St. Patrick's Week!

What a week filled with rainbows, leprechauns and fun! As it was St. Patricks week most of our classroom work focused around leprechauns and clovers. Even our math was clover related! Students absolutely loved it and it really helped them get excited for the big event! Here are a few fun projects that we did over the course of this week:

Torn Paper Rainbow

Incorporating art and fine motor practice we made torn paper rainbows. Students had to tear the paper themselves, make sure they glued it in the right spot and try to make as little white show as possible. A harder task than it may sound! It was a wonderful activity requiring them to focus on the task at hand. Here are a few of the finished products:

Wishing Rainbows

In an art and writing activity I had students think of 6 things they would wish for if they were granted these wishes from a leprechaun. Students copied my prompt on their cloud and then worked on their own or with a partner to write out what they would wish for! It was a great reflection activity as well as working on their writing abilities, including sounding out words. They also make our classroom look so cheerful as I hung them at the back of the room!

Leprechaun Guided Drawing

With this week leading up to spring break students had difficulty focusing. Thus we worked on this ability by doing a project that was focused on following directions and focusing on the task at hand. During this guided drawing students had to stay with me as I drew in front of them and follow my directions exactly. This was hard for some students but most of them turned out great! I also gave them some free reign when it came to coloring their drawings after they finished. I am very excited to hang them out on our art wall!

Leprechaun Traps!!

Perhaps the most anticipated and exciting activity of the week was the building of our leprechaun traps! Students had to make a drawing of their plan for their trap first, then once it was approved they could begin their construction. Students were so creative and came up with great ideas of how we could catch those mischievous leprechauns when they come out the night before St. Patrick's Day! After they built their traps they painted them and set them out in the room to try and catch a leprechaun. Unfortunately they didn't catch any but the leprechauns left clues that they were there! They knocked over chairs, took our books off their shelves and left footprints behind! The kids were pretty excited to discover that the leprechauns also left a chocolate coin for them :) FINALLY we were able to also catch those leprechauns on camera. Check out the video below to see what happened! Students watched it at least 4 times over the last 2 days!!

The leprechauns left footprints behind too!

They even knocked over chairs!

They spilled our white boards and markers! They left a note saying better luck next time!

Wow! What a fun week to end on! Please note that I put progress reports in your child's Friday Folder so if you have any questions please let me know! Enjoy your spring break!

Smiles,

Miss Adams

Friday News Flash

Sorry for the short post today but as we are heading into spring break I have done a lot of testing with students this week that took up a lot of our time! The good news is that all of the students have made SO MUCH GROWTH! I am thrilled with the results and I will be sharing some of that data with your in their next Friday Folder, so keep an eye open!

Our biggest project this week was our leprechauns! We have been reading books about leprechauns and we even made our own! Of course any time we do an art project there is usually a writing part and this one was no different. Students got to make up a story about their leprechauns (one wrote about their leprechaun being naughty because they steal gold!) and had a wonderful time getting to be creative with their writing! Here are a few adorable pictures of their leprechauns and some examples of their writing.

My leprechaun is nice. He gives his gold to people. I love my leprechaun!

My leprechaun is nice.

I know this was a very short post but next weeks will make up for it as next week we have the highly anticipated LEPRECHAUN TRAPS! The students can hardly wait to try and catch those leprechauns that come out on St. Patrick's Day :) I will capture all those wonderful moments to share with you next time!

Smiles,

Miss Adams

Read Across America Week

What a fabulous week for student reading! Students really stepped up their game this week. Thanks to all the purple reading tickets you turned in Mr. Hickey dyed his hair pink in front of the whole school, which our kids enjoyed immensely :) Also our class had over 40 reading tickets returned which is over 800 minutes of reading! Thank you for all your help and support making our kiddos great readers! To start us off, here is a picture of our door decorated as Thing 2, Mrs. Gant was Thing 1. Thank you to those parents who helped decorate! Both doors turned out great!

We started our week with a wonderful trip to downtown Portland to see Bad Kitty. The students laughed the whole time. What a fun experience, one that I am sure they will never forget. Although having McDonald's for lunch was also a highlight for many :) Once we got back from our field trip we brainstormed our favorite parts and then did some writing about them. Here are a few examples of students favorite parts:

I like the song "Love Love Angel Kitty" (notice the exclamation!)

This next picture needs a little explanation. In the play Kitty is very naughty and so her and her brother of sorts "Puppy" are sent to obedience school. At this school they meet a bunny who thinks he is a super villain calling himself "Doctor Legomorph." He was a crowd favorite and what the student below chose as his favorite part as well.

I like the rabbit when he said Doctor Legomorph

Wednesday was Dr. Seuss' birthday, so to celebrate we made cat in the hat hats! A fun project that students wanted to wear around everywhere! We also read The Cat in the Hat and students wrote about their favorite part of the book. As we move on in the year students will be doing more and more writing because as I say all the time, the more you practice the better you get! Here is a picture of one students hat, and some examples of their Cat in the Hat writing.

I like when Thing 1 and Thing 2 came

In this next example you will see a repetition of a similar idea, but that is ok. I have been pushing students to have more than one sentence and they are doing it! I am so proud!

the cat came in the house. When the cat is on the ball because it is silly.

I like when the cat balance with the cake on his head. I like it because it was funny.

Finally we ended our celebration of Dr. Seuss by buddy reading with a 3rd grade class. Our class absolutely loved reading to the 3rd graders and listening to them read a story. What a fun way for your kids to practice their reading confidence and fluency. I had many students practice all day so they would be ready for when the 3rd graders came :) 

The countdown to Spring Break has begun but spring has sprung in our classroom. Kids are growing and changing left and right! It is such an honor to be able to see these amazing changes. Until next time...

Smiles,

Miss Adams

We Are 100 Days Smarter!

I cannot believe that we have been in school for 100 days already! What an accomplishment and boy did we celebrate on Wednesday! Dressing up like we were 100 years old was only half the fun as we made crowns, glasses, had 100 snacks and then reflected on what is something we didn't know 100 days ago. I had a blast celebrating all that your children have learned and I think they did too! Here are some fun photos from the day!

We had 10 pieces of 10 different types of snack!

100 days ago I didn't know other people and now I know people!

100 days ago I didn't know how to write my shapes

100 days ago I didn't know how to count to 100!

All in all it was a wonderful hundreds day! While some students thought that they were going to first grade next week, I told them that Kindergarten is over half over! It is crazy how time flies when you are having fun!

The H Brothers

In the homework this week I sent home a story about Theodore, Sherman, Whit and Charles the H brothers. This was the introduction to digraphs which are Th, Sh, Wh and Ch sounds. In class over the next few weeks we will be looking closely at those sounds, using them in our writing and finding words that start with those sounds in our reading groups. If you happen to make a "Sh" sound or "Ch" you can help students connect this to the H brothers which will help them understand these concepts better!

3D Geometry

This week we also jumped into 3D geometry. Students learned that 2D shapes are flat like triangles and squares but when it is 3D it is real life. Students were introduced to sphere, cylinder, cone and cube! You can help students deepen their understanding of 3D shapes by helping them notice shapes in your house, at the store or anywhere! 

Next week we have a busy week with a field trip and read across America! I can't wait for all the fun we will have.

Smiles,

Miss Adams

Friday News Flash!

I hope everyone had a wonderful 3 day weekend. Even though it was a four day week it was still a busy one. The focus of this blog is going to be on one main area because I can't stop bragging to anyone who will listen!

This week your students became official... wait for it... AUTHORS!!!!

We took our writing to a whole new level this week. Students learned about editing their work (with our special purple pens) and then they got to publish their work while using our "Publishers Toolbox." I think students were most excited about getting to finally use markers! 

The theme of our writing was list poems as we have also started our poetry unit, and most students wrote about things they love or like. After drafting their poems students looked for capitalization at the beginning of their sentences, they looked for finger spaces in between their words and then for punctuation at the end of their sentences. Some students circled one or two mistakes in purple and others, as you will see below, went a little crazy with their purple pens! Regardless, I was so pleased to see that they were looking at their own writing and correcting their papers.

Then came the challenging part, re-writing their work with the corrections. This was a long process for some students but they were motivated by getting to use the publishers toolbox when they were finished. I have never seen such beautiful pictures from students! They loved getting to use the different art tools to decorate their papers and pictures. 

Here are a few examples of the writing. The first picture will be the rough draft and the second is the final draft:

 

 

I like my mom and my dad. I like cats.

I like my mom! I like my rainbow! I like bunnies! I like cats!

I hate spiders! I hate snakes! I hate mosquito's! (got a little excited with the purple!)

I hate spiders! I hate snakes! I hate mosquito's! (Then we got excited with the colors!)

Isn't the amount of change amazing?! I get excited every time I look at all the student work.

A short post this week but rest assured next will be longer. The 100th day of school is next Wednesday and I can hardly wait to celebrate all that your students have learned over the last 100 days!

Smiles,

Miss Adams

Friday Valentine's Flash!

Happy Friday! What a fun filled day of valentine activities! 

But first, a few updates from activities we did this week.

How to make a Hexagon

Students this week learned about the different ways they could make a Hexagon, as well as using our geometry vocabulary to explain which shapes they used and how many! There was some frustration but students persevered and helped each other to find all the ways to make a Hexagon. It was wonderful to see students working together and making some deep math discoveries! We will finish up with 2D shapes next week and begin 3D shapes soon as well! Exciting times in math!

Students built their hexagons with our shapes and then took paper versions
of the shapes to glue to show me their ways.

Winter Friend

Last week I told you about our winter friend project where students drew their snowman, practicing their patience, and then got to write about their winter friends. This week we finished our writing by adding details to our stories. For example many students said "My winter friend is nice." So I had them add why their winter friend is nice. They turned out wonderful and make a beautiful addition to our walls!

My winter friend is nice because he has to be.

VALENTINES!!!

All day today we have had valentine activities going on. It all started with valentine math this morning. Students were given a box of sweethearts and they had to count the amount of each color and graph it. Naturally we had to sample a few afterward. Students also looked at how many candies were in each box. One student had 19 in their box while another had 31! It was a very fun activity that was practicing our counting skills and working on our graphing skills as well.

Then we finally passed out valentines. Students were so gracious saying thank you to their peers and delighting over all the treats they got. I gave them time to open and read their valentines and they loved looking at all they received. They also loved making their valentine bags, some even chose to make their bag a minion with one eye! I am sure we will all be sugared out by the end of the day but what a fun day we had celebrating friendships, kindness, and of course love.

 

 

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Smiles,

Miss Adams

Friday News Flash

Winter Friends

As a fun art and writing project your students created a winter friend. We first went through the process of following step by step instructions to draw our snowmen while practicing our patience waiting for the next step! We did a rough draft version to practice our drawings and then a final draft version. Then students had to practice their patience skills again when using sharpie markers to go over their pencil drawing. Finally students were able to watercolor their snowmen but were required to mix watercolors if they wanted a specific color! It was a fabulous project that students thoroughly enjoyed. Here is a final version of a students snowman, I mean winter friend :)

Then we moved on to the writing portion. We brainstormed what traits we like in our friends and what traits we would want our winter friends to have. This is where we came up with ideas for writing stories about our winter friends. Students wrote ideas like "My winter friend is silly" or "My winter friend is kind." The students loved getting to write about their friends, and continuing into next week we will be revising our writing to add more details, such as "My winter friend is silly because he can jump!" Here are a few first drafts of students writing:

My winter friend is small and big!

My winter friend is funny

Geometry

We are off and running with our geometry unit and this week I introduced students to their very own shape books. We are using these books to look at different shapes, their sides, corners and where we see these shapes in our life. Students had so much fun hunting for shapes in our classroom and comparing shapes "Our cubbies are like squares! Well actually they are like rectangles!" Don't be surprised if students start pointing out all sorts of shapes to you! We are on the hunt for shapes everywhere! Here is an example of their math book and a page about circles:

Student Books

This week many students have brought in books that they have made and during choice time have been writing other books! It is the newest trend in our class and students favorite part is getting to share it with the class. At the end of the day I let students read their books to the class and then students give compliments to the author. It has been so adorable seeing students compliment others and support each others work. Even more than that it has been wonderful seeing kids call themselves authors and illustrators! I tell them all the time that all it takes is an idea that you want to share with others and then just drawing it or writing it down. If you notice that your student is working on a project at home, a picture, book etc. encourage them to bring it in to share with classmates! Here is a picture of a book that 2 students wrote together in class:

I can't wait for next weeks post. It will be filled with fun valentine's activities! Cheers to a great week!

Smiles,

Miss Adams