Update Weeks of Jan 12 and Jan 20

We have had a couple of busy weeks at school.

Penguins:
We read the fiction book Tacky the Penguin and compared it to some non-fiction information about penguins.  We even became penguins and waddled around the classroom holding our chick at our feet.  We made some adorable penguins that we are currently displaying on our classroom windows.

Hannah and Lillian made some very creative penguins.  

Josie, Maddy and Gabby are working hard at creating their penguins.

I love Miri's penguin with its orange wings.

Gage decided that he wanted a baby penguin so that is what he made.  SO cute.

Abigail did a great job with her penguin and was very proud to display it.

Naturalist in Residence:

On Thursday, Jan 15 we had our Naturalist in Residence session with Mrs. Uebel and Mrs. Bradner.  We were able to make some paper.  They set us up at stations so everyone would have something to do while 2 groups made paper.  So cool!!!

Gage, Jacob and Evan are working on leaf rubbings.

Kolton and Abigail are exploring the sensory items.

Nikolas and S. are touching some of the sensory items.  Look how big that pinecone is.

Kernan and Inga are putting together a puzzle.

Jack and Vaughn are stamping.

Josie is making some paper.

Samuel is making some paper and is using a sponge to get all the water out.

Sadie is trying to get all the water out.

Inga is making paper too.

Cody is getting his sponge ready for the paper.

Food Adventures:

On Thursday, Jan 22, Ms. Clara Baker visited our classroom to make non-bake pumpkin cookies.  The kids loved this project.  Thank you for the $1 donations to make these types of visits happen all year. She cannot go to every classroom in the district, so we are very lucky that she chose our classroom as one of the classrooms to visit all year.

Ms. Clara reading a book about picky eaters and how great it is to try different foods.

Our directions to make the cookies.

Pumpkin.

Pumpkin mixed with the oatmeal.

Miri and Zander are taking turns making the mix into cookies.

Kernan is making some cookies.

Yum!  Tasting our wonderful treat!

Loving it so far!

A little sticky, but good.

Getting ready to eat our project.

Math Folder Games:

The kids have really enjoyed using our new games.  I am so glad that we were awarded the grant.  The kids love math time.

Jacob and Gage playing a subtraction game.

Lillian and Jakob playing an addition game.

Miri and S. playing an addition game.

Writing:

Last week we learned about polar bears.  We did a chart about polar bears with the following headings: can, have, are.  Then the kids wrote one fact that they liked about polar bears.

Hannah is concentrating on what she learned and how to write it down.

Garrett did his writing and is focusing on his picture.

Lillian is getting her thoughts down on paper.

Free Choice:

We still have free choice three times a week.  After all the academic work our kinder do, it's fun to just let them play and interact with each other.

The kids love to build things.

I made another batch of water beads.  The kids LOVE them.  

If you have any extras at home and can share, please send them in.  

So slippery and fun.

Alex loves practicing with beads.

Legos are by far the most popular area and I need to limit how many kids can join.  

If you have any extra legos laying around, please send them in.  

I would love to have an extra lego bin.

I love how the kids decorated the table.

Sometimes it's just nice to relax and draw with markers.

Week of January 5--First Week Back 2015

We had a busy week getting back into our regular routines and re-learning classroom and school expectations.  We read the story The Snowy Day several times during the week and worked on a variety of reading strategies such as making connections, inferring, and visualizing the story.  The kids loved the story of Peter.  Please ask them about it.

We also read a variety of winter stories featuring snowmen, i.e. The Biggest Snowman Ever, How to build a Snowman.  We worked on a couple of different snowmen projects.

Project #1:

The kids had so much fun creating snowmen using Q-tips and paint: it was our kinder version of pointilism.  

Everyone is working really hard dipping their Q-tips and painting their snowmen.

Nikolas is concentrating on his snowman.

Cody has a cute little snowman.

Garrett and Kernan are making some cool snowmen.

Jeidin likes his snowman.

Alex is painting some snow.

So is Samuel :)

Happy birthday Nikolas!  We celebrated his birthday on Tuesday, December 6.

Project #2:

The kids really enjoyed making snowmen with the letters of their names.  Some snowmen were long, some very short!

We made snowmen with the letters of our names.  

Hannah had a fun time creating her snowman from the letters of her name.

Gage and Gio have some short snowmen.

Gabby, Hannah and Vaughn are tracing the letters of their name on their snowmen.  

Lillian is kind of in the picture....

Morning Work:

When the kids first come into the classroom first thing in the morning, they hang up their coats and backpacks, put away their snacks, give me any notes, and grab their morning work booklet.  Their morning work booklets are differentiated, meaning they are "just" right for each kiddo.  Some kids are working on their letters/sounds and some are working on sightwords.   All packets have some math too. Morning work takes about 5 minutes, then the kids go and "read" a book.  This gives me time to talk with any parents who might be in the classroom or help a child who is having a "major" crisis (i.e. untied shoes, lost gloves, etc.).

Look how focused all these kiddos are.  

Jakob has almost finished the whole page.

Alex is concentrating pretty hard as is Gage.

That's it for this week!