Fun and Learning!

It has taken me a bit to get back into the routine since we have returned from winter break.... at least my routine of posting every Friday afternoon.
I am going to do a Catch-Up through pictures for this post.  First, I will start back in December. 

The class heard and learned a variety of versions of "The Gingerbread Man."  During our exploration with gingerbread men, we read, counted, played, and even tasted gingerbread.  This was such a fun unit!

Yum!

Decorating pretend gingerbread men

emergent Readers on Gingerbread tasting

  
Reading to a partner!

 

 

We want more!

We had our class party right before winter break.  A HUGE thank you to the parents that brought something or sent something in for our class party!

Since getting back from break, we have been studying the story "The Mitten" by Jan Brett.  We have read this quite a few times now.  We have done some retelling of the story.  In the next couple pictures the students are lacing their mitten for retelling the story.  They colored and cut out the characters from the book and then practiced telling the story with their props to a partner.  I always love when literacy and fine motor skills can be brought together.

This last weekend I had the opportunity to attend the California Kindergarten Conference for 2018. #CKC2018  One of the main focuses of the conference was how children learn and have better experiences through hands-on learning moments.  During our center time the class has had many different chances for learning opportunities that most often don't seem  (to the students) like they are learning.... Shhh! Don't tell them my secret! :)

We have been using some fun sensory snow in the classroom.  The kids seem to have a lot of fun with it and the best part is that it wasn't super cold like regular snow, but still has the texture of real snow.

 


 Just in case your children were asking about it, this was the "snow" we used in the classroom.

  

Learning about letters and their sounds by using our AlphaLocks purchased for us by our wonderful PTO!

Playhouse time is always exciting

Little engineers hard at work in the block area.

As we progress through the school year, I get very excited to see the students become readers.  We did some partner reading this week using some of our sight words.  Each student read the emergent sight word reader with a partner and then had to stand up and find a new partner to read with.  The kids got a lot of practice reading and tracking the words with their fingers during this partner time.

 

 

To end this week, we worked with a robot called a Bee-Bot.  The class named him Mr. Bee.  He is a new addition to our classroom that I won at the Kindergarten Conference.  He met the class today and it was very exciting.  Mr. Bee is a robot that teaches young children about the beginning concepts of coding.  We learned how to program Mr. Bee to help retell the story of "The Mitten" that we worked on just last week.  EVERYONE was very excited to push the buttons on Mr. Bee.  Although before we started just pushing buttons, the students talked with a partner about which directions needed to be programmed into the robot.  We used some cards with arrows on them to lay out our plan first.  The class was incredibly happy when we were able to program the bee to where we wanted him to go on the map.  We weren't always successful, but the students were able to see how to change some of the directions to still get our end result.  We will have to see how many more activities I can come up with Mr. Bee in order to have such engagement...even on a Friday afternoon!

Students planning out how to move Mr. Bee

Have a great weekend!

We've Got Spirit How 'bout You?

What a great spirit week we had in honor of Red Ribbon Week!  Monday was Pajama Day, Tuesday was Cool Day, Wednesday was team/sports day, Thursday was Crazy Day, and today (Friday) was school color day. 

Pajama Day!

Cool Day!

Sports Day!

Unfortunately I was unable to get pictures on crazy day and School Spirit Day.  The class seemed to have a great time dressing up and showing their school spirit.

Throughout this week, we also did two experiments on gravity.  In our first experiment, we saw how gravity pulled on two different-sized shoes, Mrs. Crook's shoe and one student shoe.  The shoes had rubber bands tied to them and then hung and we watched the rubber bands stretch.  The class determined that the shoe that had the rubber band stretched by more was heavier and that it was being pulled by gravity more than the lighter-weight shoe.

Our Observation Page

Our other gravity experiment, involved some painting.  the students held up papers as they painted and watched the paint drip down the page.  The class decided that the paint was falling because of gravity!  This was so much fun for the students to see gravity in action.

Watch it fall!

One of our main focuses in class during these first couple months of school has been recognizing and naming our capital letters.  (We have also been working on recognizing numbers 0 - 20.)  We have been doing a lot of hands-on activities to build letters, say letters, and find letters.  Take a peek at how much fun learning our letters can be!

 

These little busy bees are very hard workers and love to learn so much. 

Important Information

As of this week, there is needing to be a change at the Kindergarten gate.  For the morning drop-off, you will need to drop your student off by using the main gate in front of the office.  Students who are going to the cafeteria for breakfast will enter in through the main gate.  Also, students who are being dropped off in Ms. Brown's room or Mrs. Torres' room will need to go through the main gate.  Parents are still allowed to walk their students onto campus, but will need to be off of campus by 8:00, or will need to get a visitor's badge from the office.  The kindergarten team is also asking that you exit in the mornings through the main gate.  

PICK-UP: This will be the same as it has been and parents are to pick up their child at the gate.  Please form a line going back towards the main part of the school as this helps things go smoother for families and students.

Thank you so much for your understanding in this matter.  This is being done for the concern of student safety.  Your cooperation is appreciated!

Upcoming Events:

Our class Halloween party will be on Tuesday, Oct. 31st and will go from 10am - 11am.  If you haven't already, please sign-up on class tag to help bring an item for our class party.

Oct. 31st is a minimum day and students will be dismissed at 12:20pm.

Oct. 31st - School-wide parade on the blacktop.  Parents are welcome to watch and take pictures.  Please do not post any pictures online if it is not your own child.  Parents please do not come in costume, as this is a safety concern for the students and staff.

Have a great weekend!