Friday, September 30, 2011

Can't Believe It is October!!!!





We read poetry this week.  To make a text-to-self connection, we drew pictures of when we went on a picnic with family and friends.  There was a lot of discussion about the fun that was had!

We review all the information we have learned about 5 senses.  The children then labeled their own bodies with the 5 senses.  They had some trouble with the words but I had examples and I told them what the word was and they went to their chair and labeled their own picture.


We read Alligator Baby by Robert Munsch.  He is one of my favorite authors!  We made an alligator baby using torn paper.  They were very resistant at first but really got into the art once they saw how adorable the alligators were.  I did let them cut triangles for teeth!



We watched a YouTube story about Johnny Appleseed and sang Happy Birthday to him.  We watched a video about how apple trees grow from seed to fruit.  The kids colored a story page then we made and ate this apple tree.  Yummy!!

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Five Senses


We have been talking a lot about the 5 senses.  Mrs. Jordan found an adorable potato head pattern to make and label the senses on.  Mrs. Voss's kids sorted by how things feel. 

I wanted to share some pictures of the kindergarten classrooms with you.  Mrs. Alkire uses a bed as a reading center and the children love it.
Mrs. Shelton is showing those colors of the rainbow as they mixed food color and water!

This was a home project where the parents created a "doll" to resemble their child.  They also gave us 5 adjectives about their child and we made list poems to give back to each parent.

We had two words today because they go together.  The kids did a great job of illustrating alike and different.  We have some real artists in Kindergarten.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Monday morning!

 This is part of our calendar time.  It is an adorable song off of youtube about the seasons.  The kids really like the rap sound of it and I can hear them singing throughout the day sometimes.

 We draw our alphabet characters every week.  The children listen and watch as I draw the steps to the picture and then they copy to their paper.  It shows them they can draw and label pictures and everyones will look different.
This is a book in Deanna Jumps Back to School unit.  It is letting each child count the syllables in his or her name.  We have made lots of class books this year and the childern love seeing their pictures and names in a book.

We can arch our back just like the cat in Eric Carle's Head to Toe!

Cooking



We try to cook something every Friday.  This week we made Mexican Sunshine Dip.  I made one under the document camera and then the children each made one.  All but two thought it was yummy.  I send home a grocery list in my newsletter each Monday and my sweet parents usually buy what we need to cook!

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Pictures of our rooms

 This is where I collect our vocabulary words after they are introduced.  I am using Kim Adsit's Vocabulary Unit and I discovered it fits perfectly with what our district is going to require starting next year!!
 This is where we place our reading strategies as we learn them.
This is the Daily Five Board...we are still learning all the parts of this but we love it as a Kindergarten team.  The kids really enjoy having books in their laps and reading them!
This just looked like so much fun, I had to include it!! They are future engineers!

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Is the first six weeks really over???

We have been studying the letter S this week; singing songs, sorting pictures of things that start with s or m, finding s in the puzzle page, and making a class alphabet book. 

The kids are doing great in read to self put still need practice in buddy reading with how loud they can share with a friend!  





We are doing lots of word work stations and literacy baskets. 

We have been writing lists of verbs and acting them out! 


We learned that our five senses help us learn everything and give us lots of wrinkles in our brain.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Friday At Last!!!

This has been a very long week!  I was out one day for a committee meeting and had to prepare for a sub.  Anyone who teaches Kindergarten knows that is a very long process.  The kinders missed me and I missed them.  We had health day and IStation testing and RIF day!!  So it was pretty crazy around here.




 We finished the Freedom week by coloring pictures to send to James Bush, the soldier we have "adopted".  He is stationed in Iraq.  We talked about why we write and decided we were writing to James to communicate our concern for him.  We talked about the constitution and how everyone has rules to follow, even grown-ups.



We did lots of blending colors with playdoh and food color.  We did a scientific experiment with playdoh.  Thanks Deanna Jump for this great idea and the monster book!
We sang songs about squares and the color orange.  We did activities with things beginning with M.  
We talked about monster behavior...especially when a sub is there!  We watched a darling promethean lesson titled "Who Me?" about a monster that came to school and acted bad.  The teacher told him to leave and he promised to learn the rules and behave.  We don't want to have monster behavior in our class! 

Thanks to someone for this adorable monster behavior poster.  I think it was on firstgradeparade.


Mrs. Voss' class has been making bodies!  They have added leg bones and they learned how to take care of their lungs and their hearts.  These hang in the hall and look so cute!  They also listened to their hearts with a stethoscope. 

Monday, September 12, 2011

September 12th-September 16th


These are face cookies from Mrs. Voss' class.  The kids were worried about having to eat their face but they really enjoyed it when they made these!!


This is a bus pocket chart that has the character from Frog Street Press "driving" the bus.  It puts the character with each of the 5 vowels so by the end of the letter of the week we have sung this song 21 weeks!!
We are hoping for fall weather soon.  It has been so hot and dry here in West Texas.  This week is the West Texas Fair week so some of our kinders are out late at the fair.  We have lots of fun things planned this week.  It is Freedom Week and we are talking about the flags of Texas and the USA.  We are celebrating the Constitution of the USA and trying to explain what it is to our 5 year olds!  We are continuing our study of all about me.  Soon child size bodies will appear in the hall and pictures of the brand new (again!) food pyramid will be displayed.  We want our kiddos to make wise choices about their bodies and we want to teach them how to keep them healthy!  We still play lots of songs and games that count to 5 and are learning to write those numbers.  We are starting our letter of the week and we begin with M.  I am going to try to download our song about Marvin the Monkey.  Ethan is singing it and he is adorable.
We are making a vocabulary book this year.  AISD is really pushing for a vocabulary program to be used across the district.  This is what we are using this year.  It is from Kim Adsit's Literacy Vocabulary Book on Teacherspayteachers.  The word is famous.  When I asked who was famous they gave me names like Justin Bieber, Hannah Montana, Usher and Lady Gaga!  They did know who Obama was but not George Washington or Abraham Lincoln.  I guess that was before their time!




These are the 4 new tubs I got for this week!  I love how this is working and the kids love playing with the baskets every week.  It is exciting to see new things to play and they are simple enough that even the kids with not as much experience can feel successful!