Spring Concert!

We had our Spring Concert on Friday and it was quite the spectacular show! We start everyday by greeting one another in different ways, sharing something, doing a unique activity and reading our morning message. Since everyone looked like a superstar, we decided to bow or courtesy to one another.

Thanks to all the parents that came for their Lights, Camera, Action performance! We had quite a few "Hollywood Superstars" at the show! Here is a slideshow for you to enjoy!

Lights, Camera, ACTION! -

Tiempo de bailar! (Time to Dance!)

Today in Spanish we learned some new dances! As a class we dance and sing fairly frequently. Okay...we do it all the time! But today we got to see kids from the Spanish cultures that used dancing as their main form of entertainment. We watched videos on young kids doing the jive, the The Flamenco, the La Raspa, and the salsa (click on the dance to see the videos that we watched)! Of course Señora Gersich thought we should learn to do one of the dances! So she taught us la raspa! We started with Alex and Marissa modeling for us. She even had some proper attire for us to dress up in!

We definitely got a workout in!

Then we got the whole class involved! Check out what we learned! 

¡hola! ¿Cómo estás?

Well we have some exciting news in our kindergarten classroom! We have begun learning Spanish! Señora Gersich will be coming in on Tuesdays and Thursdays to teach us a little about the Spanish language, the Spanish culture, and Spanish phrases.

This week we practiced greeting one another, counting up to ten using a song and a little about the Spanish culture. We even got to enjoy some fresh mangos!

Learning Challenge: Tonight when you get home ask your child to greet you using their Spanish words (¡Hola! me llamo ______.) Then ask them to count up to ten for you with their dos manos (two hands). Enjoy the pictures and videos and we hope to keep you updated with all that we are learning!

Singing in the Springtime!

We are jumping into Spring with a lot of bright, fun and colorful project. This week we began learning about insects. Here are some facts we learned: 

Mason: All insects have 6 legs. 

Sam: Insects have three body parts - head, thorax, abdomen (Ask your child to sing you our head, thorax abdomen song!) 

Avery: Insects are lots of different sizes. 

Ashlyn: Insects come in different colors. Marissa: Most insects have wings, but not all can fly. Treyson: Ants can carry 100 times their body weight. 

Alex: You can find insects everywhere. 

Tabitha: All insects have antennae. 

Tyler: Butterflies and beetles are insects. 

Our list could go on and on! But, as you can see, our brains gained quite a bit of knowledge this week on insects! It was a very fun week and next week we are moving on to stories and facts about fish! We hope you enjoy our videos (uploaded on Monday) and Smilebox this week! We have become quite the singers and dancers! :) 

Here's to Singing in Springtime! 

Happy Earth Day 2012

For Earth Day we discussed what we could do to help our Earth. We discussed the process of recycling, using less energy, helping to pick up trash and many more. On Friday we colored our Earth's and wrote our Earth Day Pledges. Luckily it was a sunny day so for most of the day we had our lights off and we went Smart Board free for the day to conserve energy. We also made sure that all our scrap papers made it into the recycling bin. We know what we did was small, but each little thing makes such a difference. On Monday morning we will share what we did on Earth day with our class during our morning meeting sharing time! Can't wait to hear all the wonderful ideas :)

Counting Coins

Our class has been learning a lot about coins - the names of coins, the symbols on coins, and different attributes of each coin. Lately we have been trying to work on coin exchanges (5 pennies = 1 nickel, 2 nickels make a dime, etc.). We play the coin exchange game, we exchange coins during calendar time, and now we even sing about our exchanges daily. Here is a video of our Coin Song. Feel free to turn it up and have your child sing along at home with their coins or play the YouTube Video that goes along with this little rap! 

Note to Parents: Pardon my Singing. Reminder to all, I am clearly NOT a music teacher!

Show Me the Money: Jack Hartman

Hoppy Spring!

Thursday was a fun-filled day with crafting our own bunny baskets, creating a bow-dacious bunny project, switching for math groups, and going on one massive easter egg hunt. I spent my prep period hiding 51 eggs out on our school grounds! Why 51 to be exact? Well in the Rainforest room we have been talking a lot about sharing, playing fair, and treating each other with respect. So I thought if we were going to do an egg hunt, it would need to be fair and the students would need to share. 

So here were the rules: 

1. A student can only pick up an egg they find if it matches their first name. 

2. If they find an egg that doesn't belong to them, they are to gently put it back, so that the rightful owner can hunt for it. 

3. Each student was allowed to find one fun shaped egg to keep for themselves. 

Altogether, each student was responsible for finding 3 eggs and with a little teamwork we ended up finding ALL 51 eggs! It worked out beautifully, because everyone ended up with the same number of eggs and it took a little more time to hunt! When we got back into the classroom we enjoyed some Easter candy and we created a unique spring bunny to add to our scrapbook!  

We know we had a hoppy spring day and we hope you all did as well! 

Enjoy our SmileBox! Remember to click on the pictures to enlarge them!