A Visit from the Dental Hygienist

 Students were treated to a special visitor (K's Mimi- Caroline) who happens to be a dental hygienist. She came prepared to teach about the importance of dental health. Students were told that an apple after eating is beneficial in removing plaque build up and keeping teeth healthy.

K was her patient and enjoyed watching her Mimi teach the lesson. Thanks so much for presenting the class with this lifelong skill.

Reading Playdates - An Avid Reader Activity

 Children were invited to have a reading playdate today.  They were told that avid readers have conversations about the books they read, tell why they liked the books and recommend books to their friends. Today they were invited to have a "Reading Playdate" with their friend. We talked about how we can make our reading playdate fun and exciting, just like a regular play date.  Students acted out their books, read aloud, guessed feelings, and even played school with their books.

 These two avid readers are playing school with their books.

Going on a hunt together and finding snap words are what these two  decided to do on their playdate.

"Guess what comes next" is a fun activity to play with a book.  The reading playdate went very well and they can't wait till next week when they they will meet again with new activities to try.

Day and Night Sky - What do you notice?

 We were very fortunate to have Mrs. Ruark teach a Science lesson to our class on Wednesday.  She started the lesson by having students observe two different water bottles made to represent the day and night sky. One was light blue with white pom poms for clouds and the other was dark (Karo) and glitter to represent the night sky.

The day sky and the night sky representations.

 Students were given pictures to sort in a Day and Night Venn Diagram.

Many observations were noted and made clearer by Mrs. Ruark's superb science lesson!

Students were very proud of their work and can answer the essential question, "How are the day sky and the night sky different?"

How Do Animals Move?

In Science, Kindergarten students are learning about how things move with the focus on animals. One of the first lessons was having children act out (charade style) what animal they are imitating. Next, they watched video clips of how animals move in their environment.  Working collaboratively in their groups, students sorted animal pictures. Some focused on fast/slow, while other focused on the way animals move - slither, crawl, fly or swim.

Students are presenting to the class.

Number Bonds...the big picture

 Number Bonds help children make visual number relationships and promote the building of addition and subtraction fact families. Today students were invited to be part of the hula hoop model number bond 3+2.

After 3 students were in one part of the number bond and 2 in the other, they were invited to be grouped altogether and visually see what the answer is ... "5".

To be able to see what it means to add objects together (part-part-whole) brings math to a whole new level for Kindergarten students.

Writers Working on Partnerships

 With magic pencils in hand, Kindergarten students are learning how to share and edit their writing with a partner. After reading their stories to each other, they listen to make sure their writing makes sense. Students work together and decide where to add capital letters and punctuation. Partner writing adds a new dimension to our Writer's Workshop and has turned into a class favorite!

100 Days Smarter and Kinder in Kindergarten

One of our favorite 100 day projects is to collect 100 cans and donate them to the local food bank. We managed to collect 116 - so that was even better! The children loved counting and tallying the cans that were brought in everyday.

The classroom was a magic place with 100 balloons scattered about. 

 Making a 100-day snack is a fun way to count and group into 10's.

We topped off the day with 100 day cupcakes!! The children had a memorable day being 100 days smarter and kinder in kindergarten!!