What can you do to be a good friend?

Welcome to a new week in Kindergarten! We started off the day with a little 'invitation to learn' for students who come into the classroom in the morning with not enough time to go outside for recess, but enough time to spare before getting lined up to go to Phys.Ed. I put out a Mosaic, which is like a pattern puzzle where students can either follow a pre-made guide or create there own. It did spark enough interest that everyone wanted to try it out and one student finished it during their free choice time later in the day.

 

Instead of focusing on a math lesson today, I felt it was more important for us to focus on healthy relationships. Students talked about what makes someone a good friend. The conversation was sparked by two Rainbow Fish books by Marcus Pfister. After the story, students each made their own 'friendship fin' by drawing a picture of something kind that they could do for someone. The fins were placed on a Rainbow Fish and is displayed in the hallway with the question of, "How can you be a good friend?" Hopefully someone will read our work and be inspired to ponder this question and take positive action.

 

Some examples from the fins:

 

We also continued our discussions about the 5 senses today. It was easy to make connections in Science as to how we use our senses to be able to notice changes in our surroundings, as it has become very obvious to us that fall is upon us! The leaves have sure changed quickly in the past week. Our season tree's leaves have changed too!

We used out knowledge of the five senses to create a poem about Fall. Here it is:

 

I think that they did a great job! There was only a few minor suggestions to get them thinking about harvest and Halloween ;)

 

After our fall senses brainstorm, students turned their focus towards the sense of hearing and completed the page about hearing in their 5 senses booklets.

 

Here is an example:

 

We ended off the day with an Alphablocks video and a listening activity. I read the story Bears New Friend and students were asked to respond to the story by sharing if they thought it was a good, okay, or bad story. They also were to draw a picture and tell me what the story was about.

 

We ended the day with a little "treat" for everyone. They've been asking to be able to play with some farm toys that were stored way up high. I was intending to save them for when we were focusing more on farming lessons, but since they were so keen I decided that it needed to come down! I was impressed that they played really well together, even with 7 of them sharing the same toys. What a great way to end the day. :)