It was Cafeteria Appreciation Week and kinders wanted to spread their love and appreciation to the hard working ladies in the MVES cafeteria. We designed and cut out paper flowers to create a poster for the ladies, but we didn't stop there. These kind kids wanted to plant real flowers for the ladies. I went to Wal-mart and got the supplies that evening and the next morning, the kids were out in the courtyard planting flowers to give to each our cafeteria ladies. Seeing the kinders so happy to plant a flower to give to someone else fills my heart. I am so thankful to work with such caring kids every day.
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Kindergartners in Room B32 took their understanding of numbers to a new level over the past two weeks! We began our study of addition by thinking about numbers we already know and finding one more than that number. The kids had a blast playing "Swat it" as they rolled number cubes, identified the number on their "fly" line and swatted one more than that number. After swatting the fly, partners recorded their understanding on their own papers: ____ and one more is ____. I've noticed we've gotten a little backwards on our number writing. If you have time to practice writing numbers at home, that would be a big help! Kids love to write in different mediums- like shaving cream, sand, salt, etc. After understanding one more than a number, we learned about how we can join sets of numbers which is called addition! We listened to lots of addition stories and practiced combining/joining sets of manipulatives to gain a better understanding of addition. Then we began writing addition number sentences (or "equations"- we love fancy math words!) to match our stories. Finally, we illustrate and wrote our own addition stories about a topic of our choosing and presented our stories to the class. We spent several days "decomposing" numbers and determining different ways to add two sets to create the given number. This was a challenge but also lots of fun! Again, we practiced writing addition number sentences. These girls were decomposing the number "3". On the left, she found "2 + 1 = 3" and on the right, she found "1 + 2 = 3". We also discovered two more ways to create the number 3. Do you know what they are? To become more fluent with our addition facts to 10, we played "Flower Power Addition" thanks to Mr. Greg from The Kindergarten Smorgasboard for his freebie. I found some flower marshmallows at Wal-mart to use as manipulatives. They were perfect! We even enjoyed some of the fresh marshmallows as a treat for working so hard on our addition facts. To end our study of addition, we invited our ITRT friend, Mrs. Giesert, to our class. She taught us how to use a new app called "Draw and Tell" to create our own digital addition stories. We even got to record our voices telling our stories! Check out your child's SeeSaw account to view his/her story.
The week after Earth week, we took a closer look at our planet by studying lots of maps and globes. We learned that maps and globes can show us the location of places and objects but they are also a little bit different. After reading lots of books, investigating, and identifying water and land features on real maps and globes, the kinders helped create a list about maps and a list about globes to show they understood the difference between the two. To apply our understanding, we created edible maps! We spread blue icing on a plate to represent the water. Then we added pieces of graham crackers to represent land and spread green icing on the land pieces. To show our understanding of both land and water on a map, the kinders were instructed to identify the water by placing goldfish in their water on their edible maps. Then they were asked to identify their land by putting chocolate chip mountains on it. Everyone was so excited to be able to show their understanding! The kiddos also created a map legend to help people understand what the colors on their map represented. We also used our new vocabulary and wrote about our maps. Whew! That was a lot of fun and a lot of hard work! We got to enjoy eating one piece of our maps before packing them up to take home and share with our families. Did they make it on the bus ride home? :) The fun didn't stop there. We also were able to create a globe! Thanks to some awesome parent volunteers, the kinders used styrofoam balls, tissue paper squares, and watered down glue to create their very own globes! "Can we eat our globes too, Ms. Flanary?"
Although we couldn't eat these precious gems, we were more than proud to take our creations home and share them with our friends and families. |
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September 2017
AuthorHi! I'm Katie Flanary. I've been teaching for seven years and absolutely love it! I'm excited to start my eighth year making this my fourth year in kindergarten. Categories
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