April Vacation Fun

Hi Everyone!

I hope you are having a great vacation!  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 green board below and write a note. Write your name at the top of the note as the title.

February Vacation Fun

Hi Everyone!

I hope you are having fun this vacation! I can't wait to hear all about it! Did you visit family or spend time with friends? Did you watch any good movies or travel? Did anyone bake something yummy or do a cool craft project?! Add to the padlet below a sentence or two or even a picture of a special vacation moment that you would like to share. On Monday, each of us will be choosing one special moment to illustrate and write about. This padlet can help with our brainstorming when we are all a little tired as we settle back into our routine. :)

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

Global School Play Day 2019

My class and I had so much fun during Global School Play Day 2019! 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 imaginations come alive.  They worked well together, problem solved, and amazed me with their creativity!

During the morning, we had fun playing in the gym with Ms. Teixeira's class.  We played tunnel tag and then the first graders taught us Sphere Ball!

The students were supposed to have computers during specialist time, but Mrs. Haines invited them into the gym for some station fun with Mrs. Newton's class!  The kids loved all the different gym stations Mrs. Haines created!

After lunch and specialist, we visited Mrs. Thomson's first graders for games and crafts!

Mrs. Bailey donated large boxes for the children to play with and they LOVED them!  These boxes were the highlight of the day!  The kids enjoyed playing with them so much, they begged me to keep them in the classroom.  We continue to still play with them at the end of many school days.  I love how much joy simple cardboard boxes have brought to the classroom.

Mr. Sam was kind enough to cut out windows and other openings in the boxes.   We even decided to apply our new learning of pushes and pulls and use the boxes as rides down the hallway ramp!

The kids' creativity also shined through with random paper rolls and other odds and ends I've been collecting.    

I think everyone would agree it was such a fun day of learning and playing together!  It was great to get to play with other classes.

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.

100 days of learning, 100 days of fun

The students and I can't believe we have been learning and growing together for 100 days already!  It is crazy how quick the year is flying by! We enjoyed celebrating this special day together! The students were proud to share their family 100th Day projects with their classmates.

We started off the day with special 100th Day morning work.

During Daily 5, children had 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.  A few kids even wrote numbers 1-100.

During writing, children had to reflect on what they are able to do now that they weren't able to do 100 days ago.

After library, I had a special 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 to use teamwork like real engineers to creatively construct masterpieces that each contained 100 pieces of that station's material.  

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 72 days!

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 Wednesday, 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

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.

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!

This afternoon during math, I gave my students a challenge.  They counted 1 window and 4 wheels on a train I drew.  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.  At the end, we saw most groups got the same data.  We learned 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.  Some students noticed the pattern that the number of  windows is always 1 more than the previous number and the number of wheels is always 4 more than the previous number.  There's nothing better than critical thinking, teamwork, and perseverance all while working comfortably in our pajamas.   I had only planned on having students figure out the windows and wheels for up to 5 trains, but some students wanted to challenge themselves to figure out for 9 trains!

At the end of the day, 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!

Teddy Bear Day

We had a successful Teddy Bear Day in Kindergarten after reading many versions of The Three 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, writing, Daily 5, and math!

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!

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".

Students loved figuring out ways to sort their bears into groups....

and using positional words to move their stuffed animals.

I bet our stuffed animals were tired by the end of the day from all of this Kindergarten work!












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 students tell what they enjoy doing with their favorite stuffed friends!

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:

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.MATH.CONTENT.K.MD.B.3
Classify objects into given categories; count the numbers of objects in each category and sort the categories by count.

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.OA.A.3
Decompose numbers less than or equal to 10 into pairs in more than one way, e.g., by using objects or drawings, and record each decomposition by a drawing or equation (e.g., 5 = 2 + 3 and 5 = 4 + 1).

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.