We Are Bat Experts!

The students enjoyed learning about bats during our science lessons and reader's workshop.  We used bats to practice identifying main idea and detail and to learn about nonfiction text features.  I am impressed that the children learned so many interesting facts about this intriguing mammal!    The children have learned how to use many ipad apps this year to share their knowledge and to express their thinking.  These apps include Explain Everything, Recap, Seesaw, Pic Collage, and iMovie.  Pretty impressive!  What is even more impressive is how they rose to the challenge of sharing what they learned about bats in an app of their choosing. I love how when I set high expectations, my students often surpass how I envision the final products will be.  This project was one of those times! After creating their own nonfiction bat books with Miss Teixeira, they brainstormed all the facts they learned and we added them to the KWL chart.

Normally, the class and I work together to create a single bat movie.  This year, with our expansive knowledge of open-ended apps, I proposed a challenge for a culminating activity.  Students were very excited to learn that they could choose their partner, determine which facts they felt were important to highlight in their project, and then do some research on their own.  I wish I could share the pure excitement that fell over the room as the class got right to work collaborating with their peers.   After a little bit of time researching with their partners, we came back together as a group to decide some key science words and some topics that would be beneficial in helping everyone organize their information.  

Then, after a little more research...

...the students were ready to produce their final product.  I showed them some examples of how to organize and categorize information in some videos and collages I had created, which got them even more eager to start.
Mrs. Baker came into our room to help with production.  Many students took the knowledge they had learned about certain apps from the guided practice we had done throughout the year and got right to work independently.  Mrs. Baker, Miss Teixeira, and I were all extremely impressed and proud of the leadership, collaboration, creativity, decision making, and problem solving we saw occurring while groups worked pretty quietly around the room.  Kids were respectfully discussing the order of pictures (such as using the life cycle - from baby bat, to growing and eating, to adult bat) to grouping facts into categories.  I was a very proud, happy teacher, especially knowing I was doing all of this with Kindergarteners!
I took the list of ways we discussed organizing the information and created folders with Google images in our class Google Drive account, so that students did not have to search the internet and could work responsibly in a controlled internet environment. 

 I admit, I was a little nervous how production would go as this was the first time I introduced how to find and download pictures in Google Drive, which was silly because these students were observant listeners during the instructions!

Without further ado, I present our bat movies.  Children choose to complete this project with the app Explain Everything or iMovie.  Their favorite part was being able to take pictures of each other, import them into Explain Everything, crop themselves, and then add themselves to a bat picture.  Their creativity will make you smile!
 
I am so glad I gave this project a try!  Fantastic job, boys and girls! Thank you, Mrs. Baker, for all your help and support!  We love having you come in to work with us!
Common Core State Standards:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.2

Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic.

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.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.7

Participate in shared research and writing projects (e.g., explore a number of books by a favorite author and express opinions about them).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.8

With guidance and support from adults, recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.

Field Day

The children had a spectacular time at Field Day last Friday!  Thank you to all the parents who were able to help out with this exciting event!

Ms. Gibeau and Ms. DeSanctis took some amazing pictures and shared them with me.  I created an Animoto video with their pictures below.  Thank you both!

10 Star Thursday

During the month of May, my class earned 10 whole class clip ups!  They are pretty amazing, right?!  I knew I had to plan an extra special day to show the kids how proud I was.  We had to wait until last Thursday for a warm, sunny day to be outside. 
We started the morning off by putting the fun in Fundations.  The kids were eager to put their learned knowledge of trick words and digraphs to the test in the activities below. First, a digraph sort.  Children had to read a word with a digraph that was taped to a beanbag, then try to toss it into the hoop with the matching digraph. 

Next up, soccer skills came in handy as students had to dribble the ball around cones that had trick words taped to them.  They had to read the word as they kicked the ball around the cone.  

Lastly, we had sight word Zingo and digraph word Jenga.   

Our Masco Intern, Miss Shan, stopped by for a surprise visit!

And that was only FUNdations!
After rehearsing for our Kindergarten Serenade, I told the kids I was going to change their names for the day.  Instead of having a Bella, Cameron, and Amund in my class, I had a Miss Go, a Mr. With, and a Mr. That and I was Mrs. Because.   Then we had a special visitor who wanted to join in on the fun and changed her name to Dr. Little... It was Dr. Carreiro!

She introduced our class to Breakout Edu where children work as a team to solve clues to unlock a box with LOTS of locks!

We were so occupied with this engaging activity, I only had time to take these pictures of my team.  Be sure to check out Dr. Carreiro's blog post for more pictures of both teams! I loved seeing the teamwork and perseverance.  It was so interesting to see students' leadership and organizational skills as well as their praise and encouragement as they talked through the clues.

 

I just love these kids!  They make me smile each day!  

  Great job, girls and boys!  I hope you had fun!

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.3

Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.3.c

Read common high-frequency words by sight (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do, does).

 

Happy Graduation, Miss Teixeira!

Miss T graduated from Merrimack College last Friday night.  She now has her Master's in Education!  We are lucky that Miss T will continue to be working with us until the last day of school.
Mrs. Lisitano, our room parent, was so thoughtful to reach out to me with the request to do something special to honor Miss Teixeira's hard work both at Merrimack and in our classroom.  This was a great idea and the students were excited to make cards and a heartfelt video for Miss T.
The children were thrilled to celebrate with delicious cupcakes from Tara Leigh Cakes and to have a dance party to the song "Celebration".  They did a wonderful job keeping the party a surprise!  Thank you to Mrs. Lisitano and Mrs. Dalton for organizing this special event and the gifts from the class.

As happy as I am for Miss Teixeira, I am sad our year together is coming to an end.  She is a very creative, supportive, reflective, and hard working educator who is eager to learn and teach.  Dr. Carreiro was right last June when she met with Miss T for the first time and said she had the perfect fit in mind for her placement this year.  Thank you, Miss Teixeira, for coming to school each day with a smile and eagerness to make each student's day their best day yet and for always making learning fun!  I have enjoyed working with you and thank you for helping me grow as an educator.  You are going to be a stellar teacher!

Welcome, Miss Shannon!

Please help me welcome Shannon Decker to our classroom.  She is a Masco senior who will be helping out in our class until the end of May.  The students enjoy working with her and she is getting a lot of valuable experience before heading off to college to study education.  We are lucky to have her!

Vacation Fun

Hi Everyone!

I hope you are having fun this vacation!  We have had some beautiful weather.  Whether you are having fun in your neighborhood or have traveled some place exciting, I am looking forward to hearing all about it!  Add to the padlet below a sentence or two or even a picture of something you would like to share about your vacation. On Monday, each of us will be choosing one special moment to start a seed story. The children enjoy sharing a photo with the class and talking about their vacation.  :)

Simply double click on the board and write a note. Write your name at the top of the note as the title.

Flat and Solid Shapes

Mathematicians in Room 117 have been hard at work learning about 3 dimensional (solid) shapes.  We been describing them, composing them, and comparing them to 2 dimensional (flat) shapes.

All of us have had so much fun with all of the hands on activities!  We stared off this unit with an introductory shapes lesson with Mrs. Murphy's class.

We love the 3D shape song by Teacher Tipster!  Click here to watch the video and sing along!

After learning about which solid shapes can roll, stack, and slide, we used play doh to create these 3 dimensional shapes and reinforce our new math vocabulary of faces, edges, and corners.

 During math workshop, students rotated through three stations to strengthen their skills of sorting 3D shapes, composing shapes and pictures with 2D shapes, and identifying 3D shapes within pictures.

I think the favorite activity was the building station!  Students had to use their imagination and construct with our 3 dimensional foam shapes and then record the shapes they used.

We are becoming quite the shape experts!

What shapes can you spot in your house or while you are outside for a walk on a beautiful, sunny day?

CCSS.Math.Content.K.G.A.2
Correctly name shapes regardless of their orientations or overall size.
CCSS.Math.Content.K.G.A.3
Identify shapes as two-dimensional (lying in a plane, "flat") or three-dimensional ("solid").
CCSS.Math.Content.K.G.B.4
Analyze and compare two- and three-dimensional shapes, in different sizes and orientations, using informal language to describe their similarities, differences, parts (e.g., number of sides and vertices/"corners") and other attributes (e.g., having sides of equal length).
CCSS.Math.Content.K.G.B.5
Model shapes in the world by building shapes from components (e.g., sticks and clay balls) and drawing shapes.