Lights, Camera, Read - November

Here are our 400 Club members for the month of November! Each member got to sport around an elf hat for the day and they received a snowman bookmark for their reading!

Congrats to: Ashlyn, Treyson, Tabitha, Mason, Mackenzie, Marissa, Tyler, Sam, Vanesa, Morgan, Grace, Avery and Will (not pictured).

Officer Matt

This Friday we had Officer Matt come in to talk to us about safety. His son, Mason, was star of the week, so it was the perfect way to end his special week! Our class, along with Mrs. Baer's, had the chance to listen, share and answer questions about car safety, stranger danger, and calling 911. At one point the students seemed to want to do a lot more sharing of their stories, then listening to new ones! But that is all part of the fun! After the presentation was over, the students got to walk around and look in his police car! They were pretty excited, and loved the lights! Last but not least, they all got to eat lunch with Officer Matt, as well as our other special guests, Jessica DuRose and Heather Hoppe! Overall it was an awesome presentation and I think we may have some future officers in our group! 

C'mon it's Turkey Time!

Wow! November has flown by! There are so many fun projects, lessons, and discussions that stem from this month. Here are just a few pictures of what we have been creating and learning this month. And I couldn't help myself from teaching them this song at the end of the day! Enjoy the pictures and our turkey time video! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Our Thanksgiving Trays. Each student said what they were thankful for and then cut up and sentence and put it in the correct order.

These were our turkey mobiles. We hung them from the ceilings around the classroom. 

These were our kernal feathers. Each student glued down the kernals using patterned colors and spelled out their names.

Miss Mahoney also showed up this cute project! We made Indian corn using colored patterns, fall colors, raffia, and lunch bags! We got to practice tying when we made these!

Our cute scarecrow bulletin board! We recited this poem every day as we lined up.

Our symmetrical turkeys and Veterans Day Turkey.

We are thankful for our Veterans!

We created bar graphs. What's your favorite way to eat corn? Canned Corn, Carmel Corn, and Popcorn and Corn on the Cob.

We learned to count by 5s using our turkey hands. We warmed up calendar time almost every day using this chart! The students loved making the turkey hands too!

We made tally charts about our favorite pumpkin treats! We got to choose between pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin bread and pumpkin pancakes!

Here is our Turkey Time Video!! Enjoy!

Long Ago Day

In Social Studies we learned all about what it was like Long Ago. To celebrate our learning and Thanksgiving, for one day we dressed as it was Long Ago, wrote on chalkboards, ate cornbread that we made, and made pilgrim hats and collars. I even acted like a teacher from long ago for a short bit! Some kids thought it was funny, others said they would never go to school if their teachers were that strict! Overall we made some wonderful memories! Enjoy our antique pictures from long ago!

People Long Ago Didn't Smile...So we tried not to either!

Then we took a picture from today! 

And one just to show that kids today can be silly too!

Fabulous Fall Party!

or watch the full width video below!

Tricky Teens

There is so much that kindergartners are expected to know and do at such a young age, but when it comes down to it, they are still kids. They need to move, they need to be silly, and they need to have fun. So rather than just teaching the curriculum from a book. I am always trying to incorporate hands on and interactive ways for them to learn.  Our biggest focus lately has been learning and recognizing those tricky teens! P.S. They are tricky because kids want to say, oneteen, twoteen, threeteen, etc.).

Here are some ways that we have been learning: 

Work on Writing: 

We have written the numbers in paint, in sand, and in clay. The helps us see the number and create the numbers in various ways. 

Memory Match:

For this game the students first have to put the numbers 11-20 in order. Then they have match up the corresponding dots with each number. After they are done with both parts, they can find a partner who has been checked off and flip a set of cards over to play memory match (finding a number and dots that match). 

Singing and Dancing:

For tricky teens we have a rap about how numbers in the teens they start with a one! We put actions to it to get their bodies moving and grooving and recognizing those tricky teens!

Number Chains:

We also make Teen Number Chains. This is very good for those visual learners to see that 10 +1 more is 11 and 10+4 is fourteen, etc.  It also reinforces those teamwork skills by creating such large chains! 

Teen Tangle:

Lastly, we play a game called Teen Tangle. It is much like Twister, but with teen numbers. The kids love getting all tangled up with this game and recognizing their numbers while doing it! 

Teen Number Sparkle:

We have played sparkle using tricky teens (this would be good to play with your family for spelling words, counting, or skip counting). With teen number sparkle, we start in a circle, one student starts at 10 and we go around the circle until 19, then the next student says sparkle, and the student after that is out. We continue going around until we have one friend standing to be the Terrific Teen Number Winner!

Fire Prevention

For the past two weeks we have been learning all about fire prevention. – how to stop drop and roll, staying low to the ground, what to do if we are ever in a fire, and how to prevent fires. We also practiced a fire drill at school once and we will do it once more this week.

 Today we got a special surprise and we had the firefighters come to give us a presentation. They showed us what they wear, how they stay protected and what they do to make sure we are always safe!

Then we went outside and learned about tools and gadgets that make fire trucks unique. We even got to tour the fire truck! We took home some fun fire hats to remind us of all the things we heard, saw, and learned today.

Fire Safety - create a slideshow with music

Challenge: Create a fire safety plan with your family and talk about ways to prevent fires in your home.