A time to give thanks during this busy November

We have enjoyed this month of November by thinking about all that we have to be thankful for and we have worked hard to produce neat and thoughtful work.  We sang about fall and giving thanks last week in our Thanksgiving Sing-a-Long.  If you did not have a chance to attend the children's performance or would like to hear the songs again, click here to see the videos Mrs. Carreiro recorded and uploaded to her blog.   The placemats that went home like the one below are precious keepsakes to remember this delightful age and the wonderful memories of Kindergarten.

Thank you for returning the family projects this month!  The disguised turkeys brightened up the room.  I love the creativity!  During writing, we tried to listen for the beginning, middle, and ending sounds as we labeled what our turkeys were disguised as.

Turkeys?  What turkeys?  There are no turkeys here!

The children enjoyed making turkeys out of construction paper and paper bags.  These turkeys were actually glyphs and were unique for each student. 

When the children entered the classroom after team time this morning, they were surprised and excited to be greeted by a visitor!

I didn't make the connection between my turkey and their own turkey glyphs (mine was created for a different purpose) until one boy told me I didn't have enough feathers and another child added, "I know you are definitely not 18!"   So cute and too funny!!

Instead, my turkey was a guest during our classroom feast.  In fact, I got to carve him!  Check out the video below to see what was inside him along with all the fun we had today.  Thank you to Mrs. Kennedy's second grade class for inviting us to watch their performance of a Thanksgiving Reader's Theatre.  It was a special treat and I learned some new facts about the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag's first Thanksgiving.
I want to end by saying I am thankful for each child in my class.  All of you make me smile each day and enjoy my job.  I am also thankful for my students' loving families who encourage and inspire a love of learning outside of school.  You are raising some pretty terrific children!   Happy Thanksgiving!  Enjoy this special time with your loved ones!

C is for Connection

 

This is the hand signal students use during read alouds when they have a text-to-self connection they want to share with the class.

   Has your child shared a text-to-self connection with you while reading together?  Keep the praise and encouragement coming!!  The children have been improving their abilities to connect with the text and now LOVE to share their connections! Over the past few weeks, we have been thinking hard to identify how a story relates to our own feelings and experiences.  We thought of times we were wild like Max in Where the Wild Things Are...

    

and times we felt disappointed like The Littlest Pumpkin by R.A. Herman.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the students' work for this text-to-self connection activity, but some of the ideas they thought of for when they were disappointed were when they couldn't carve a pumpkin, when they couldn't go to their friend's house, and when they couldn't buy a toy they wanted.

Finally, one of our most recent mentor texts for Global Read Aloud tied in perfectly with our current comprehension strategy.  Check out our text-to-self connections for The OK Book in the iMovie below.  The children loved using the iPad app Chatterpix to make their pictures talk!

     

 This book has such an important message for students of all ages.  (Click here to check out the book's impressive book trailer).  I feel it is important for children to see that we adults are just OK at various skills and activities as well and that is okay.  So, parents and teachers, what are you OK at?  Leave your connection in the comments section below! 

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.K.6 With guidance and support from adults, explore a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers. 

 

Veterans Day

Last Friday, my essential question for the students was "What is a Veteran?"  After reading a book about Veterans Day, we learned that veterans are men and women who have served in the armed forces to keep our country safe.  After, we colored in pictures of people so their uniforms were the correct colors for the army, navy, air force, and marines.  We continued our discussion this week by brainstorming what soldiers are and what they do.     I am truly impressed with how thoughtful your children were when thinking about all that soldiers have done to keep us safe and how they have risked their lives so we can have the freedoms we have today.  

  Each child chose one of the sentence starters ("Soldiers are" or "Soldiers can") and finished the sentence with one of the ideas we brainstormed.  We created our own soldiers to display with our sentences.  

 

Yesterday morning, Fuller Meadow students and staff gathered together in the cafeteria to honor veterans with poems and songs.  Our class was asked to place red poppies under the flag as a symbol of honor and respect. 

 Thank you to those who have contributed to our school's Veterans Day padlet.  We have loved reading what families have written and have enjoyed seeing the projects and videos classes have posted.  It's not too late to add something if you would like.  

Created with Padlet

  Happy Veterans Day!