Dropped the ball 100%

When I sent home those family share sheets I didn't even realize there was no return date!! Oops! I've gotten quite a few in already and if you can have them in by either Friday or early next week sometime that would be great! We're having a lot of fun sharing them with the class!

Here's a good example!

This week in math...

Yesterday we began discussion on numbers 1-5. Sounds simple, but we really dig deep so that we have a solid "number sense".  Really understanding each number inside and out lays a great foundation for a life of math.

I am from the 'calculator on my cell phone' generation...thank goodness because my math skills are seriously lacking! And yes, I am one of those that believes all we really needed to learn in math was the basics (how often have you had to pull out that ole pythagorean theorem after you had a test on it Sophmore year of high school? Yep, never...not me anyway!)

HOWEVER...I firmly believe all you really need to learn you learn in Kindergarten...and numbers just happens to be one of those things! We will continue adding skills involving our numbers throughout the year.  I love getting into adding, subtracting, and an intro into algeraic thinking later in the year!

I thought this week I'd let the picture do the talking...

And today, on picture day we had a set of TWINS!

HAVE A GREAT AFTERNOON!!



Inside, outside, around, and through!

We've been having fun with position and location words in math!  Everyday we learned a few more words and added the word and an descriptive illustration to our math journals.

Monday had fun with inside and outside...


They listened to my words to jump inside and outside of a hula hoop. It was harder than you think!



Tuesday we top, middle, bottom...



I would say a position and they had to do what I said (like Simon says) The ones standing were still in the game even though I was trying to trick them.

Wednesday morning we read "The Three Billy Goats Gruff"...

Later that afternoon we tied the story into math using over and under to retell the story...



There were 3 billy goats all named Gruff that wanted to get to go to the other side of the bridge to eat the delicious green grass and flowers.



The goats went "trip, trap, trip, trap" over the bridge but a mean troll was under the bridge waiting to eat them up!

  


The troll would say "who's that trip, trapping over my bridge, I am going to eat you up!" and the small and medium sized goats said, "No, please don't eat me! My brother is coming later, he's bigger than I am, eat him instead." the troll agreed. 



But when the biggest, strongest troll crossed the bridge, he solved the problem of the mean troll by butting him off the bridge.  The troll was swept down the river, never to bother the goats again! 

Okay, okay, so it was a very loose intrepretation of "over and under" but you know, I'll find any excuse to play! We had so much fun acting out the story of the "The Three Billy Goats Gruff"! I love when we can tie all our learning together!

On Thursday we worked with left and right. In they morning they each got a Red bracelet for Right and a Light blue bracelet for Left. And then we got...FuNkY! We did the "hokey pokey", the "cha-cha slide" and the "cupid's shuffle".



cha-cha slide! "slide to the left" (Look at all those smiles!!)



Mrs. G even got in on the action! "now kick, now kick, now come on baby kick"

I'm not gunna lie, I was sweating and may or may not have been sore the next day!!  

Today we rounded it all up with a fun little activity involving paper airplanes! We had to determine where out airplane flew (over, under, through, left right, etc) of the cloud. 

It's Friday and boy am I ready for the weekend! Y'all have a good one!

Is it living?

We have been busy, busy in science learning about things that are living and not living.

We started out with the basics.

I then incorporated apples into out theme. Just because it's fall and I like apples...and I love any excuse for a class project.

We discussed the life cycle...



Does anyone know how to fix the flipped pictures??! Frustrated.



And did this super fun little big project. We started out in groups painting trees....trees don't look like lollipops...they have trunks and stems and branches...

You think I let them just use brown paint?? NO way Jose, they had to mix their colors to make brown. It made for a really neat textured look!

Then we added these things...

The boys made leaves.



and we (the girls that are WAAAY outnumbered by the boys) did "girl things" and made these pretty little flowers.

Then....

Winter snowflakes with marshmallows, summer small green apples with an apple sponge, big fall red apples with a real apple!


Put it all together and you get....

 


I don't mean to brag but I mean....this is good right?!?  I LOVE the way the bright spring apple blossoms pop in the hall! Even Mrs. Hobin came by to say she thought it was a project Ms. Flores, our art teacher, had done. Nope! It was just those 5 and 6 year olds down here in K-6!

We are in the process of writing about each part of the life cycle/season underneath. We've only done winter so far.

And guess what?

Yep, we even had fun cleaning up after all our mess. Enter: baby wipes.



Today Mrs. Hyde, our U of H friend, taught a lesson about different types of animals. They played a fun game on the smart board and did a sort like this in their science journals. 

And that's all folks....well, hardly.  We still have a bunch to learn about living and non living things!

A world of sponges.

I hope this parent won't mind but I just HAD to share an email I recieved this morning....

She wrote:
I've noticed a huge improvement in --------'s ability to read, just in this past week. It is like something has clicked! It is so impressive! Thank you! He seems so proud and confident!
Best,
-------


And this was my response:
That's my favorite part of my job! I seriously can’t even take credit for it...you're right, something just clicks with them (some early on in the year and some not until later) All of a sudden not only can they read, they WANT to read! It really is amazing!


Y'all seriously....this such an incredible age for learning. All it takes is me telling them just one time and voila...they get it! They really are little sponges. Of course not everyone is reading yet but I hope you all have noticed changes in your child.  Obviously, I want everyone to always perform well but I don't care about testing, etc.,  my main goal here is that they gain a love of learning. period. the end. Everything else falls into place.  So I will keep "tricking" them into learning new things everyday by having tons of fun and I hope the fun continues for the rest of their life.

Has there been something this year (besides lunch and recess!!) that your student couldn't wait to tell you about when they got home?? Let me know what they're loving so I can keep it up!

First day of FALL!!!

Ahhhh....the first day of fall! The BEST season of the year (in my opinion anyway...football, pumpkins, thanksgiving, perfect weather, cute boots and scarves...yes please!!)

Did I take advantage of this amazing fall weather??

YOU BETCHA!!

We spent the first part of our morning working on our words outside.  I heard not one complaint!  Jake, Hannah, Abel, and Grace can testify: 

I hope you all will take advange of the amazing (morning) weather this weekend and get outside and play! I know this little pups excited about it!

...even though she's long over due for one of these....

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!!

Sorting!

We have been doing lots of work with sorting!

Here are some of our goals during math stations this week:

Each week we have 5 different stations that we rotate through each day. Here we are working at some of them:

The boys on the left were sorting different animals. Not only were they sorting by type but (just as the goals we set stated) they took it a step further and separated the animals by color.  These boys on the right were sorting various, well, junk.  They first sorted by item.  Next, they sorted by color.

The group on the left was sorting buttons.  They decided to sort by how many holes they had. Joe and Claire were collection buttons with 2 holes while Grace and Sharan collected buttons with 4 holes and one hole.  The group on the right was working with (basically junk again, ha) They had nails, wood bead, screws, and washers.  They started out by sorting things with holes and things without holes.  The other station was sorting different transportation vehicles.

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Ever wondered why your child hardly ever brings work home?? That's because I hate dislike worksheets!  I don't learn that way so I certainly won't make my kinders! We do lots of hands on things and use as little paper as possible.  Their journals (and brains!!) are FULL of work though.  You'll get a chance to take a look through journals (not their brains...sorry!) at parent/teacher conferences coming up soon! 

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Today we added another entry to our math journal.  We drew things that were the same or alike and things that were different.  Jasmine, Joe, and Shriya had some great ideas:

We even included sorting in our science lesson yesterday when I introduced living and non living.  I showed them a picture and placed it in the "yes" or "no" column.  As pictures got added we stopped to guess how they were beings sorted.  Finally we all realized I was sorting things that were living from things that weren't living, then I added the words underneath.

To go along with our living and non living theme we've been doing some fun things with apples! More on that later but I'll leave you with a sneak peek!!

why is this side ways?!?! grrrr!