Wow! Already 100 days of learning together!

The students and I can't believe we have been learning and growing together for 100 days already!  One boy even exclaimed in excitement, "I can't believe we've already been in school for 100 days!  I just pinched myself to see if it was a dream or real!"  It is crazy how quick the year is flying by! 

The children's 100th's Day projects they completed at home with their families.

Children started the day dancing their way to the cafeteria to have team time with Ms. Clemenzi, the math and science curriculum specialist, while "Celebration" played over the intercom.  

Photo courtesy of Dr. Carreiro.  Hear all the Kindergarten students count by 10s in her blog post.

During Daily 5, children had special 100th Day literacy and math activity choices.  Some students practiced counting by tens to 100 and ordering those numbers correctly.  Others chose to go on a word hunt and write 100 words they spotted around the room.

During writing, children imagined what they will do when they are 100 years old.

We also challenged ourselves to 100 jumping jacks!  We did it!
After art, I had a special new activity I was excited to try out with the class.   I got this amazing freebie from Brooke Brown's blog Teach Outside the Box.  The kids LOVED the 100th Day STEM bins!  They had teamwork like real engineers to creatively construct amazing masterpieces that each contained 100 pieces of that station's material.  

And these kids made snakes and a snake trap with 100 pipe cleaners!     As a Kindergarten team, we had a goal to collect 100 cans for our town's food pantry, which we exceeded, thanks to our amazing Middleton families!

I am looking forward to seeing the children's love for learning continue and their reading, writing, and math skills soar over the next 78 days!

Global School Play Day

My class had so much fun during Global School Play Day yesterday!  Despite the day being cut short due to snow, we crammed a lot of play into 3 and 1/2 hours.  Some kids didn't even want to stop to eat snack!  
This was a day of unstructured play that was supervised by teachers.  It was so nice to have the opportunity to play with the children and to see their imagination come alive.  They worked well together, problem solved, and amazed me with their creativity!

Mrs. Campbell donated a huge box for yesterday's activities and the children LOVED it!  I've never seen them so excited!  Of course, we had to make predictions how many students could actually fit in the box.  We fit 10, although the kids emphasized we could have squeezed more in!

I loved hearing the children share their ideas and build on each other's suggestions of what to do with this box.  It went from the possibility of a home with a rug inside, to a boat, to a McDonald's, which everyone immediately, somehow seamlessly, agreed upon and took part in creating.  The kids thoroughly enjoyed taking each other's order, making the food, and manning the register. 
Thankfully Mr. Sam came to the rescue and cut out a door and window for us!  He's the best!

To my surprise, shortly before the end of the school day, someone suggested the box should transform to a library with books inside and they made the inside cozy with a bean bag and blanket.

I love that they took the time to decorate the McDonald's turned library with colorful pictures and glued on circular windows.  I enjoyed watching them play!
The kids' creativity also shined through with random paper rolls and other odds and ends I've been collecting.  I like how they figured out ways to bring their interests of sports and exercise into the day.

Some of us even tried to learn how to juggle with our new scarves.  A couple second grade friends joined us as well!

I think everyone can agree that it was the best early release day ever!  I don't know about the kids, but I was exhausted when I got home and ended up falling asleep on the couch for a few hours!

It's amazing that play helps with brain development, increases children's imaginations, develops their self-control, problem solving, and critical thinking skills in the areas of math and science as well as enhances self-esteem and language skills.  My goal is to encourage more unstructured play here at school.  I hope you will consider doing the same at home.

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!