Oak Terrace!

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Electrical Engineer - Mr. Jerhod Smithback

Today we had Mr. Smithback, an electrical engineer come talk to our classroom! He started off with a magic trick by making a quarter disappear! Then he talked about his job as an electrical engineer - bringing in equipment that he uses, tools for students to interact with, and props to show how things work (since all engineers want to know how things work!) Here is a slideshow of some of the things we did!

Nurse Smithback

Mrs. Smithback came to talk to us on Thursday about her role as a nurse! She actually got to graduate from nursing school on Friday, so it was a very exciting time to talk with her! She brought in a lot of useful and fun tools for us to use, explore, feel, and try on! We even got our very own pair of gloves! We learned a lot and got to interact with a lot of useful tools! Thanks for coming in Mrs. Smithback and congratulations on the graduation!! You will make a fabulous nurse!

"Mrs. Smithback - Nurse"

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Health Educator - Chera Sevcik

We have been learning all about workers in Social Studies so we have had some parents come in to talk to us about what they do as workers, how it helps the community and why it is an important job to have. Today we had Chera, Treyson mother, come in to talk to us about nutrition, healthy eating and being motivated to stay physically active and help others to the same!
She also read us "From Head to Toe" by Eric Carle. We all got in a circle and if we could do what the animal did, we had to act it out! Check out our fun pictures below!

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.

Fun in the Fall

In health we have been talking about sharing, caring, feelings and friends. Since we don’t have many fun fall days left, I decided to embrace the weather and take our lesson outside. We talked about how sometimes doing things on your own is difficult – moving things, cleaning up, playing sports, playing games, and even going to Kindergarten. We decided that sometimes, rather than working alone, it is better to work as a team, because as a team, we are stronger.

So for the activity today we had 1 minute to create a leaf pile that went up to our hips. I first let them go at it for one minute alone, creating their own piles. 

Needless to say our piles weren’t very high and it was a difficult feat! Next we had one minute to work as a team to create one large pile.

Our goal was to make it up to our hips again. After one minute we stood around it and the pile was above ALL of the student’s hips! 

We were excited and decided to celebrate. 

 This showed us that working together as a team can be much more rewarding that just working by yourself. 

 Here’s to teamwork and having fun in the fall!

Challenge:

Earlier this year we read a story called “Bundle of Sticks.” Ask your child if they can explain how teamwork is similar to the story “Bundle of Sticks” and what teamwork at home and at school means to them!

Alive, Awake, Alert, Enthusiastic!

This is one family that is waking up right! In our classroom we do a morning meeting everyday, which consists of a greeting, a sharing time, an activity and a morning message. One of our favorite activities to start our day with is "I'm alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic!" We start out slow to warm our bodies up, and then speed up to challenge our brain! We love our morning meetings and I am happy to see that they aren't just taking place in the classroom!

Challenge: This week have your child come up with a greeting (Hello Neighbor song, bow, handshakes, butterfly, etc.), something they would like to share (favorite breakfast, favorite book, favorite vacation, etc.) and a fun activity that we do in the classroom (Oliver Twist, Zoom, Tricky Teens, Letterise, etc). This is a wonderful way to communicate and have fun with your child before the day even begins! Are you feeling alive, awake, alert, and enthusiastic?!

Lights, Camera, Read!

Meet our First 400 Club members! We had 16 students read 400 minutes or more this month! Each month, pictures of the the 400 Club winners will be posted outside of my classroom so the staff, students, and parents can see all the fantastic reading that we have going on in our classroom! Keep up the great work at home! Here is a picture of all the September members and their "Hollywood" pictures!

Numbers Galore

We have been working on learning our numbers in Kindergarten. We start small - numbers 0-9 to reinforce that ALL numbers are created by using these numbers. We have learned rhymes for these numbers, made number books with these numbers and written these numbers. Below are some pictures of us learning these numbers! Next week we begin learning our Tricky Teens! Stay updated for another classroom rap!

 Numbers using Wiki Sticks (Bendables)

 Writing Numbers with Corresponding Dots

 Sandpaper Numbers (scratch and write number words)

 Writing Numbers with paint and salt

 Making numbers using Wiki Sticks

 Making Numbers with Clay

Mm is for Magic!

This week we learned the letter Mm. And, if you didn’t hear already, we had a pretty marvelous week! So to celebrate our magnificent behavior, we decided that we would have a Magic party on Friday! Lucky for us, we had a magican in our very own classroom! So we picked a Mr. Magician, Sam and a Miss Magician, Grace! They both had their sticks on the blue Emergent Layer and they were both willing to dress up and play the part!

So today we had two small magic shows and got to play a Magical Words game! For the game, Miss Magician got to pull words out of a bag. If the words were Mm words all the students rubbed their bellies and said “Mmmm Mmmm Good!” And gave a thumbs up. Then we wrote the Mm word under Magic Mm Words column. Then if Miss Magician drew a Word without an Mm, they wrote it in the other column. 

They all participated really well and their writing was amazing! We have already been working hard on improving our handwriting and writing the sounds we hear….and  I think it shows! 

 In between the game Mr. Magician kept us entertained with impressive magic tricks! He changed dimes into nickels, correctly guessed what picture Miss Magician put in the box, got a stuck sword to easily let loose and popped a ball through two cups! It was a pretty impressive show!

Magic Show - slideshow dvd

At-Home Challenge: Go on a house hunt for Mm words and have your child write down the sounds they hear in each word. They can bring in their list for a sticker!