Harvest Time

This week we determined the difference between fiction and non-fiction along with our harvest theme.  We read 2 books about pumpkins, one fiction and one non-fiction.  Then we were able to sequence the life of a pumpkin from seed to pumpkin pie.  The images below are the books that we read, they are links in case you would like to order one to read at your house!

                                         

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Fall & Fire Safety

This week we have worked with seasons and fire safety.  Today we made fire hats, see the cuties below. We read both fiction and non-fiction about fire stations, and talked about which things a firefighter might use when fighting a real fire and which they might not.  For Fall we discussed what apple trees look like in each season, activities and clothing we wear for the differing weather in seasons, and specific activities that happen in the fall.  We completed a glyph of a scarecrow, which they are hanging on the bulletin board outside our classroom.  Stop by and see if you can find the scarecrow that belongs to your child!

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A Week with Eric Carle

This week we continued to learn with works by Eric Carle.  Last week we read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, which was illustrated by Eric Carle.  This week we read several more stories that he wrote and illustrated.  We worked with The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Grouchy Ladybug, and The Mixed Up Chameleon.  To celebrate the hungry caterpillar we made our our caterpillars out of our painted handprints, and hung them on our bulletin board.  You can click the link below to watch Eric Carle read this story aloud himself. (We already watched it in class!)

Eric Carle reads: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

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A Week of Colors

Our book of the week was Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?  We had fun matching the animals, putting them in sequential order, dancing with animal movements, playing animal guessing games, and learning the color words.  We stamped color words for each of the animal colors in the story.  Then we learned the colors in rainbow order.  We used the color order to spell our names in rainbow order with dot markers, and to create paper mosaic rainbows.  The paper rainbows will hang on our bulletin board.

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Celebrating Dr. Seuss!

This Monday we celebrated my favorite day of the school year - Dr. Seuss Day!  Across the country classrooms celebrate the life of this great author/illustrator on his birthday.  We read many of his books, and created a graph of the books that were our favorites.  With partners we measured ourselves with Cat in the Hat hats.  We made Cat in the Hat glyphs for a bulletin board.  Thank you Dr. Seuss for your many great stories!

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A Special Day for Special People

It was a pleasure to have so many guests with us on Friday!  Our honored visitors were grandparents or people who are special to each of our students.  Together we painted handprint art to be created into "Thing 1, Thing 2" creatures to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday.  Thank you special people for your help, we had a great time sharing our classroom and activities with you!

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Happy Purim!

We got to participate in CTA's annual Purim activities this week, which is always lots of fun!  To celebrate we were part of a parade, played games at the carnival, and ate lots of yummy snacks.  This week we learned about 2 important presidents of our country's past, in recognition of President's Day.  We read the story "Duck for President", and created posters for the character we would most like to see elected as president.  We also completed a glyph about voting.  You can see our hard work hanging on the bulletin board outside our room.

Check out Morah Rachel & Morah Mandy, do you know what story characters we dressed up as?

Learning Author's Purpose

This month we have been reading the familiar 'Pigeon' book series written by Mo Willems.  These books are a great way to introduce persuasive writing, as the pigeon tries to persuade the reader to do things.  After reading several we created a pigeon illustration that attempted to persuade the reader to do something.  Our class enjoyed completing these and then sharing them with others.

Pigeon: "Do your homework!"

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Winter Wonderland

We are still in the midst of winter here in Ohio, and this year the weather has not disappointed with snow.  To celebrate this wonderful phenomenon, we made snowflakes, and hung them in the window at school.  We discussed how no two snowflakes are exactly alike, just like no two people are exactly alike.  On the Smartboard we made a bubble map of activities that we can do during the winter season.  Our snowflakes are hanging in hallway window, you can see them if you drive by the lot on our side of the building.

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Happy 100th Day of School

We made it through 100 days of Kindergarten!  We had lots and lots of fun celebrating our accomplishment.  Each of us brought in a collection of 100 items, which we shared with the class and then sorted.  We did 100 exercises, wrote 100 letters, counted to 100, made 100th day badges to wear, and made ice cream cones that count to 100 by 10's.  Thanks for your help with creating the collections at home, we are displaying them in the hallway on our bulletin board for all to see.

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Author's Visit

This week we had the great privilege of hearing a book presented by the author and illustrator in our very own classroom!  Rhonda Brazina and Ida Margolis travelled up to Ohio from Florida, just to visit our school.  We put their book up on the smartboard, and had them read it to us themselves.  They also brought us video clips of the songs that are sung in the story.  We showed them the pictures we drew of healthy foods that people and animals can eat, as well as our pet graphs.  What a great way for us to see a book come to life!

Happy New Year!

Welcome back to school!  We are getting back into the swing of Kindergarten, after taking a break for some much-needed rest and vacation time.

This week we learned counting by 5's.  This can be a tricky task, so we used the 5 fingers on our hands to keep counting on each 5.  Then we wrote down the 5th number on the hands of our poster, and counted by 5's from 5 to 100.  Now we know the "slow" way to count to 100: by 1's; the "fast" way to count to 100: by 10's; and the "medium" way to count to 100: by 5's.  Be sure to ask your child to count to 100 each of these ways. (It's a great time occupier when you are sitting in your car waiting at stop lights.)

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