, coloring, and the cash registers. NO DAVID! Scavenger Hunt To learn about our school rules and Indian Trail, the students went on a scavenger hunt around the building. We collected different pieces as we went for our David masks. We had so much fun teaching David good choices and also reading the different "No David" books by David Shannon. Rip and Tear Name Activity This week we focused on learning our names. We read Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes and then the students made their names by ripping and tearing colored paper. We practiced counting how many letters are in our name and made a big graph. We discussed our observations which included the discovery of how many children had the same number of letters in their name, who had the least, and who had the most. Watercolor Fish We read the story This is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen and learned how to use our watercolor paints by creating our own beautiful fish. As an extension, the students picked their own special hats to put on their fish. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom This activity provided an opportunity to follow step by step directions as the children created their own Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree. In addition, this project enabled us to focus on learning each other’s names and getting to know one another. We also practiced spelling and counting the letters in our own name. Math- Counting Shoes Our math lessons this week have revolved around counting our shoes! The students have been doing a lot of counting, comparing, and sorting and graphing. It was a busy first week focused on fun, friendship, and routines. I am so proud of these awesome Kindergartners!
How is the year over already?! I cannot believe it! We had the absolute best time in Kindergarten this year. My favorite part was watching how much the students have grown and seeing so many sweet friendships form. I have loved being with this class so much and will miss them dearly! But I know they are ready for First Grade. Here are the pictures from our last real day of school. I included their first day of school pictures as well. They have all grown so much! Thank you for all your support this year. Have a wonderful summer!
We have had a great month in Kindergarten! Here is what we have been up to... LIteracy- Fairy Tales In addition to our weekly Guided Reading centers, in literacy we have continued to explore different fairy tales. We read many versions of The 3 Billy Goats Gruff, including classic versions and a mixed up version. We compared and contrasted the differences and practiced sequencing the events of the story. I then challenged the students to design and build a bridge for the 3 Billy Goats to cross using popsicle sticks, cups, unifix cubes, and play-doh. It was our hardest STEM challenge to date, but the students did great! They worked together, problem solved, and came up with many ways to get across the river. Our next fairy tale was Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We read many different versions and practice retelling the story with puppets and props the students made. Of course, we ended our study with a STEM project: can you build a bed that is just right for Baby Bear? You can see pictures from that on Seesaw. Last week we started Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. We are reading the pop-up version of the story, and the students are LOVING it! As we read, we are exploring all different parts of the story. We started out by doing research on tornadoes. We read and watched about how tornadoes are formed, and then created our own tornado in a bottle experiment. As we we read, we learn about the character traits that represent the four main characters: Scarecrow- growth mindset (brain) Tinman- empathy (heart) Lion- courage Dorothy- perseverance We have also completed some special projects to go along with the story such as visualizing and drawing Oz, building a Tinman out of tin foil, and drawing a cowardly lion. Math- addition and subtraction Our Number Corner this month has mainly focused on addition and subtraction. The students have practiced solving addition and subtraction problems in many different ways including using ten frames, unifix cubes, fingers, and a number line. We also spent a lot of time solving word problems and writing equations. The students are doing an awesome job! On Friday we did a special addition math task. Every student was given 10 UV color changing beads. We went outside and the students then sorted their beads by color as they changed from white. The students then wrote out an addition equation to represent it. We then turned them into keychains! Greenhouse We have loved visiting our new greenhouse and garden! The students have had the opportunity to learn about how to plant different vegetables, how the irrigation system works, and how plants grow and change over time. We have started an observation journal and will be visiting our carrots in the greenhouse and garden weekly to track their growth and see how they are growing. But the best part of visiting the greenhouse is getting to taste all the different veggies :) Next week we will begin our living/nonliving unit with a focus on plants. We will definitely be spending a lot of time in the greenhouse!
Hi Kindergarten Families- We have been so busy in Kindergarten! Here is a glimpse into what we have been learning... Literacy Our literacy time has included guided reading centers. This is a time where students are working in small groups on word work, writing, story comprehension, and phonological awareness. They also get the chance to meet with a teacher to work on reading or a certain skill. The students have been doing a great job working independently and cooperatively with their groups. The past two weeks in literacy we have also started our Fairy Tales unit! Our first fairy tale is The Three Little Pigs. As a class, we read and watched multiple versions of the story and compared and contrasted them. The students also practiced “story mapping,” which is a comprehension strategy to assist children in learning the elements of a book or a story. The students worked in groups to retell our favorite version of The Three Little Pigs. Please ask your child to retell the fairy tale that was created on his/her story map. These group maps were uploaded to Seesaw. This strategy provided conversation, collaboration, and active participation. We incorporated a lot of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) into our learning these past two weeks. The students worked with a partner to build a house of straws, and then a house of sticks. We read the Three Little Pigs, An Architectural Tale, written by Steven Guarnaccia which provided an inspiration for our construction challenge as we assumed the role of architects. Our culminating activity encompassed an experiment which incorporated the elements of STEAM. Each child was given the opportunity to construct a house for his/her little pig. The house needed to be strong enough to withstand the “big bad wolf blow dryer” and not fall down Math In Math we have been following our Bridges Number Corner curriculum. The focus this month has included teen numbers, patterning, greater than/less than, pennies and nickels, and addition. This is a great video to reinforce the concept of greater than and less than: We have been using a lot of different manipulatives to introduce the concept of addition including ten frames, unifix cubes, magnetic white boards, and our fingers. This allows the students to explore which way helps them understand the concept best.
Leprechaun Fun Last but certainly not least, we had a visit from a leprechaun named Lucky this week! He caused all sorts of mischief in our classroom all week, including leaving gifts for us in Dr. Grable's office. On Thursday the students made traps out of makerspace materials to try and catch him! We were SHOCKED Friday morning when we realized the leprechaun had left footprints on all of our traps AND gold coins! He also made a big mess; leaving paint and green EVERYWHERE. We celebrated St. Patrick's Day with some fun centers. The students made rainbows, played BINGO, played a shamrock shuffle game, and explored with water beads and gold coins in the sensory table. Thank you to Allison, Jamie, Rosi, and Jeanine for helping out. Hi AM Families- We had such a fun week in Kindergarten! We celebrated Valentine's Day on Wednesday, and our 100th Day of school on Thursday. Thank you to Lesley, Lindsay, Andrea, Michael, Allison, Alina and Gayle for planning such a wonderful Valentine's Day party. The students had so much fun making Valentine boxes, playing Bingo, and making their fruit snack. Our 100th Day was Olympics themed. The students completed 4 activities: building with 100 cups, building a bridge to support 100 pennies, 100 second ball toss race, and making crowns. Everyone was awarded gold medals at the end that the students made with 100 beads! Thank you to Kristen, Jamie, and Lindsay for helping out.
We had the best Halloween! We kicked off our morning parading in our 3rd grade buddies classroom and showing off our costumes. Our class Halloween party was a hit! A HUGE thank you to the moms that planned and ran the party! We wrapped up our pumpkin unit this week as well. Our guiding question for the unit was "How do pumpkins change and grow?" We learned about their life cycle, where and how they grow, and explored pumpkins with our own pumpkin patch. The students practiced their math skills by weighing, measuring, and recording the prices of the pumpkins in the pumpkin patch. Lastly, we carved open our pumpkins and explored the insides. We estimated and then counted how many seeds were inside our pumpkin by placing them inside 10 frames and counting by 10s. We were shocked to find out there were 414 seeds in our pumpkin! On Friday we planted or pumpkin seeds and buried our carved pumpkin in our garden. We will watch the decomposition process throughout the fall and winter. Next week, we will start learning about Thanksgiving and what it means to be thankful.
We wrapped up of community helpers unit this week. The students learned about what type of jobs are in our community, and why they are important. On Friday, we read Iggy Peck, Architect by Andrea Beaty. We learned what an architect does and got to be architects ourselves! The students created blueprints to build a bridge, and then tested out their plans. We also talked about how it is OK to make mistakes and have to try something multiple times to be successful. On Friday we also worked with our 3rd grade buddies for the first time! We will be meeting with Mrs. Sidell's class every other week to work on various projects together.
We had a fun week in Kindergarten! We learned all about colors in relation to our identity. On Tuesday we had Writer's Workshop and the students wrote and drew about their long weekends. After, we activated our prior knowledge about colors and worked in a small group to brainstorm objects we knew that were a certain color, and then drew them. We also read The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt. This week we opened the dramatic play center and talked about how to appropriately play with and clean up the costumes and the kitchen. This corner was crowded all week! We ended our day on Tuesday playing on the courtyard. Wednesday the students sorted crayons with their table group, and then as a class we added and graphed the colors. We talked about which had the most and which had the least. We read The Day the Crayons Came Home by Drew Daywalt. We also have been discussing the parts of a book (cover, title, author, and illustrator) as we read. Then of course, we had time to play in centers. Thursday we read How the Crayons Saved the Rainbow by Monica Sweeney. The students then created their own rainbow suncatchers out of beads. They look so pretty hanging in our windows, I can't wait for you to see at Open House! We also made cards for our adoptive Kindergarten classroom in Houston. The students did such a nice job drawing happy pictures and writing sweet words. We also learned about how crayons are made this week. The students LOVED this Mr. Roger's video at the crayon factory: Friday we wore our favorite colors to school and graphed ourselves! We counted which had the most and which had the least. We read A Color of His Own by Leo Leonni, and talked about how everyone is special and different, but how we are also alike in many ways too. We did a directed drawing (where the students follow along step by step) of a chameleon, and then painted them. They turned out AMAZING! Last but not least, we played a whole class game of giant math memory, and practiced counting and number identification. Next week will continue with our color unit, and will be discussing colors in relation to our feelings.
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