Friday News Flash

Additional Music with Mr. Johnson

This year our Kindergartners are lucky enough to get 30 minutes of extra music on Monday's taught by the Estacada High School band director Mr. Johnson. He has done some wonderful activities with the kids that compliments what we are working on in class and has been very fun at the same time! This week he did a fun art activity where students were told to scribble with their eyes closed, but their scribbles had to match the music that he was playing! There were moments of frantic lines all over the paper and then moments of calm circles. It was very fun to watch and the kids really enjoyed it! Here are some of their "masterpieces" that they made :)

Plant Writing

To shore up all the work that we did around plants last week, we worked on a writing piece this week that told readers what plants need. Students were also introduced to a new punctuation mark, the comma! As you will see in the photos below some are still getting the hang of it, but now that they know it they point them out everywhere! This was also a great chance for students to use all their writing skills to teach their readers something. They used their picture, labeling and of course their words to convey their ideas. They have come so far in their writing this year!

Right Brain Creative Dramatics

We are so fortunate to have Miss Flinn back this week and her focus was on role playing the varying jobs in a neighbor. Miss Flinn posted a picture of a community and each child got to pick a part to act out! It was wonderful to see kids using their whole bodies to tell a story. The students loved it and are already asking when Miss Flinn is coming back, which is always a great sign :) Here are some photos of the different roles students were acting out:

Two girls who are a swing set!

Students being a fire truck! Sirens and all!

Science with the High School

This Thursday was our second of three trips over to the high school to explore science concepts with the engineering students. This week the focus was on different pushes and pulls that students do in their everyday lives. Students came up with great ideas like pushing in a chair, pulling open a door, pushing a sibling on the swings and more. Next week we are going to finish up our experiments with the high school students. Here are some photos of students working on drawing their examples of pushes and pulls, experiencing some pushing and pulling and of course controlling a robot by pushing a button!

What a wonderful week it was! Next week we will learn more about ducks as we only have 2 more weeks until our ducks arrive! We will also continue working with teen numbers and move into subtraction. I can't wait!

Smiles,

Miss Adams

Friday Science Flash!

See what I did there? It is true this week was an all around science week! This is one of my favorite times of year as we are just cruising full speed ahead! Between incubating our duck eggs, growing our beans (which are now huge by the way!) to taking a field trip to the High School to learn about motion it was a week filled with science fun!

Duck Eggs

We are officially beginning our journey of hatching baby ducks. We put them in the incubator this week and are waiting in anticipation for the next 3 weeks while they grow. Hopefully next week we can start candling them to see the veins! Along with our anticipation for their hatch we are starting to study ducks and chicks, their needs and of course their life cycle. This week we focused on responsibility of pets and what we might need once our ducks hatch to take care of them. Students came up with the idea of making them a comfortable home with water and food, and of course love because we all need love to grow :) I even caught a few students reading to them so they would already feel loved! I just love these kids so much :)

We have 8 eggs that we are growing!

Garden Project

This week we finished planting in our garden by adding flowers. Students learned about the difference between treated garden beds and natural ones and why we plant vegetables or things we eat in the natural ones. After we planted our flowers we read to them so our plants would feel loved too! There are some fun photos of kids reading to their plants below.

Also this week our bean plants have taken off! This morning they were sprouting slightly but after spending a whole day in the sunshine they really grew! The kids were so excited we had to take our plants to the office to share! We have 3 more days of recording our plants growth which means Wednesday of next week we will send them home with kids for you to plant at home!

Our bean plants are sprouting!!

High School Science Trip

This week we had our first of 3 field trips over to the High School to learn about motion. Kids did experiments around balance, force, speed and much more. It was a wonderful opportunity to engage with older students in our community and I loved giving the High School students the chance to interact with our kiddos. It was a learning experience for everyone which is always the best kind of trip :) We will be headed back there on the next two Thursdays to continue our experiments.

Students trying to balance a scale with varying objects.

Students learning about the effects of making a taller ramp.

Students experimenting with how much force is need to knock over empty bottles versus full bottles!

Well that is all for this week. Cheers to another wonderful week with your amazing children! Enjoy the sunshine!

Smiles,

Miss Adams

Friday News Flash

Can you believe March is over? I can't! But I am also very excited for the next couple months as they are action packed in our class! From hatching chicks, science projects with the high school and growing our garden the next weeks will be full of fun and learning!

Garden Project

This week we finally launched our garden project! First students had the opportunity to weed the garden, which is an important part to helping our plants have the space to grow! Then they got to plant some starts of celery, lettuce, kale and even some herbs! I thought more kids wouldn't want to touch the dirt but everyone was willing to get their hands dirty and help out! Finally students got to plant their very own beans, and boy did they take it seriously. "Miss Adams mines not getting enough sunshine!" or  "Miss Adams I need to water my beans!" They were truly little farmers! Now the fun part begins as we are documenting the progress of our beans every day watching as they grow and change! Here are our bean plants getting some sunshine and a few photos from the garden!

Art Projects

This was a week full of art projects! First to go along with our garden launch we did a project inspired by Eric Carl's 'The Tiny Seed.' We were making a picture of a flower and labeling what elements the flower needed. Students were only given paper and my directions of what they were to make, but they did all the cutting, pasting and drawing themselves. There were many wonderful designs but here are a few examples.

The second art project we did this week was a color mixing project. I gave students circles and they drew the parts to make a bird (wings, tail, beak, eyes). Then students traced their drawings with black marker. Finally we got to the color mixing portion. Students got to mix together the varying combinations of colors to make their own green, orange and purple. I heard many exclamations like "Wow if you keep mixing it makes purple" or "Add more yellow and then it will be more green!" It was so wonderful to see them so excited and they are even more excited to share their pictures with you. I sent home those pictures in their Friday Folders today!

Math: All about Teen Numbers

This week in math we launched teen numbers! Students got to explore the idea of a group of ten and then some more. Students used ten frames to practice counting on (counting to 12 starting at 10 instead of at 1) and they looked at the different ways to make each teen number. Students had fun building their teen towers breaking them into 2 parts and seeing who else in the class broke their towers the same way! It was a great chance for students to build their number sense and look at the different ways to make each number.

Right Brain: Creative Dramatics

Today we had our first lesson with the amazing Mrs. Flinn who worked with kids on controlling and using their bodies in a drama setting. Students acted out parts of a story, practiced their balance and control and even began to learn how to mime! Students had so much fun and loved being able to have creative movement time. I am so excited that we are able to have Mrs. Flinn and I can't wait to see what we do over the next few weeks we have her!

Two students use their bodies to make a tree

Nikki reads them a story about animals balancing in a boat

In a pretend boat on the floor students got to act out the different parts of the animal story we read.

Next week will have many more fun science and art activities as we jump into our next project: hatching eggs! The students already keep asking me when the baby ducks will be here and we haven't even gotten the eggs yet! I think it's safe to say the are as excited as I am!


Smiles,

Miss Adams

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