Vacation Fun

Happy New Year!  I hope all of you are having a wonderful vacation with your families.  The week has gone 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 Thursday, 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. :)

Comfy, Cozy Day

Today's frigid temps made it the perfect day for Comfy, Cozy Day! Children and teachers enjoyed being warm and 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 then 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.

To conclude our Polar Express morning, each Kindergartner received their very own silver bell!  Our conductor and musical guest was a former student's grandfather, Mr. Rhoads.  He truly helped make the event very special and memorable for the kids!  Thank you for joining us, Mr. Rhoads!

During today's math lesson, I gave my students a challenge.  They counted 1 window and 4 wheels on a picture of a train.  They had to figure out how many windows and how many wheels there would be if the number of trains kept increasing.  Students worked in groups of 3 or 4 to find a strategy that worked best to figure out the solutions to this math problem.  Some students drew groups of 4 circles, some counted groups of 4 fingers, and others counted on from what they had already figured out.  The groups wrote their answers on Post-its and added them to the class chart.  We will finish this activity tomorrow.  At the end, we'll see that most groups got the same data and we'll see what patterns and other observations we can make about this data.  We will learn that the number of windows is always equal to the number of trains because there is only one window on each train, and the number of wheels will always be more than the number of windows.  There's nothing better than critical thinking, teamwork, and perseverance all while working comfortably in our pajamas!

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

We ended the day with a Gingerbread Cookie Decorating Party to connect with the folktale unit we've been working on these past 6 weeks.  We have read different versions of The Gingerbread Man, The 3 Bears, and The Little Red Hen and have practiced comparing and contrasting stories, identifying story elements, and have been working on retelling stories.  The class loved decorating and eating the cookies!  Thank you to the parents who donated supplies or volunteered their time to help with this party!

It was such a fun day!!