We began learning about seasonal changes of spring by reading books and watching videos so we all had an understanding of our new topic. Then we took our learning outside (unfortunately the temperature didn't feel like spring that day!) where kindergarten scientists used their senses to observe spring changes in our science courtyard. To show our understanding of spring changes, we had an ITRT come visit and teach us how to use Pic Collage to import and label pictures of spring! I hope you've had a chance to see your child's collage on SeeSaw. During our Daily 5 independent centers, kiddos have been digging in the garden to find carrots and spell CVC or CVCe words. We've been "writing the room" in bunny glasses! We have some pretty awesome activities in our fine motor morning stations (inspired by Marsha from A Differentiated Kindergarten) this month! One of our favorites is the lego challenge. This month the challenge is to construct and fill in a 2-D egg. Check out all of our smarties who have completed the challenge: The kinders participated in two awesome experiments the week before break. The first was a science experiment called "Egg Rockets"- how fun does that sound? We used water, alka-seltzer tablets, and a free-standing egg to create a rocket. After the rocket launched, we used yarn to measure the distance our rocket traveled. Once we came back inside, the kinders used info I cubes and our knowledge of counting by 5s to find out exactly how far our rockets traveled. The day before spring break, we read Pete the Cat: Easter Adventure. Right after discussing the events in Pete's adventure, Ms. Kim from the office delivered a basket with a letter addressed to our class! It was from the Easter Bunny himself, and it listed 3 tasks for us to complete: We learned the bunny dropped his basket along his journey to deliver the eggs and cracked them all open!This lead us to our next experiment- a STEM challenge to build the tallest tower using egg halves. Check out the tallest egg tower! We read a story about a little bunny and completed a Break-Out Box challenge! We all BROKE OUT! It wasn't an easy task, but with a or of team work and combining our literacy, math, and critical thinking skills, the kinders were successful. A big thanks to our amazing RCPS ITRTs for planning, organizing, and implementing this experience for us! On the last day before break, we read the story Pete the Cat: An Easter Adventure. After discussing the events in Pete's adventure, Ms. Kim from the office came to our room. She had a basket that had been delivered by a "big, fluffy bunny" with a note inside addressed to our class. It was just like the note Pete got in the story! We followed the directions and got to work right away. ;) Whew! What an busy, but very fun time before our much deserved spring break. I hope you enjoyed your time with your family. I'm looking forward to seeing the kids when they return on Tuesday. We will only have 36 more days of kindergarten left. I'm excited to see what the rest of our journey has in store for us- I know it will filled with lots of learning and, of course, a ton of fun!
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It's all about Earth Day in kindergarten this week! We started learning about recycling in order to prepare for our celebration on Friday. So far we learned that recycling means to take waste and turn it into something new. The kinders had so much fun digging through my trash (it was clean, I promise!) to see if we could make it a little less full by recycling some of the things. We found paper, plastics, glass containers, and aluminum- all things that could be recycled. We also discovered a banana peel. We agreed that could not be recycled but it lead to a great discussion of compost. In the block center, the kids were challenged to create a recycling center that would allow a toy recycling truck to transport and sort recycling. Take a look at this awesome design and clever engineers! In the science center, kinders have been investigating a tub of polluted water. They have used their senses to make observations and recorded them on a class observation list. The paper at the art easel has been replaced with newspaper. What a great way to reuse something! Today we read a book titled Kids Can Reuse and learned about several ways to reuse materials in a new way. If you reuse a box as a playhouse, it still looks like a box but has a new purpose. Cutting up an old t-shirt to use as a rag was another awesome idea the kinders came up with to reuse materials! Another idea was to use magazines to make clothing. I can't wait for these kids to grow up and make these ideas become reality. I'm so excited for the future of our planet with these awesome and innovative ways to reuse things we already have.
Tomorrow we we will learn about conserving water and energy to help the Earth. I'm excited to see what thoughts we come up with then! We're almost ready to celebrate Earth Day on Friday!!! We spent a week learning about many of the different jobs in our community and the people who do these jobs. We even had two very special community helpers visit our classroom to teach us all about their jobs and important fire safety lessons. Thank you to Firefighter Karen Will and Firefighter Tyler for taking your precious time to teach the kinders! I heard from so many families at conference time about how their child came home and told them everything you all (the firefighters) said to do to help their home and families be prepared in the event of a fire. Thank you for helping our community stay safe! After reading books to learn about different community helpers and matching the jobs to the names of these helpers, kinders were challenged to compare and contrast two of the jobs to see what kinds of services these helpers provide that are alike and different. Check out our Venn diagram work we completed with our partners! We ended the week by thinking about ourselves and what job we want to have when we grow up. I absolutely LOVE hearing the sweet kinders discuss their hopes and dreams for their future.
We've been learning lots of things about the famous children's author and illustrator, Dr. Seuss, this week in preparation of celebrating his birthday today! We started the week by focusing on rhyming pairs. We read a great rhyming book titled Rhyming Dust Bunnies by Jan Thomas (not Dr. Seuss, but we needed a book to compare and contrast words that rhyme/don't rhyme). After listening and identifying rhyming pairs throughout the story, we pulled out pairs of pictures from a bucket and decided if they were rhyming pairs or not. We discussed our ideas with our elbow buddies and then gave a thumbs up or thumbs down to show our understanding. Look at our thinking: [insert photo] Many of our friends were familiar with Dr. Seuss and his stories, but we didn't know much about the author. We watched a Brain Pop Jr. video to gain some more knowledge of this author. After finding out his real name, how he came up with his pen name, where he is from, and how he became a famous author and illustrator, we wanted to read ALL of his books! I wish I could have bottled up the excitement that filled our room that day. Since we didn't have time to read ALL of the books, we started with the classic- The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss (of course). Before reading this familiar story (or movie), we learned about two words: mischievous and responsible. After learning the meaning of mischievous, the kids had SO many examples of how they have been mischievous before. We also had examples of how we have been responsible, but they just weren't nearly as funny. :) Throughout the story we identified characters and settings as well as the events throughout. We decided if the events and characters were mischievous or responsible as well. After reading, the kids discussed the parts of the story and helped create this chart: [insert photo] The following day, the kids spent more time working with their new vocabulary words and came up with synonyms for each of the words to describe the character "The Cat in the Hat". We had some awesome words! [insert photo] We discussed if we would want this character to come to our house and put our writing skills to work to record our responses. The kids also completed a directed drawing of The Cat in the Hat which also was a huge challenge in practicing following directions. The drawings are absolutely adorable! They are currently on display in the hallway and these little artists have received so many compliments already! During small group time, we had lots of fun reading some "Seuss-y" emergent readers to practice listening for and using rhyming words to help us predict words. Of course we also used our eagle eye and stretchy snake when we got stuck. The DAY was finally here!! We started the day by sharing about our favorite Dr. Seuss books while also practicing our questioning skills during our morning meeting. Then we learned our poem for the week called "The Cat in the Hat" and had lots of fun learning the motions and singing to the tune of "The Addams Family". Of course we had a Seussical snack consisting of colorful fish inspired by "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish", Cat in the Hat string cheese inspired by "The Cat in the Hat", and sweet green eggs and ham inspired by "Green Eggs and Ham". Yummmm!!! We rushed down to the cafeteria to listen to an amazing story teller. Ask your child about the assembly! When we came back to the room, we spent the remainder of the morning visiting lots of Seuss stations! Mystery Sense Hats The kiddos used their sense of touch to reach into a mystery hat and describe what they felt. Before making a prediction, I gave them one special clue. The mystery object would be something Dr. Seuss wrote about in some of his books! Oooooh! They made a prediction and wrote or drew it on their recording page. Once everyone shared their predictions, the object was revealed and we recorded what we saw. What was in our hats? 1. Beanie Baby Cat (inspired by The Cat in the Hat) 2. Sweedish Fish (inspired by One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish) 3. REAL Green Eggs and Ham (inspired by Green Eggs and Ham) Here's the recording page I made to go with it: "Thing" Prints & Writing The kinders LOVED turning themselves into a "thing" and writing about what they would do if they were a thing with Mrs. Roeschley. You can really tell they learned that the things from Dr. Seuss's story were very mischievous! Make-over the Cat's Hat The cat is tired of wearing his red and white striped hat. Can you create a new hat for the cat? The kinders were SO excited to have a chance to give the Cat's hat a make-over with Ms. Robertson! Pin the Hat on the Cat I think this was the overall favorite activity during our Seuss stations. Thanks to Ms. Laurie, the kiddos got to "Pin the Hat on the Cat" using the SMARTBoard. I heard lots of great math vocabulary being practiced like "on" "above" and "next to" after laughing and giggling about where their hat actually ended up! When the kids were not at one of the stations lead by an adult, they had some time to participate in "Race to Stack the Cat's Hat" using mini-solo cups and index cards, "Roll & Color Dr. Seuss's Cake" with large foam dice and a coloring page, and "Build a Lego Hat for the Cat" with red and white Legos. There was so much fun, learning, and laughter going on today. Dr. Seuss would be proud! We ended the day by meeting up with our third grade book buddies. The kids LOVE their buddies and especially love being able to make special project with them. They made "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" hats and then got to enjoy some great Dr. Seuss books together. Happy birthday, Dr. Seuss!!!
This has to be the absolute most exciting day of kindergarten! We began our celebrations during morning meeting when we shared our "100 items" with our friends and asked questions about the objects. I managed to snap some photos of a few of our friends sharing. I wish I would have had a chance to get pictures of everyone. You can probably imagine how that is impossible in a classroom full of little learners! We continued with our daily calendar routine and had an exciting time doing a "double trade" with our place value blocks! We practiced counting to 100 by 10s and then counted like super heroes by 1s along with Harry Kindergarten's "Counting Super Hero" song.
Our first big 100th day activity was to find 100 hidden Hershey Kisses hidden around the room. Each kiss had a number on the bottom. The kiddos had to read a number, find and color it on their own hundreds chart, then place the Kiss on the class hundreds chart. These are some fast and excellent finders! In fact, they were so quick I hardly had any time to take pictures! The kinders successfully found all 100 kisses in no time! We were missing number 45 for about 5 minutes. Finally one of our little friends found it and the room broke out in a chorus of cheers! I loved watching and hearing all kinds of strategies the kids were using to figure out the names of their numbers and where to locate the number on the hundreds chart. They are SO smart!!! After our Hershey Kiss hunt, we relaxed during book look while our special snack was being set up. Since the 100th day and Groundhog Day happened to be on the same day this year, we had to celebrate a little bit of both! Take a look at our "100" snack and Groundhog "burrows". The conversations at the snack table today were hilarious! It was determined that "groundhogs" taste sweet and delicious. ;) Now that we were all sugared up (I know, I had to break the snack rules. It's a special day!!!), we needed to do a little exercising... 100 exercises to be exact! Thanks again, Harry Kindergarten! Now it was time to start the real fun! Thanks to our awesome assistant, Mrs. Zepp, and a wonderful parent volunteer, Ms. Laurie, the kiddos had a chance to go to three different guided stations- 100th Day Hats, 100th Day Pasta Necklace, and 100th Day Creative Writing. At the writing station, kinders used the digits 1-0-0 to create the number 100. Then they were challenged to arrange the digits in a different location on their paper to create something new. Not only was I impressed with their imaginations, they blew me away with their writing abilities! We are using spaces, sight words, and sounds to independently complete a sentence now! These past 100 days have truly made us smarter! The 100th Day Hat Station was loads of fun while also helping us practice our one-to-one correspondence counting to 10 and counting by 10s to 100! Check out these smarties! The kinders also practiced their counting skills with Ms. Laurie at the 100th Day Pasta Necklace station! When they weren't busy at one of the teacher stations, the kindergartners visited the independent stations and kept track of which stations they visited by using their "punch cards". Check a few of our choices: Happy 100 days of kindergarten! What will the next 80 have in store for us?
The kindergartners were totally enthralled during our study of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. this week. We began by investigating two photographs (primary documents) of Dr. King and made some pretty spectacular inferences based on our observations. "I see a mustache." "I see a tie." "I see microphones." "I see brown skin." "I see a suit." "I see a man." "I see lots of people." "I see him speaking." "I think he must be important" "I think people need to listen to him." "I think he's serious." Next, we discussed the words peace, dream, equality, and fair. We listened for these words in a book about Dr. King and learned facts about this important man. We also watched a clip of his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. The kinders LOVED being able to see the real Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and we heard the words dream and equal in his speech. After all of our reading and watching, the kiddos identified so many facts about him! Our goal was to learn the importance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day so we had to understand how African Americans were treated during Dr. King's life. It is difficult for kinders to understand why people weren't (and aren't) treated equally just because of the way they look. Kids usually don't "see color" or physical differences. They understand character and feelings much better than adults and hold these qualities above all else. To help us understand our physical differences verses our inner qualities, we examined two eggs. The kids found many similarities between the outside of the eggs- they were eggs, round, smelled "nasty", cold, and smooth. I asked what was different about the eggs and some kids shared they were slightly different sizes or one had a few bumpy spots, but not even one child said color! After prompting, they decided one egg was brown and one was white. I told you, they don't see color differences! Next, we made predictions about what the inside of each of the eggs would look like. Many of us had prior knowledge about the inside of eggs (thanks for cooking with your kids!!) which helped us form our predictions. How would we see the inside of our eggs? Crack them open, of course! Call me crazy, but I thought it was super important for each child to experience this activity so on the count of "3", 18 kindergartners each cracked open two eggs!!! "Wow! They're both the same inside!" "Woah! They're both yellow!" Yes, my friends, the eggs are the same inside! After a lengthy clean-up, we went back to our recording page, colored our observations, and dictated a sentence to a teacher to describe how eggs are like people. Like Dr. King, my dream is that these children grow up and continue to be leaders of peace, equality, and fairness because we still have a long way to go. If the only thing they remember from kindergarten is this lesson, I will feel like I've done my job. How can you continue this conversation with your child and family? We completed the week by creating our own version of Dr. King and worked on sentence structure by writing a fact or two about him. [I'll take pictures of our completed projects and post ASAP! In the meantime, come check them out in the hallway!] Kindergarten scientists are hard at work making observations about the evergreen tree branches and cones! We used our sense of sight, smell, and touch to make and discuss our observations of evergreens. After examining our subjects, we came together to create a chart of our observations. Although I am badly allergic to these trees, I think it's so important for kids to experience REAL science. Next year I'll start taking my allergy medicine a week in advance...haha! Later in the week we read books about evergreens and discussed facts we learned about them. Before writing and drawing about evergreen trees, we went on a little trip around our school grounds to search for trees. We found several trees and used our vocabulary cards as a checklist to determine if the trees were evergreen or not. Sure enough, we found one! Thanks to one of our awesome volunteers, Mrs. Marlene, the kiddos made these sweet little trees to decorate our "Masterpieces" board. The kiddos also had an opportunity to cut out a paper evergreen tree and use the needles from an evergreen branch as a paint brush with another fabulous volunteer, Mrs. Laurie! I wish I would have gotten pictures of this.
Our fantastic Media Specialist (Librarian), Mrs. Tucker, organized a grand event for our first day back to school in 2017. We met up in the library with our 3rd grade book buddies and practiced using our computer coding skills. Check out the excitement in our faces! For more information and at-home practice, visit www.code.org
Ringing in the New Year Tuesday was our very first day back and of course we started the new year off with a bang! Well, more like a lot of noise! After sharing all about our winter breaks, we talked a little bit about how we celebrated the new year. Only a few of us stayed up or were even allowed to stay up to see the ball drop in Times Square so we passed out the party blowers and turned on YouTube to re-enact the grand celebration in room B32. The kinders were SO excited to count down with the big screen and especially LOVED blowing on their party blower horns when we got to ZERO! At snack, we had a toast of sparkling grape juice and cheers-ed for the new year. Happy New Year, 2017! The kinders learned a new song called "Happy New Year" and practiced singing and acting out the motions to the song. We added this song to our purple poems binder on Friday. I hope you've enjoyed hearing your little one sing and read about the new year to you this weekend! Happy New Year (Tune: Row, Row, Row, Your Boat) Out, out, out with the old, And let's ring in the new! Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, The year is starting new!
Resolution- What's a resolution? During our first week of 2017, we learned a new vocabulary word: resolution. At first it was a little challenging for us to say and understand, but after clapping its syllables, acting it out, listening for it in books, and using it in lots of ways, we became experts on the word resolution! We first became familiar with the word when we read Squirrel's New Year's Resolution by Pat Miller (click on the picture for a link to a read aloud). We learned that a resolution was a promise to yourself to make yourself a better person. There were so many forest characters in this book and each one of them made a resolution for the new year. Squirrel was the only character who was having trouble of thinking of how to make herself a better person in the new year. We made lots of predictions about what Squirrel would decide and finally, we figure out that Squirrel had been making herself a better person throughout the story by helping all of her forest friends! The kinders found out that Squirrel resolved to help someone every day in the new year. After reading, we mingled and discussed all of the characters from the story with our classmates. Then the kiddos helped make a chart to remember all of the characters and their resolutions. The next step was for us to create our own resolutions. We brainstormed lots of things we are already really great at doing- things we CAN DO! These kiddos are so talented! It was awesome to see them share all of the things they can already do. Then we thought of things we wished we could do, but just can't quite do them yet. We tried really hard to remember we wanted these things to help make us a better person, but some ideas were just so sweet I couldn't squash their dreams! By Friday we were ready to pick one of the things we want to be able to do and write it as our resolution for 2017. We also had a lot of fun creating ourselves as a party person and using our blowers from Tuesday's celebration as part of the project! (We might have even gotten in a few more "toots" or two. ;) Check out our final writing and new year's self-portrait party person: I am so proud of these kiddos' writing progress! We are using spaces between our words, using our word wall words, and using our sounds to help us spell! We especially love putting periods at the end of sentences! Come check out our creations in person while they're proudly being displayed in the hallway.
2017 is going to be a great year! What are your resolutions? "All aboaaaaarrrrddd!!!" Just like the character in the story, we were wearing our pajamas when a special delivery from the office came to our door. Another package from the North Pole! We must be on the "nice list" this year! Inside of our package, we discovered silver bells and golden tickets. We could all hear the ringing of our bells- the Christmas magic was alive in our classroom! We found out our golden tickets were to board the Polar Express. So we quickly got on the "train" and traveled the long journey to the North Pole. Once we arrived at our destination, the kiddos were SO excited! We ate special treats and set out to explore the stations at the North Pole. Mrs. Claus' Kitchen A big thanks to my mom for volunteering in Mrs. Claus' kitchen! She showed the kiddos how to decorate cookies and shared a cup of hot chocolate with them. Winter Wonderland Thanks to Jr.'s mom, Jessie, and Chloe's mom, Alison, the kiddos had a sparkling fun time in winter wonderland! They got their face painted and used fun photo booth props to take silly selfies on the computers. Reindeer Barn At the reindeer barn, Daniel's mom, Laurie, helped the kids make magical reindeer food. They read a poem and followed a recipe to make the reindeer food. Lastly, they made a cute reindeer headband. The Elves' Den Mrs. Zepp and Ms. Rice lead the kiddos in fun games at the Elves' Den. They played Snowflake Toss, Pin the Nose on Rudolph, and Build a Christmas Tree. A big thank you to all of our volunteers who made this experience possible! Also, I want to give a shout out to all of the families who sent in food and supplies for our party- the kiddos loved having a selection of goodies for snack! I love making memories with these sweet kinders.
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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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