Friday, September 30, 2016

Metamorphosis

It was great to see all the families come to our Open House last night. Thank you all for participating and taking the time to see what your son or daughter has been working so hard on over these first few weeks of school.



Trash Patrol!  Yup, we did that. Well, some of us took on the task, and we are grateful for these helpers. Thanks Trash Patrol for your hard work, and for keeping our playground clean. Way to go!!! Loyd(our Janitor) will be very happy that you were such great cleaner uppers!

Trash Patrollers...Willis, Ryder, West, Ear and Bodhi.

Today the Four Winds program started. We were lucky to have Ellen (Eli's Mom) and Katherine(Eva's Mom), come in to talk to us about insects and Metamorphosis! What's that? Ask your child about it. Ellen and Katherine did a puppet skit, read us a book about Butterflies, then took us outside to look for some insects.
    
                         Four Winds Skit and the group finding our insect partner by making insect noises.               


Katherine with Ethan, West and Grady finding insects.  

Whole group sharing what they found.

 Today the BBW, aka: Big Bad Wolf, came in to visit! He warned us he would be coming to see if he could blow our houses down. Mostly, he was unsuccessful. He was able to move some of the houses, but not make them fall apart. Nice job Engineers!  After the BBW left, some kids decided to redesign their houses to see if it could hold better. Some found that they needed more "glue" (or in our case, clay) to hold the houses together.


The Big Bad Wolf trying to blow down Engineer Eli's house.


The Big Bad Wolf trying to blow down Engineer McCartney's house. 



Have a great weekend!!

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Open House Tonight!


It's Open House tonight, starting at 5 p.m. We hope that we will get to see you here. The kids are very excited to show you around.

This morning we did a "Baseball" greeting. It was a brief version of baseball of course, but the kids LOVED it. Each child had a chance to be in the center of the circle, Beth pretended to pitch the ball, that child swung their pretend bat, then decided if they hit a 1st base run, 2nd base run, 3rd base run, or Home Run! Which ever pretend run they hit, they counted that number of friends next to them, going around the circle, until they got to the first, second or third or fourth person in the circle.  Then said "good morning." Then it was that persons chance to  swing their pretend bat.




Recess time is always fun. We even bring chalk out to the paved part of the playground to draw with. Very artistic kids we have!

Artist Dahlia and artist Evan, chalking' it up at recess.


We started partner reading in Language Arts today.  Maybe your child would like to partner read with you. 

Azza and Kamden, Eva and Maddie partner reading. 


We are all writers!!!!! Today we began our first writing steps, as Kindergartener's. We are starting by drawing a picture about something we know, something we could maybe teach others about. We think about the things we know, things we want to teach or show others about and started drawing a picture of our idea. Then when we are done with our picture or our idea, we started to write what it was about.






Tomorrow, Friday is our first day of Four Winds. Be prepared to go outside. 

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Royal Readers

We always read a book or a poem when we go to Language Arts. Today we started reading with our Royal Readers! Our Royal Reader gets to go to the front of the room and wear the "Crown" (crown starts with the letter "C" which is one of our new letters this week.) The Royal Reader gets to read, following along with the pointer and have the rest of the class follow along.

Eva and Ryder having their turn to be the Royal Reader.

In math we are adding numerals 6-9.  We played a mystery number game today. Ask your child about the game.
                           



Our class of Engineers worked extremely hard today making their houses. We each had a bag with all the materials you needed to make a house. The Big Bad Wolf came in briefly, to let us know that he was coming to see our houses this week and to find the three little pigs. Our goal is to see if we can make a house that holds up to the Big Bad Wolf and not blow it down.


The Big Bad Wolf visits Kindergarten.

 
         Maddie, Grady and Willis making strong houses! I wonder if the Big Bad Wolf will be able to blow these houses down?

DON'T FORGET THURSDAY (TOMORROW), IS OPEN HOUSE BBQ AT 5 p.m.
We hope to see you here! 






Tuesday, September 27, 2016

I Can Read with My Eyes Shut

Morning meeting started with a hand shake. We each shook hands with our friends sitting on either side of us and said "good morning." Kids really enjoyed this greeting. They also recognize that this is something their parents do with their friends as well. Nice job modeling parents!

We also read I Can Read with My Eyes Shut, by, Dr Seuss book. Kids loved this book, as it rhymes (which we are doing more in Language Arts) and theres' lots to laugh about.  Kids quickly said, "you can't read with your eyes shut!" If you do you will miss out on what is being taught.
             

Language Arts we are practicing writing our names upper case and lower case. This is a very thoughtful task. We are learning how to use our fingers to hold the pencil properly, we have to think about how we shape the letters and how we write the letters within the lines on the paper. We are also reading rhymes and recognizing words that rhyme. 

In math we are working with numbers 1-5. We are looking for different ways to make the sum of 5. For example 2 + 3= 5, 4 + 1= 5 etc. We played a game using our birthday cakes with candles and organized them in order. With a partner one person's eyes are closed the other person flips over one of the birthday cakes and then asks their partner (who's eyes were closed), to figure out which one is missing. We also have been counting different things. For example we counted how many sit spots were on the rug, we also counted the number of words in sentences from our morning meeting chart. 

Chart we used to count words in the sentences. 


After Library and P.E. classes we had free choice time. During this time kids are allowed to have snack. Your child is often hungry at this time of day. We like to see kids bring in an extra snack if they can. Feel free to send your child in with an extra snack and remind them they have it in there bag. We also have lots of activities that the kids choose from. Lots of building, drawing, coloring, painting, reading books and pretend play. 

Willis and Ryan building a house and a helicopter.

  Ryder and Eli reading quietly in the loft. 
    

 Grady and Max playing with animals.


During this time each week, on Tuesday's and Wednesday's, kids will go with our school counselor, Jen Boland, to work with small groups, working on social skills; how to be a good friend and also how we handle our emotions. 





Monday, September 26, 2016

Higgledy piggly bumble bee...

Bundle up! The cooler temps are among us. Don't forget to send your child with layers. It can be chilly during the morning recess, but warmer for afternoon recess.

In math we are continuing to work on sequencing numbers and writing numerals 4 and 5.
Making a unifix cube train.

In Language Arts we are learning the letters C and O, as well as continue to work more with our previous letters. Practice makes perfect!! Before we begin our class, we often start with a stretching activity/song, that gets us prepared for writing our letters. 
"Where do you start your letters? At the top!"

Sometimes we do a Rhyming activity. "Higgledy piggly bumble bee, won't you say your name for me... ?


We read a different version of the Three Little Pigs. Today it was, Where's the Big Bad Wolf? by Eileen Chritelow. On Friday last week, we continued learning about Structure and Function in science class.  We have been practicing building our own houses. We are making our own houses out of different types of materials; blocks, legos, wooden sticks, etc. We will continue to be Engineers and work on making more structures with different materials.

                    Bodhi with her lego structure.                     Many kids working on building
                                                                                         a structure out of wooden sticks.


Computer Lab day!  





Thursday, September 22, 2016

Gunny the pet turtle

Did you know we have a class pet? Gunny the turtle greets us and keeps an eye out for us every day. He eats lots of banana's.
Gunny going in for a swim.


We hope you are enjoying this amazing weather, whenever you can.  Kindergarteners certainly are. Lots of outside time for sure and new friendships are developing.

 Fiona, Willis and Ryan...being monkeys.

Language Arts we read Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See, as a whole class. Again, using picture clues to help us read the words. We are also looking for new letters, Uu and Ii.  In small groups we worked on writing our letters and saying the sounds those letters make. We used wiki sticks to build our letters and we matched letters to pictures.

Reading as a whole class.

 Ryan and Bodhi, working hard to build upper case and lower case Uu.

West waiting patiently for classmates to finish 
making the letter Tt before making the next letter. 

Earl's mohawk helps him make his letters. 


In math we worked on ordering and writing numbers. We cut out birthday cakes that had candles on them from one candle up to 6 candles. Then the kids put them in order. 
Willis and Eva ordering their birthday cakes. 

Stories we read today: The Bearenstain Bears and the Big Road Race
                                                               The Marshmallow Incident






Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Making our own inventions

We are working with letters everywhere! Today during morning meeting we all received a letter and had to match our letter with someone else's letter. Letters we are working with are I, U, T, F, B, N, M.

Beth also read the story My Lucky Day by, Keiko Kasza.  



It was another fabulous day out at recess. Kids are really loving this free exploration time and are working well together or learning how to be good friends.

                                     Balancing                                               Sandbox play


We were Engineers again today! First we read a book Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty. 

A page from Rosie Revere, Engineer. In her attic, she was working hard. 

 This time as Engineers we drew pictures of our beanstalks that we made last week, using our models to draw what they look like. Then we had the chance to draw our own invention. Below are a few kids ideas. 
Earl : "I made a jet."    McCartney: " I made nail polish." 
Max: "A super powered remote control fan."
Molly: "A car that can drive on water."    Ryan: "A machine to explore Mars." 
Maddie: "A Robot by a girl Engineer." Eva: "I made a hellabird."
    



  
WE HAVE OPEN HOUSE NEXT THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29th, AT 5pm.