Finishing up our Arctic Animals Research

Wow! I cannot believe how fast January is flying by! These last two weeks we have been finishing up our arctic animal units. This week was all about making and assembling the posters and books! I was so blown away by the work your children put into these projects!We were supposed to present them as well but we had so many kids absent that I decided to wait until this coming week to have them present to the class.

Creating their projects

When we last left off on the blog, see last post if you haven't, students had finished up their research about their arctic animals and were ready to start their final projects about their animal. Some groups chose to make a poster, while some groups chose to make a book. Either way I drew out a rubric of all the pieces that their project had to include. I drew out the rubric on the board and also printed out a version for kids to use like a checklist! That is when students set off to work! Some kids drew pictures, some wrote, some labeled but everyone chipped in to help their groups. I was so blown away by the work they did. 

The rubric that I drew on the board!

The orca group working on their poster.

The polar bear groups completed poster.

The front covers of the books from 3 groups!

Informative Writing

Once we finished their projects we were able to move on and have students write out their own informational writing page about their animal. I kid you not each student wrote anywhere from 3-5 sentences! It was amazing! They helped each other with sight words and I helped with the spelling. It was wonderful to see! Here is a students finished writing:

Arctic Animal Drawings

Finally to end our week of arctic animals we did a directed drawing of each of our animals. Then students colored them with colored pencils and water colored the background. They did such a great job!

A students drawing of a polar bear.

This next week I will have more pictures of how their work is hanging up and I will also have pictures of them presenting their work to each other! It is going to be so much fun!

Cheers,

Miss Adams

Arctic Animals Shared Research

This first full week back we launched our shared research project about Arctic Animals. The kids are having a great time and I am loving watching them learn from each other and teach each other! We also had some fun with a cardboard box during choice time this week! Love giving the kids opportunities to create their own fun and construct their own learning!

Arctic Animals Research

To start out arctic animals research I started by sharing with students a story of my neighbors dog who lives outside year round. I told them that seeing her outside in the cold made me think of other animals that live where it is snowy and cold all the time. Students then helped me come up with many animals that live where it's cold (a few said Santa so we drew Santa with his reindeer!) From there I made posters of 6 different animals for students to pick which animal they wanted to learn more about. Once they picked their groups they started sharing what they already knew about those animals and used books and videos to record new facts about their animal. Then we shared one or two facts they had learned with the class! It was so great to see students working together in their groups and being so eager to share with the whole class! This coming week we will be working on a writing component for students to write down what they have learned about their arctic animal. They will also be picking a final project to share everything they have learned with the class! It's a busy time in Kindergarten!

Students draw and write facts on their poster.

Students work together to draw a snowy owl.

The polar bear drew that their bear eats fish and has claws so it doesn't slip on the snow.

A student asked me for a post it note to help her write down a fact about Snowy Owls.

A group of students share using their poster and books with the class.

It's a bird, it's a plane, its a cardboard box!

The food pantry had extra large cardboard boxes left over and asked me if I had a use for it, and boy did I ever. Every week on Wednesday's we do a choice time where students from all 3 Kindergarten classes can choose to go to another classroom to play with a certain game. So I opened up the cardboard box and let students decide how to use it. At one point students said it was Santa's sleigh, then it became a hot tub and finally when they stood it up it was a magic portal! I loved seeing their imaginations coming out and them just having fun being kids!

That is all for this week! Next time I will have pictures from the final steps of our arctic animal research project as well as more about our math unit as we finish up addition! Have a wonderful week!

Smiles,

Miss Adams

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