Mrs. Crook's Classroom: Outside the Classroom Community

It seems this week that the class has spent a lot of our learning time outside thanks to the wonderful sunny California weather we are having in the beginning of the 2018 year.
Last week, we harvested carrots from our school garden. On Monday, the class was able to enjoy a taste-testing session using the harvested Rainbow carrots. We discussed our 5 senses and tried an orange carrot, a purple carrot, a yellow carrot, and a white carrot. It was very interesting to taste the different colors because they each had their own flavor. The orange carrots were incredibly sweet, as opposed to the white carrots that tasted bitter. By the way, I learned this week that orange carrots were not the original ones, but that they were cross-bred with the yellow and red carrots in order to create the orange carrots that we purchase in the store today. Some of the expressions on the kids might tell you which carrot was being eaten as I took the pictures.

Carrots from top to bottom: Yellow, Orange, White, and Purple (which actually is orange underneath the purple skin)

We created a class graph to show our favorite colored carrots based on the flavor.... Orange is definitely the winner on this one!

In our new Jobs and Choices time we have been doing a lot of exploring and discovering. This week we looked at shells, made shapes on the geoboards, and put our engineering skills to the test with the Notch'ems.

On Wednesday of this week, we went back to the carrots. This time we tasted carrots inside of carrot cake muffins. We shared these with the fourth graders who helped us harvest and wash all of the carrots. Each kindergarten student was partnered up with a fourth grade student who helped them put their own frosting onto their cupcake. Then of course.... we ate our cupcakes in the beautiful sunshine!

Friday was extremely busy. Between our regular Friday things like library and ice cream day at lunch, and the extra things like a school assembly and Groundhog's Day, we were constantly going up until the very end of the day.

The character trait for the month of February is Trustworthy. All 4 kindergarten classes were the ones to introduce the trait to the whole school. We sang a fun little song that Ms. Brown and I wrote together. It goes to the tune of "B-I-N-G-O." Encourage your child to sing this song to you and talk about how they can be trustworthy at home and at school.

T-R-U-S-T

To the tune of "BINGO"

There is a girl who tells the truth

when teachers ask her questions

T-R-U-S-T

Her answers are so truthful.

There is a boy who tells the truth

to all his friends and neighbors

T-R-U-S-T

And everyone believes him.

We also had two students in our class receive certificates for being responsible, which was our character trait for the month of January. Congratulations! Keep up the great work!

Groundhog's Day 2018 Report --- Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow. That means 6 more weeks of winter! The class was very excited to watch Phil come out of his little burrow and then we made some hats to celebrate the day.

To end the day, we enjoyed some more of that wonderful sunshine and found our own shadows. We talked about how when we change direction that our shadow has a different location, depending on where we are in relation to the sun. The class also had the chance to trace each others shadows and it was a great way to end the week.