The other day it was so nice outside we just couldn't handle being inside! The class decided to take advantage of the good weather & spend Reader's Workshop outside in front of the school. We even got to bring our rest blankets out to sit on! The kiddos have been working hard on being "Reading Super Heroes!" We know now that the picture is our "sidekick" & can help us figure out what's happening in the story even if we can't read all of the words just yet. We also found out that our reading finger is our special "Pointer Power!" It can help us keep track of our reading & make sure the amount of words we say matches the amount of words on the page. It can even help us pay attention to the amount of syllables that are in a specific word or how sometimes our brain might try to trick us when we only read the beginning letter/sound of a word. We now know that we have to pay attention to ALL of the letters/sounds in a word. Phew! Reading is hard work but lots of FUN!
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We started our new writing unit in Writer's Workshop & we are loving it! We are learning how to write like scientists and it's hard work! We found out that scientists really, REALLY study & observe the world around them. They don't just glance at an object. They INVESTIGATE! We ventured around the school & observed what was happening in nature around us. Lots of interesting items were found along the way.
Can you tell we have fun in Kindergarten?!?! We spent the first day of fall (last week) reading We're Going On A Leaf Hunt & then going on our very own leaf hunt. We paraded around the outside of the school & to our surprise found lots of changing leaves! We weren't sure if we would find any. We collected all different types of leaves in our very own bags & then came inside to talk about them. We discussed how we could describe them using our adjective words & we even talked about describing the leaves using our 5 senses! This crew of kiddos rocks!
Kindergarten has been learning all about apples! We've studied, observed, investigated, & even ate a variety of apples in class! On Fridays we play a fun sight word/trivia game that I created a few years ago. We like to call it "Erase My _____" game. We form two teams & then each team takes turns answering a question about sight words/math/science/reading/etc. If they answer the question correctly then they get to shoot the "basketball" into the hoop a.k.a. a clean trash can ;) The kiddos then get to erase 1 item on the board.. 2 if they get the ball in the basket! We had to include apples in our apple tree for this one! I then let each group decide on what animal/object they'd like to have drawn by the teachers. The girls chose a kitten wearing a Johnny Appleseed hat & the boys chose a shark wearing a Johnny Appleseed hat! The first to erase the whole picture wins! I love these two photos of the girls and boys huddling up to decide what animal their team wants to be!
The other morning we had two special visitors in our classroom! These two visitors might look familiar to some of you if you've been a part of this school for the past few years. Noah and his mother, Amelia Fox, came to talk to my class about Heart for Africa & how important it is to help others in this world. Noah was in my Kindergarten class last year & we learned all about Heart for Africa & Project Canaan. We did so many amazing things with his mom last year & I wanted my class to be able to experience it this year as well! Amelia Fox was kind enough to come in & speak to our class this year about her experiences with Project Canaan & Heart For Africa.
Our class learned where Project Canaan was located & even got to see some photos of the school/community & the kiddos that live there! The class thought that was SUPER cool! We even found out that we are going to be special pen pals with their Kindergarten class this year! We made beautiful drawings & cards to send over to the school in Swaziland. Inside the cards we included an All About Me sheet that we filled out with fun facts about ourselves. We even included a blank All About Me sheet for their class to fill out & return. We can't wait to read all about them! Janine Maxwell & her husband started Heart for Africa back in 2006. You can read about them & the other amazing people contributing their time & talents here! For more information about Project Canaan or Swaziland click here! The class has been learning all about what it means to collect a GREAT seed. Some of us have even gotten the chance to walk with me to the infamous teacher's lounge & make a copy of our great seeds! This was a HUGE deal for the kiddos. Afterwards, I hung the great seeds on my "Sprouting Seeds" wall. We love to make anchor charts in Kindergarten. These charts help remind us what is expected of our work! Check out all of these happy faces!!
Wednesday, August 26th was National Dog Day. If you know anything about myself & Mrs. McKenzie it's that we LOVE to celebrate! We love all holidays, birthdays, & any excuse to have a celebration! Mrs. McKenzie had the great idea to celebrate all dogs for National Dog Day. We specifically wanted to celebrate rescue pups. One of our favorite visitors in Kindergarten just so happens to be Biscuit the therapy dog who is owned by a retired teacher by the name of Gail Goldberg. The kids LOVE Biscuit & we can't wait to visit with her and Gail several times this year. Unfortunately, Gail was on vacation in Seattle so we improvised!
The kids got to do all things 'pup' on this day! They made dog hats, dog puppets, & even had their very own dog "kibble"! They LOVED it! We love to write in Kindergarten. We have been learning all about proper pencil grip and how to always begin from the top (the sky) and bring our letters down to the bottom (the ground). Sometimes our letters even go into the water(g, p, q, j, y)! We love doing our morning Buzz Books where we get to become editors and fix mistakes in our messages. Writer's Workshop has also been fun! We've been getting inspiration from our photos that we brought in from home. We talked about where inspiration comes from & how to use our ideas to write great stories! We are all about building confidence in Kindergarten and helping others when they are stuck. Today we learned all about what it means to label our stories and why it is SO important. I love all of the details that Carolina included in her drawing! We learned the importance of labeling things in our story today. When I conferenced with Carolina she was telling me all about her drawing and how she drew herself in the photo. I asked her how we could show our readers that that was us in our story. She mentioned that she could write her name next to her portrait. What a great idea! This is especially important if we are dressed in a Halloween costume & we don't look like we normally would! ;) We have been hard at work in Kindergarten. The class went on a scavenger hunt a few days ago. It wasn't just any ordinary scavenger hunt. It was a hunt for the missing alphabet! We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom & then we went on a hunt for all of the lowercase letters that somehow got stuck all over my classroom ;) The kids loved it. They got to carry around an official clipboard and color in the correct lowercase letter when they found it. We were very confused by some of the letters. The class mentioned that for some reason I had put 2 lowercase i's in the room & they just couldn't seem to find the lowercase k! We discussed why some of the letters looked "funny" to us. We use D'Nealian style handwriting in Kindergarten in preparation for cursive writing in the upper grades. We talked about how the lowercase k kind of looked like an r and that was just silly to us!
After our hunt we put the alphabet back together the way it was meant to be. We even learned about vowels and consonants! |
AuthorKindergarten teacher to 12 incredible students. I love photography, traveling, coffee, & board games. Archives
February 2016
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