All ready for Winter Break!

These last two weeks before winter break were so packed full of goodness! From assemblies to crafts and of course many winter themed stories, we ended our last weeks of 2018 together with a bang!

Stick Man

A truly sweet holiday book is Stick Man by Julia Donaldson, the same author as Room on the Broom. After reading the story to the class we went outside to collect sticks and leaves (if the students wanted to use leaves) and then brought them back in to create our own "stick man." They turned out so cute!



 

The day after we made our stick people art, we had some popcorn and watched the movie version of Stickman on Netflix. The kids loved it, and it was so fun to watch for things that were the same or different between the book and movie!

Paper Penguins

Another one of my favorite holiday stories is Little Penguin gets the Hiccups. After we read the story, and helped scare the hiccups out of the penguin, we started making our own paper penguins. We started by watercoloring the background of the paper. Then we started making the bodies, the icebergs, arms, beaks, eyes and finally the winter gear. The kids spent so much time on the penguin hats and scarves! They turned out so great!

 

 

Finger Painted Snowflakes

Who doesn't love painting with their fingers? The kids were so excited to be able to do this again. I gave them a plate with a light blue, and dark blue and white paint and students had to cover the entire paper with paint, however they wanted! They then picked out which snowflake silhouette they wanted and I glued them together to create the final pieces of art.

 Winter Music Assembly and Gift Wrapping

Another part of our preparation for winter break is having the High School band and choir come to our school and perform classic winter songs. It was a lot of fun and kids were very excited thinking about the fact that they have options to sing or play an instrument as they get bigger.

The high school band (on the left) and members of the choir (right) perform for our students.

Later we finished up our Christmas gifts for you and the kids got to help wrap them. They were so excited to give them to you and I hope you enjoy what they made!

I hope you all have a wonderful winter break and get to spend some quality time with your families! Enjoy the time together and I will see all your children on Wednesday January 2nd, 2019!

Smiles,

Miss Adams

Ready for Thanksgiving

Hello Parents,

Wow this was such a fun week getting ready for Thanksgiving. There are so many projects that we did and fun reflection activities which of course means tons of pictures in this post, so enjoy!

Finger Painted Leaves

The kids have been begging me to do some more finger painting so I figured with the beautiful fall leaves outside our window as inspiration, we would do some color mixing finger painting to make a leaf masterpiece. Students got to pick which leaf they wanted for me to glue on the top and students got to pain the white paper that became the background color of the leaf. I gave students yellow red and brown paint and let them mix it how they wanted to make the perfect leaf color! I was so impressed with how seriously students took this project and how hard they worked to make the perfect leaf color. They were color mixing magicians and their leaves turned out beautifully!

Thankful Turkeys

One of my favorite November activities is coming up with some ideas of things that we are thankful for. We read some wonderful thankful books to get our ideas going and then as a class we came up with a list of things that students shared they were thankful for.

After we made the list students were able to make their turkeys with one thing they are thankful for on each feather. They turned out so cute and I was so impressed by how thoughtful the kids were with what they included on their feathers.

Pattern Block Turkeys

A fun activity that incorporates math and turkeys was our pattern block turkeys. I taped a turkey picture to the tables and students had to arrange pattern blocks to be the turkeys feathers. Once they were done they filled out a recording sheet to figure out how many of each shape they used. We also talked about symmetry and what it would look like for the feathers to be symmetrical on the turkey.

Turkey Drawings

Finally our week wouldn't be complete without a directed drawing of a Turkey. Step by step we dew out our turkeys and I let students color them however they wanted! They turned out so great and decorate our walls of our classroom beautifully!

Thank you all for coming to parent teacher conferences. I loved getting to speak with each of you about your children. I love getting to spend every day with them! Only 3 weeks left until winter break. Lets make it awesome!

Smiles,

Miss Adams

Halloween Week!

Hello Parents,

We had a fun and busy Halloween week! On Halloween time was spent experimenting with pumpkins, painting our Frankenstein drawings and watching room on the broom. Students also did some trick or treat writing and we have started working on comparing numbers to figure out which is greater or less!

Pumpkin Experiment 

To start out our day we got to take a closer look at pumpkins. Students worked with a partner to count the lines on their pumpkin, measure the height of their pumpkin, draw their pumpkin and predict whether their pumpkin would float or sink. After every group finished their predictions we went outside to test out our pumpkins to see whether they sank to the bottom or floated at the top! Many students thought that the big pumpkin we tested would sink, and they were blown away when it stayed at the top of the water! After testing our pumpkins in water, we went back inside, cut open one of our pumpkins and together counted the seeds! We cut one of the smaller pumpkins but we still found out that there were roughly 360 seeds inside! Here are a few pictures from our experimenting!

A student looks at the pumpkin floating!

Students put pumpkin seeds in a ten frame to count them.

All of our pumpkin seeds in ten frames.

The Monsters Monster

The day before Halloween I read students one of my favorite Halloween books called the Monsters Monster by Patrick McDonnell. From there we were able to draw our own Frankenstein monsters! Then on Halloween we took the tine to watercolor them! The students did a great job and they turned out so creative and colorful!

Room on the Broom

Another wonderful Halloween book is Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson. I love this story because while it has Halloween themes it also has a great message about making room for others and including everyone. Netflix has a wonderful version of this book as a movie so during our Halloween party we watched the movie version while we had our Halloween snacks. It was a wonderful end of our day of celebration!

Watching Room on the Broom!

Cleaning our Classroom

About once every two weeks we have what I call “cleaning dance parties.” Basically I turn on kids music, give everyone a rag and we clean anything and everything in our classroom! The kids love it and I love getting to watch them clean and dance at the same time! I also love that they are gaining ownership of our classroom and discovering that we all have to help out to keep our classroom clean and ready for us to learn! 

Students clean our scissors and markers.

A student cleans off our whiteboards.

I can’t believe we are going into our last 5 day week before conferences! 

Cheers to the week ahead,

Miss Adams

Pumpkin Research and Free Art

These last two weeks we have been really getting into our groove. We hit 35 days that we have been in school today and it is showing. Students are becoming very independent, are helping one another and are really taking pride in our classroom :) This week we finished up our research on pumpkins and are excited to do our pumpkin experiment on Halloween next week!

Pumpkin Research

This week we worked with partners on our pumpkin research. Students picked their partner that they wanted to work with and researched pumpkins using books. They had to work with their partner to decide what they wanted to draw about pumpkins and then on one piece of paper they together created a picture. We are still ironing out the kinks but overall it went pretty well. The students favorite part was getting to share their work with the class. Then after we had each group share we connected our ideas with ideas previously shared which the students loved helping me with. I often heard "well this connects to... so lets connect our card to theirs!" 

A student colors their pumpkin orange.

A student labels their picture with their partner.

Our finished chart with all the pieces that connect!

Free Art Time

This past wednesday we had a special treat when I introduced the class to free art time. During one of our stations students truly got to create whatever they wanted with almost any art form. I put out coloring sheets, blank paper, lined paper, scissors, glue, watercolors, markers and more for students to just have fun and create something wonderful! They loved getting to be in charge and decide for themselves what they wanted to create. I really enjoyed watching them be so creative and take ownership over the art they were creating.

Leaf Hunt

Another activity I love doing in the fall is going on a leaf hunt! We looked for different sizes and shapes of leaves as well as using our senses on our walk. The kids really enjoyed it and have bringing me leaves all week to show me cool ones they found! 

I promise I will take lots of pictures on Halloween and for our pumpkin experiment. Cheers to a wonderful week ahead!

Best,

Miss Adams

Centers, Pumpkins and Bats

This week we have been diving more deeply into our Pumpkin unit, getting to explore some new and exciting centers and did some fun new art projects! Check out all the details below:

Centers

As we move into the middle of October students are beginning to work almost entirely independently at their centers for both math and reading. During this time students work on quiet activities while I meet and read with small groups of students. One of those centers is "write the room" where students take their recording sheet around the room to different task cards posted on the walls and write down the word or number on their recording sheet. I have been so impressed with how quiet students are while doing this and how much they enjoy it as well! Another center is doing a quiet task like a writing sheet or stamping. The students love getting to use the stamps! On Wednesday's we have special iPad time that is designated for science. This week students got to explore kid friendly videos about pumpkins! There were videos about turning large pumpkins into boats, how to carve pumpkins and of course how pumpkins grow. The videos were a huge hit and I had students ask if they could watch them again!

A student counts out colored counters during math centers.

A student completes the write the room.

A student completes a stamping center.

A student watches a video about pumpkin boats!

Bat Directed Drawing

At least every other week we try to do a directed drawing in class where I take students step by step to draw a picture. This week we did a bat directed drawing. We start by going through all the steps in pencil. Then this week I introduced sharpies as a way to outline our pictures so we can see them better after we have colored them. Finally after outlining the pictures students were able to use oil pastels to color in their bats and watercolors to paint the background. We learned a great lesson about what happens when we use too much water in our watercolors as many students had part of their pictures tear! But I also learned that we should probably use a thicker paper when we do watercolors next time :) They still turned out great and the students had a great time making them!

A student traces their bat drawing.

A student traces their bat drawing.

A finished bat drawing.

A finished bat drawing.

A finished bat drawing.

A finished bat drawing.

We are in the countdown to Halloween. I can't believe we are almost 30 days into Kindergarten already but I am loving every minute with your wonderful kiddos!

Smiles,

Miss Adams