Apple Tasting and Shared Research

This week was all about apples. From apple crafts to apple tasting and apple research, we did it all! Check out all the details and pictures below:

Apple Tasting

This week students were able to test different apples to share their opinions. I took the skin off of a red, yellow and green apple and gave out samples to students. Without knowing what color it was they shared their thoughts about the smell, taste and texture of the apples. Some were able to figure out the color of the apple based on the taste, but not everyone! Collectively everyone in our class liked the red apple the best, with yellow being the second most popular, and the granny smith being the least favorite! One of the students favorite parts was seeing the seeds and the star inside the apple. From here we discussed the parts of the apple that we could see (the stem, seeds and of course the skin). 

This is where we graphed whether students liked apple 1, 2 and 3.

These are some of the samples of apples that students tried.

This was the star we found when we cut open the apple!

Shared Research

This week was full of exploring apples, sharing what students already knew about apples and of course learning new facts about apples. Part of this was doing shared research. After I explained the activity students worked with a partner, with one notecard to share to come up with something they had learned about apples and draw it out to share with the class. The collaboration that I saw was phenomenal and I loved seeing students sharing their ideas and learning from each other. It was such a great moment!

Two students start drawing their ideas on their notecard.

Two students work together to draw the star inside the apple.

A student helps their partner with their picture.

Two boys help each other color their picture.

Estacada High School Parade

To end our week our class got to watch the Estacada high schoolers and many community members walk in the homecoming parade. It was fun because two of our high school helpers were in the homecoming court and the students loved getting to see them in the parade! They were a little disappointed that they didn't throw candy, but I think when the horses came by and pooped in the middle of the street it made up for it! 

I am loving every minute we get to spend together as a class. I love seeing the relationships that we are making as a class and how much progress we have made in just 3 weeks in Kindergarten! Cheers to the next week ahead!

Smiles,

Miss Adams

Welcome to the Blog!

Hello Everyone,

First I wanted to say thank you for popping by to read our classroom blog. Life can go by so fast that I wanted to provide you with just a brief summary of somethings we are doing and learning at school. If you have any questions or comments feel free to email me or send me a note. I want to make this for you! So I am always welcome to feedback :)

Fine Motor Work

One area that I try to work on a lot at the beginning of the year is strengthening students fingers! We draw and write every single day so our fingers need to build up stamina too! This week students got to use Theraputty which is sort of like silly putty except, it is very difficult to stretch, thus strengthening your fingers as you play with it! Win win! At home you can help by supporting your child's pencil grip and having them do any type of tracing, connecting the dots, lacing or beading. You will see some more fine motor pictures of beading and weaving in the next section.

Centers Expectations

This week was all about practicing our centers time. This is basically station work where students are assigned a table and have a few quiet activities they can choose from while I pull small groups of students to read/write with them. Students got to explore our classroom library, beading and weaving, as well as whiteboards and playing learning games on iPads. We have been practicing the 3 rules of centers: using a whisper voice, working the whole time, and putting things back how you found them. They have really been doing a great job! This week we will be making the centers a little bit longer as we build our stamina!

Classroom Agreements

Now that we are 12 days into Kindergarten we were able to have a discussion about things students want to learn in Kindergarten and what we have to do as a class to help each other learn those things. The picture of our poster below shows 3 rules or agreements that the students helped come up with as well as some pictures with those rules. The pictures help them to have a visual of what each of those rules look like in our class. There are some empty boxes because we are going to keep adding pictures as we experience more things in class this week! 

Thank you so much for checking out our blog! Stay tuned next week for photos from our Jog-a-thon, our first time at Playworks and more!

Smiles,

Miss Adams