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!!

Hot Chocolate Smiles

 Students were treated to Starbucks hot chocolate as a holiday treat. Matt asked each child how he/she preferred their drink...with peppermint or with whip cream?  Lots of smiles with some yummy hot chocolate!!

 Thanks from all of us for the special holiday drink for our class!!

Celebrating Reading With First Grade

First grade celebrated one of their reading milestones with our class this week. Each first grader paired up with one of our kindergarten students and read a book to them.  It was great for all of these young readers to share books with each other and make new friends in the process.

Better Not Pout -- Keeping Behavior in Check

 It's that time of year when the kids are so excited that "you know who" is coming to town! A way we keep them in check is our "Better Not Pout" bags.  Each day that they have good behavior, they get small treat in their bag:  a pencil, eraser, candy, book, or small toy.  This works like a charm and they check every day to make sure their bags are getting fatter and fatter.

Book of the Month: "Gingerbread for Liberty"

Today we read a great book based on a true story called "Gingerbread for Liberty" by Mara Rockliff. This story is based on the life of Christopher Ludwick a German baker who just loved his new country "America." You might think it was a lot for Kindergarten students to understand but they followed the story intently. They loved the part of how he saved all the broken pieces for the hungry children around his shop and how he fed the hungry soldiers. It was a wonderful piece of forgotten history that we all enjoyed reading. To celebrate the book, students enjoyed mini gingerbread men and it all of a sudden turned into their favorite book!!

Thanksgiving Day: What are we thankful for?

As is the tradition, the last day before Thanksgiving break we love to ask the children what they are thankful for. It gives them time to reflect on their young lives and say what is the most important to them: mom, dad, grandparents, brothers, sisters and school. The children drew and water colored their turkeys, cut them out and glued them on their Thanksgiving placements. They will be laminated as a keepsake for future Thanksgivings. Happy Thanksgiving -- Love - the Mall-ard class!!

Pow Wow: Beginning, Middle and End

 Family Make and Take Night - Making our igloos and Inuit village.

 Homework  - Create your own Inuit representative.

 Getting dressed for the big day.

 Final touches for Pow Wow.

We are ready to go and join in the 18th Annual Chets Creek Pow Wow - what a wonderful day!!!

Inuit Representatives - Making our Own

 After learning about the Inuits clothing, students were invited to make their own representative person. They know the weather is very cold in the winter and they need to dress it accordingly. They had time in class to talk about how they made it and what materials they used. They are learning a lot about our neighbors to the north.

 These are now on display outside our classroom.

Pow Wow Preparation - Kindergarten 2015

 The biggest event of the Kindergarten year is happening this week.  We are preparing for Chets Creeks 18th annual Pow Wow. It is a time when kindergarten students learn about the original people, also known as Native Americans. This year we are the Inuit tribe. Our class has the igloo representation hanging outside our class. On Friday, students and their families will be celebrating all of their learning in a culminating Pow Wow. Also joining in the celebration will be representatives from the Lenape, Iroquois, Sioux, Nez Perce and Seminole tribes. We are so grateful to have this opportunity to share what we have learned about the first Americans.

Pattern Books: Reading and Writing

During the past few weeks, we have been learning about pattern books which includes different types of formats, for instance,  question/answer, counting and opposite books. These are the books that most of the children are reading at this time. This week, the students were invited to pick a few books from their book bins and sort them.  They read the first few pages and the class would give their opinion on what kind of pattern book it was. Afterwards, students were encouraged to write a new type of pattern book that interested or inspired them.

Pattern Books - Planning, Writing, Editing

For the past few weeks, we have been learning and writing about pattern books. Pattern books are books that focuses on a topic and it can tell different things about that topic. It can be fiction or nonfiction. They range from just labeling a picture to writing stories with a common refrain. Today's lesson was about revision. Students were invited to get one of their favorite books from their folder and see what they can add to it and/or fix it up.  The big surprise was that they were allowed to use a red pen to do the additions or deletions. The results were amazing - just see what a little red pen can do to add more to a piece.

This pattern book is about butterflies.  Before the red pen the sentence was "Butterflies have colorful wings."  After the red pen, a sentence was added, "They have two wings."

"Butterflies have babies." "They have two babies." "Butterflies have eyes." "They have two eyes."

"I love butterflies."

Literary Character Parade 2015

 Every year our Kindergarten and First Grade students have a wonderful time getting dressed as one of their favorite literary characters. They parade the halls of the school and show off their book and costume. After the parade, the children enjoy arts and crafts centers. At night, the students come back to school in their outfits and trick-or-treat through the same halls. Finally, they enjoy the Fall Carnival to cap off a great day of memories.

Crazy Pumpkins in October

Fall is upon us and it is crazy pumpkin time. Students loved making these "out of the ordinary" pumpkins and they are now growing in our classroom pumpkin patch.

Five Senses - The Sense of Smell

 
In Science, we are discovering how keen our sense of smell is. Students were given cups numbered from 1to 4. Inside each cup was vinegar, vanilla, coffee, and lemons. Children used their sense of smell in order to predict what was in each cup and then drew their predictions in their journals.

In this pictures, K was trying to determine if it was a sweet smell or sour smell.

 Student predictions were sketched into their Science journals.





Children discovered that the sweet things were generally things that they liked.

 It wasn't as easy as it looked. Students had conversations and rethought some of their responses. Some were convinced that they knew what was in the cup, until the foil was removed and they saw what they were smelling.

Math Bingo - Number Recognition

We have another great way to make Friday - Fun Day and that is to change it up with Math Bingo. In this game the children get to practice number recognition from zero to twenty. We have noticed that they had some difficulty with the teen numbers and thought this would be a way to make reinforce understanding of those numbers.  It works every time!  BINGO anyone?