Structures, a Contest, and Stories

Hello! Today was our warmest day yet, which made everyone (teacher included) very happy. For our morning message, I left out some letters and the word 'is' and our class did a great job at filling in the blanks!

 

A nice surprise was Mr. Pratchler popping into our classroom. He always brings us fun activities and stories! Today he loaned us Magformers, which are magnetic shapes that you can build really fun structures with! Everyone had a great time with them.

 

 

In Science, we talked some more about different uses for structures and what makes them stronger, including layering and folding. Here's the experiment that we tried out:

 

1. Everyone got 2 cups, 10 buttons, and a piece of paper.

 

2. They had to make a bridge with their cups and paper.

 

3. Add buttons to the top of your paper! Does it hold up very well?

 

4. What could you do to your paper to make the structure stronger? Some tried folding their paper in half and most of us ended up doing an accordion fold.

 

5. This structure is stronger!

 

In math, students began working on some number practice in their new My Book Of Numbers 6-10 booklet. They worked on the number 6 today.

 

 

For our Raider of the Month assembly, our class is holding a drawing contest. The theme is: "This is me in April." I am hoping that it will be a great way for our students to critique art and to get some ideas on how they can improve their monthly self portraits. The winners will be revealed at the assembly and there will be a prize for elementary, middle years, and high school. I made some posters with the main details of the contest and had the Ks draw a border around the poster. They also drew a picture of a person on the middle. We walked around the school together and hung them up on the walls and doors. We hope that many people participate!

 

Since we will be judging the pictures that are entered into the contest, it was important to talk about some criteria of what would make the pictures a good picture. Here are some of the ideas that the students came up with:

 

 

To highlight the importance of using colour in our drawings, I also read to the class a funny tale called The Day The Crayons Quit.

We also got in some GoNoodle body breaks. Our monster, Tangy Bodangy reached his highest level! This is always an exciting time for our class. Our next monster is called McPufferson.

 

Before gym, we also read our next habit from the 7 Habits. This one was about listening. In the story, Jumper Rabbit is not listening to his friends. He doesn't take notice to why his friend Goob the Bear is upset and moves on to the next friend. This friend, Allie, is also upset and he cannot understand why she is upset. He gets Lily Skunk to help him out. She teaches him that we need to listen not only with our ears, but with our eyes and heart as well. (This fits perfectly with our whole body listening that we have previously discussed in class!) Jumper goes back to Goob and truly listens to him, at which point he helps Goob find the missing butterfly net.

 

We also had a very exciting treat today- the SCC provided free spaghetti lunch to all students and staff! Our class was very excited that it was FREE. :) They even did happy dances this morning.

 

It was a great, productive day of learning today. Thank you for reading about our adventures today and I hope that you got to enjoy the beautiful weather, too! :)

Today is Monday!

 

Hello everyone! Thanks for checking out our blog. We are winding down the last week of April! I was in Saskatoon over the weekend, where they had a 30cm snowfall. So, I was very happy to see that we didn't have any snow in our small town! :) There were only a few puddles on the playground.

 

In our morning message, we did some math work. We did some addition to find the total number of brothers and sisters in our class. We also talked about which number was the highest in each column. Somehow we got talking about the meter stick again. I can't remember how it came up, but we brought it out and looked at how it shows the numbers 1 to 100. Of course, we had to count!

 

For our formal math lesson, we read the story Five Speckled Frogs. Then we talked about the number 7: which numbers come before and after, how we tally it, and how we show it in a ten frame. Students were then given instructions for a way to show 7 in two sets. They were to choose two colours of snap cubes and count out six of each colour. Then they had to roll a die and count out that many snap cubes (in one colour). They had to use the other colour of snap cube to add onto their snap cube train so that it would get to 7 snap cubes in total. Then, they had to say which two numbers make up 7. For the example below, three and four make seven.

 

 

In Science, we discussed structures (something that is made out of different parts), materials to make different structures, and the difference between man made and natural structures. We also began to discuss what we can do to make a structure stronger. The story of The Three Little Pigs fit perfectly with this lesson, of course! We discussed how the straw and stick house were not strong structures compared to the brick house. They were all familiar with the story, so it was easy for them to chime in, which always makes for a fun read!

 

After Science, we had a little bit of time to go on Go Noodle. We did some dance breaks, work out vidoes, and watched the newest version of the song Pop-See-Ko by Koo Koo Kangaroo!

 

 

 

In center time, one group worked in the Art Center. They chose to work with play-doh today, making pizza, cookies, and muffins! It's a great opportunity to show some creativity as well as work out those fine motor muscles.

 

We also had one student working on Starfall on the computer and another using some literacy apps, such as Endless Reader, on the I-pad.

 

Two of my students in the writing center chose two different materials to represent their thoughts.

One decided to make a picture with the felt board.

 

The second decided to make a greeting card.

 

We also read a story about the fourth habit from the 7 Habits of Happy Kids: think win-win. The story was about Sophie Squirrel, who really wanted to grow her own garden. Her mom told her no, because it's a lot of work and she felt she would end up taking care of it for Sophie. Sophie wrote a note stating the reasons why it would work out for the best for everyone: she would do the work and her mom would get to eat yummy vegetables and strawberries. Her mom agreed and it turned into a win-win situation where everyone benefited and was happy as a result.

 

In gym, we did our warm up games and played Octopus Tag (their favourite!). Then we worked on balancing with wooden spoons and wooden eggs.

 

It was a great start to the week! I look forward to seeing everyone again on Wednesday. :)

Brrr

Hello! It was a chilly Spring day that felt like Friday, since the Kindergarten students aren't back at school now until Monday. We had a fun, busy day as usual.

 

During free choice center time the two main activities were drawing pictures and playing with cars.

We also had some building of structures later in the day:

 

We have finished all of our Jolly Stories so we reviewed the /e/ sound and the letter g. We also reviewed our sight words: it, is, and the.

In math, we read the poem 6 Little Ducks. It worked out perfectly today, as there were only six students in class! So, we pretended that our large matt was a pond and the students were ducks. We acted out a story where a certain number of ducks were in the pond and the rest were on shore. In this way, we discussed the different sets that can make up the number six. Next, students drew their own pond on a piece of paper and counted out 6 pre-drawn ducks. They had to place the ducks in their picture, deciding how many would be in the water and how many would be out. They also had to pick out the numeral six from a set of numbers and glue that onto their page. We finished off with putting the sentences "____ ducks in the pond. ____ out" on their paper, filling in the blanks with their numbers. This activity took a lot longer than I had anticipated, so we didn't get into our Science lesson today.

 

 

We did some number recognition practice today with a game where students pulled a letter out of the bag and then we found it on the sheet. We also discussed each letter sound and some words that start with that letter.

 

We read about the third habit: Put First Things First, which basically teaches to work first and play second. In the story, Pokey Porcupine procrastinates studying for his spelling test all week. He plays with all of his friends each night instead. So, when his spelling test comes around, he only got one out of six words right. His teacher gives him a re-write, his friend helps him study, and then he does much better.

 

Today, we also checked out two new books that I purchased. They come with videos that have the animated version of the song/book. The pirate one was a bit tricky to follow but it's very catchy!

 

Hopefully every stays warm and safe over the weekend! Take care.

 

 

Snow!

I spoke too soon about Spring! We had snow on the ground here last night/this morning. However, it was all melted by lunch recess. :) 

 

 

We learned our last jolly sound today! It was the /ar/ sound. We reviewed the sight words that we have been working on and added "it". So, I spelt this sentence for the students to read:

 

 

Some of us also worked on letter sounds later in the day by spelling some CVC words. Other students had some time with the I-Pad and on the Starfall website on the computer.

 

In math, we opened our Little Passports mail. Then we read a counting story that takes place in Tanzania! They also worked on colouring a shape pattern.

Our Little Passports mail came from India! Sam and Sophia told us all about looking for Bengal tigers, some famous landmarks like the Taj Mahal, and about some traditions in India.

 

Last week, some of the students had made extra coloured coffee filters, so I hung those in the window. They look so pretty with the light shining through them! Our plants are enjoying the sun as well.

 

 

We also learned about the second habit from the 7 Habits of Happy Kids:

 

We read a story about Goob the Bear. He wanted to buy a bug kit from the store, so he made a plan of how he was going to make money and all of the things that he wanted to buy. Him and his friend Jumper Rabbit held a lemonade stand and split the money. Jumper bought candy that he ate right away and toys that broke right away and then he didn't have any money. Goob was able to buy everything on his list, plus he had money left over! He treated Jumper to a movie in the end.

 

We discussed the story and some examples of why it is good to plan ahead.

In gym we did some animal movements, played Octopus tag, and then came back to do some Go Noodle workout videos. The day ended with our talking circle and then everyone was off!

 

Tomorrow is Earth Day. Remember to be kind to the Earth every day! :)

Our Day in Pictures!

It definitely felt like Spring today! Some of the students were SO excited about not having to wear a jacket outside. We had our In Motion Raider Walk last recess outside for the first time this year. Everyone walks around the track for ten minutes. It was gorgeous out! A student and I also found some ladybugs crawling up some blades of grass. :)

 

Everyone was busy during free choice time, as usual!

There was a car show!

Some students made pictures on the felt boards.

Some students built a road and a T.V.

One student worked on making notes for all of his brothers.

We read our morning message during our calendar meeting, learned the /er/ sound, and also talked about the sight words 'the' and 'is'. Then some students discovered these words in our morning message!

 

We also continued our discussions on taking care of the Earth. We watched a video of a song called Going Green, read a book about recycling, traced our hands to put on our pledge, and made models of the earth using coffee filters, water, and a spray bottle.

 Here's our Earth Day bulletin board!

 

 

We also talked more about different types of materials and why we choose certain materials to make items. We also talked about how you can describe different items using our five senses.

In Math, we watched a video about counting animals, practiced counting animals in this ocean picture, and read a book about ocean animals and numbers.

Before going to gym, we started talking about the 7 Habits of Happy Kids. The first habit is "Be Proactive", which teaches that we are in charge of ourselves (our actions/feelings). We read a story about Jumper Rabbit, who is very bored and blaming his friends for not having anything fun for him to do. He learns that it's his job to decide what is fun for him and he ends up fixing and old radio to give to a sick friend. The students in our class seemed interested in learning about the characters that live in 7 Oaks, which all of the 7 habits stories have in them. We will continue learning more about the habits in the near future.

 

I hope that everyone has a fantastic weekend! Enjoy!

Take Care of the Earth Please!

Happy Wednesday! Today was a busy, fun day as usual. Here's what happened in our K classroom today:

 

We learnt about the /ue/ sound!

 

Students love being 'letter detectives' and finding different letters in our morning message!

 

 

Mr. Pratchler, the SLP, came in and played a story of Frog and Toad on the I-pad. He also talked a bit about Easter, spring and hibernation.

 

We talked about taking care of the Earth: why we would want to take care of the Earth and ways that we can. We read a couple of books to help us with our brainstorming.

 

We also worked on our "This is me in April" self portraits. Students looked at their drawings from March and thought about what they could improve this month. It's so wonderful to see them drawing with more details!

 

We also played some tag games in gym and they got to go outside and play soccer this morning as well! Our playground is finally drying up and some students are starting to play basketball and football at recess. I looked on the calendar today and we have 25 Kindergarten days left in this school year! Wow!! I have a feeling that it's going to fly by. :)