Vacation Fun

Happy New Year's Eve!  I hope all of you are having a wonderful vacation with your families.  The week is going by sooo fast!  I can't wait to hear about all of the exciting things you did this week.  Add to the padlet below a picture or two or even just a sentence about something you would like to share about your vacation.  On Tuesday, each of us will be choosing one special vacation moment to write about.  This padlet can help with our brainstorming when we're all a little tired as we settle back into our routine. :)

Teddy Bear Day

We had a successful Teddy Bear Day in Kindergarten after reading many versions of The 3 Bears during our folktale unit.  Children have enjoyed listening to the various versions and have worked hard comparing and contrasting the characters, setting, and events of the different books.  We are also working on retelling the story using picture cards. Last Friday, each child was able to bring in their favorite teddy bear or other stuffed animal and let their furry friends get a glimpse of Kindergarten.  They joined in for morning work, Read to Self, a read aloud, and even art class!

Our senior citizen volunteer, Ms. Irene,
helped us hide bears in their caves and figure out how many more to make 5.

We love working with Ms. Irene!

Students learned how to use shapes to draw bears in art!

Children also worked on labeling the parts of a bear and wrote about their cuddly friends.

In math, we explored describing size, weight, and height with our stuffed animals.  Students worked with partners to measure how tall their stuffed animals are. 
















They also practiced making comparisons: "My bear is taller/shorter than your bear" and "Your bear is heavier/lighter than my bear".  

Children were excited to learn about an app called Chatterpix and thought it was hysterical how we can make our stuffed animals talk!  Have a listen in the iMovie below as we imagined what our stuffed friends would say if they could tell what they enjoy doing!

This week we have continued to talk about characters and setting as we compare and contrast different versions of The Gingerbread Man.
Your child should be able to confidently identify the characters and setting of a story.  Do they have a favorite character?  Is the setting similar to another story they've heard?

Common Core State Standards:

Describe and compare measurable attributes.

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.MD.A.1
Describe measurable attributes of objects, such as length or weight. Describe several measurable attributes of a single object.

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.MD.A.2
Directly compare two objects with a measurable attribute in common, to see which object has "more of"/"less of" the attribute, and describe the difference. For example, directly compare the heights of two children and describe one child as taller/shorter.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2
Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2.A
Capitalize the first word in a sentence and the pronoun I

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2.B
Recognize and name end punctuation.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2.C
Write a letter or letters for most consonant and short-vowel sounds (phonemes).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2.D
Spell simple words phonetically, drawing on knowledge of sound-letter relationships.

Comfy, Cozy Day

We had a wonderful Comfy, Cozy Day! Children and teachers enjoyed being comfortable in their pajamas. 

This morning, children were excited to learn they each got their own Polar Express ticket that would be hole punched by a Conductor.

We enjoyed watching a read aloud of the Polar Express with the other Kindergarten students in the library.

After, we had a short holiday sing-a-long! "Jingle Bells", "Frosty", and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" were the favorites.

The special treat was that the our musical guest was Carolyn's grandfather and the conductor was actually my grandpa!  Both of these men were happy to be part of such a special event.

To conclude our Polar Express morning, each Kindergartener received their very own silver bell!

After lunch, we each shared what our favorite part of the day was and I recorded the responses in the Padlet below!

We had a memorable time today!

A time to give thanks

It has been a busy month filled with lots of learning and fun.  We made sure to slow down and take time to remember what we have to be grateful for and all that we are fortunate to have in our lives.  Our family, friends, our school, and our pets were at the top of everyone's list.

Students were excited they got to wear pilgrim hats and have their own Thanksgiving feast.  

I made a giant turkey for my bulletin board.  Boys and girls thought it was just a decoration until I started carving it.  They were very excited the turkey was filled with popcorn!

I am very thankful for my kind, caring, smart students that I get to work with each day.  You make me smile and enjoy my job.  A heartfelt thank you to their parents for your support and communication.  You are raising some pretty wonderful children!

I hope everyone has a relaxing Thanksgiving filled with lots of family time and delicious food!

 

We are Sun and Earth Experts!

It has been exciting to see the children acquiring science knowledge and seeing them think like a scientist with our new Inspire Science program.  Throughout our unit on the Sun and Earth, I enjoyed hearing them apply their new knowledge as they hypothesized before eagerly completing an experiment and even extended their learning by applying their new knowledge in their own time.  For example, after discussing that the sun can heat up certain things on a playground, the question came up, "How can you prevent play equipment from getting too hot?"  I was surprised during free choice centers that afternoon that a few students had taken it upon themselves to draw what they could do to provide shade to the playground equipment such as surround the equipment with tall trees, create some type of canopy, or have a giant tent around the playground.  Needless to say, I was one impressed teacher! What was also impressive, is that I gave students a challenge of learning the app Explain Everything at the beginning of Kindergarten.  To get kids comfortable drawing on the iPad, we first used the app Drawing Pad to illustrate one of our science vocabulary words and then uploaded the pictures into Seesaw where students defined the science vocabulary words.

  Next, we learned how to draw, import pictures and videos, and record in Explain Everything.  Students were excited to create their own digital books about the Sun and Earth.

To culminate this lesson on Sunlight and Earth's surface, students were ecstatic to learn they would get to become reporters and share all that they have learned about the Sun and Earth.

I introduced the concept of main idea and detail as we began to brainstorm facts we learned about the Sun and Earth.  Of course, a good reporter has to stay on topic and share details that support the main idea.  :)

Next, the kids drew pictures and wrote words in a thinking map to help them prepare what they wanted to say in their news reports.
Right before the big day arrived to record our news reports, the students informed me that they each wanted their own background rather than just a standard one I planned to create.  They presented valid reasons and won the argument.  The kids loved working on such huge paper!

Thankfully, we had an extra set of hands helping with recording.  Our very own principal, Dr. Carreiro, cleared time in her busy schedule to assist with production.  She was impressed with all the knowledge the students learned. Click on each student's video below to watch their Explain Everything projects that conclude with their news reports.
Zachary



Hannah

 
Alex



Emily



John



McKenzie



Payton



Massimo




Scott



Zoe



Jacob



Rocco



Lucianna



Marino



Carolyn

We wrapped up the unit this week with our performance project about sunlight and shade.  Students enjoy learning about the career kids and were so excited to be carpenters and architects! I presented this question to the students:

...and they eagerly got right to work first designing their structure plans with pencil and paper before building. They were very engaged during the building process and time flew by!  At the end, they each presented their structure and described what they built and how it helped solve the problem.

We're looking forward to being meteorologists during our next unit on weather! Leave a comment below to let the students know what you think about their hard work!

Happy Halloween!

Wow!  What a spooktacular day we had!  Students were so excited to finally celebrate Halloween on Friday.  Shortly after arriving at school, we quickly got dressed (thanks to a few helping hands from parent volunteers) for our whole school Halloween parade.  We loved seeing all the different costumes!
After the parade, we had snack and then participated in some special Halloween themed literacy centers.  In my group, students choose an eyeball with a sticker on it, said the name of the object on the sticker, and then either identified the beginning or ending sound of that word.  In Ms. Montefusco's group, students used bingo daubers to stomp out the number of syllables in words.  In the last group, children either drew Halloween pictures or took photos of our classroom Halloween decorations in the Seesaw app and practiced labeling.  We also practiced retelling Go Away, Big Green Monster!

In the afternoon, after art, we were eager to begin our Halloween party.  It was so beautiful outside that we read a Halloween story in the courtyard and then walked back to the classroom like zombies.  The students were eerily good at this and startled poor Mrs. Moore who happened to be walking by as we were about to head back inside.

During our party, children enjoyed the crafts Mrs. Creasi planned and then snacked on some yummy treats.  A huge thank you to parents who donated food and party supplies and/or volunteered their time in helping with costumes or helping out with the afternoon fun.  The students and I are very grateful!
I was able to capture many happy and silly moments from today.  Enjoy the Animoto video below!  

A Perfect Pumpkin Day

Pumpkin day last Friday was a HUGE success! The day was filled with many pumpkin activities. Check out the fun we had!

We read to pumpkins in the Reading Patch.  The boys and girls were SO excited to read to the pumpkins!!

We ordered numbers 0-20, sorted pictures that start and do not with the letter p, and matched rhyming pumpkins.

The children were very excited for the afternoon when they got to travel to four investigation stations that parent volunteers facilitated.

Children counted the number of lines on their pumpkins and remembered to use smart counting strategies and they determined if pumpkins sink or float.  Some students were very surprised that their heavy pumpkins float!

These hard working mathematicians also measured the height of their pumpkins with cubes and had the opportunity to feel the gooey inside of a pumpkin and count its seeds.

To count all the seeds, Mrs. Rullo had the children each grab a handful and put a group of ten seeds in each small cup. After a couple of days off due to the weather, we finally learned yesterday the total number of pumpkin seeds.  We arranged the cups of seeds into ten frames so we could practice counting by tens to 100 and then from there counted by hundreds and the leftover tens and ones.  The total number of seeds for our pumpkin was 515!!  Alex's dad estimated the closest with a prediction of 492 seeds.  Thank you to families and educators who shared your seed estimates with the class.  We enjoyed reading the comments during morning meeting.

Thank you to Mrs. DeBonis, Mrs. Rullo, Mrs. Kaiserman, and Mrs. Hatley for helping with this fun activity!  An extra special thank you to the Rullo family for donating a class set of pumpkins.

We finished up our pumpkin unit by reviewing what we already knew about pumpkins prior to the start of our unit and what we were hoping to learn.  

The boys and girls were surprised with how much they learned about pumpkins.  Congratulate your pumpkin experts on the new knowledge they attained and have been eager to share.

How many seeds in our pumpkin?

We are very excited for Pumpkin Day on Friday when we will see if pumpkins sink or float, measure how tall our pumpkins are, and count the seeds of one of our pumpkins!  Today we made predictions or estimates of how many seeds the children think one of our pumpkins has inside.  To help educate the children on how to make a good estimate, I read them the book How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? by Margaret McNamara.  We learned some important information from the book that helped us make our estimates.  Check out these cool facts we read:

•  Each line on the outside of a pumpkin has a row of seeds inside. 
•  The longer a pumpkin grows on the vine, the darker it is and the more lines it has. 
• The largest pumpkin doesn't necessarily mean it has the most seeds!

Check out our estimates!

Moms, dads, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and babysitters, we would love to hear YOUR predictions! In the comment section below, add your name and your prediction of how many seeds in this pumpkin!  

Hopefully the 8x10 frame can help give you some idea of the pumpkin's size.

Thank you for sharing your predictions!

Check back the beginning of next week for pictures of our Pumpkin Investigation Stations and to find out the actual number of seeds!

We can label!

Parents, do you know what it means to label? After today’s lesson, I hope your children have a better understanding of what it means to label a picture. A label gives the reader information about the picture.

When we learned about apples a few weeks ago, students were introduced to the word labeling.  They labeled the parts of an apple diagram and their pictures about our apple picking field trip.

Today they got to label me, the teacher!

Yes, they can!

After, they had the opportunity to practice labeling on their own.  They each got two post-its and labeled something in the room.

I encouraged the children to go home and label the things around their homes – the couch, a table, a book, anything! Food, playroom toys, and their bedrooms were suggested by students.  Rumor has it that pets, brothers and sisters, and you might be getting labeled tonight – just a warning ;).

When they labeled, I asked the children to listen for and write the first sound of the object and, if they were able to, listen for the last sound as well.  For those who like a challenge, they tried the first, a middle, and a final sound! Associating the sound with a word they are familiar with is always helpful (i.e. /t/ like top if they are trying to spell table).

Labeling helps us to understand information in pictures and is a precursor to writing sentences. Recently, we started Writer’s Workshop.  I have modeled and the children have practiced beginning with an idea, illustrating it with great detail, and then labeling the people and things in their pictures. Eventually, they will be able to use those labels to develop their story and formulate sentences.  Children are learning that good writers have enough detail in their pictures to tell the story.  With a little more practice, your child should be able to confidently say "I can label a picture!"

I would love to share with the class what children labeled at home!  You can add a photo or sentence or two to the padlet below.  Simply click in the large, yellow padlet box, add your child's name as the title and either click on the camera to upload a picture or just write a sentence telling what your child labeled.  If you would prefer to email me a picture, I am more than happy to add it to the padlet for you!

When completing homework each night, encourage your child to listen for the beginning and ending sounds or the beginning, a middle, and an ending sound when labeling their illustrations.  The spelling doesn't have to be perfect!  I like how my neighbor teacher, Mrs. Murphy, reminds her students they are doing "young writer" spelling.  I encourage my students to do their best to listen for the sounds they hear when stretching out a word and to use those to sounds to spell.

Happy Labeling!