Creativity Everywhere!

Between this week being spirit week and the class's theme being fictional stories, creativity was over flowing in KA Kindergarten! 

Monday was animal day! It was fun to see what animal each child decided to dress like, and then to see them act like that animal. 

It was also this student's 6th birthday on Monday too! 

In class we read about Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and then acted out the story! In phonics we talked about the letter "g" and learned the sight words "are" and "father". In math we started a new unit learning about telling time! 

Tuesday was crazy hair/hat/sock day! There was some major bed head going on! 

In class we read the story of The Three Little Pigs. The students then took on the task of making their own strong houses in teams. Once the houses were built, the Big Bad Wolf (AKA a hairdryer) came and tried to blow the houses over. They all stood strong though! Such good builders! But, we talked about how the most important thing about building is building on a strong foundation, in Jesus Christ. 

Also in class we learned more words that have the letter "g" in them. In math we began to tell time to the hour. This is one of  my favorite math lessons to teach! 

Thursday was twin day! The students were so excited to plan their matching outfits!

In class we read about Jack and the Beanstalk and played some alphabet BINGO with "magic beans". We also spent some discussions about real verses fantasy, and how it's fun to use our imaginations and creativity. Their imaginations shown through as they drew pictures about what they pretended to be above the clouds. Some creative answers were, a castle, a heart house, and my house! We then talked the importance of knowing what is real verses what is fantasy. 

Also, CONGRATULATIONS to these two Kindergartners for finishing their October Book-It and earning a free personal pizza! If anyone still has a complete form, I will still take them this Monday. 

I hope to see everyone at the KA auction on Saturday. Dinner and the silent auction is from 4:30 to 6:30, and the auction starts at 6:30. 

Reading Fever

I'm afraid my students haven't been feeling very good these last few week. They've all gotten reading fever! I think our book themes are the cause of their illness! Learning about nursery rhymes and author/illustrators has definitely gotten these students excited about reading. It's so fun to see them sounding out words and playing with rhymes.

Last week was all about nursery rhymes. On Monday we read some Mother Goose nursery rhymes, and made horns so we could be our own "Little Boy Blues". On Tuesday we read nursery rhymes about kings and queens! To get a better visual, the students took turns dressing up to look like true royalty.

Thursday was all about counting rhymes. The students made their own counting rhymes, and drew a picture to go with it. As an art project this week we made our own goofy Humpty Dumptys (before he fell off the wall).

This week we learned all about authors and illustrators. The students worked hard on Monday and Tuesday to write and illustrate their own book! The topic they chose was kittens, and they even typed out the story themselves! Once they spent as authors, they spend the next day coming up with a title (they decided on Kittens), drew the pictures, and assembled the books. And of course we read it then! You can expect Kittens to be available in your local bookstore soon!

On Thursday we read one of the first books written for children, Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, The students made their own bunny ears, and had fun reenacting the story. Soon Mr. McGreggor (who I was assigned to be), called them over for a fun bunny snack!

Also throughout the week we read Goodnight Gorilla, which is one of my favorite books! To go along with the book we made gorilla faces!

In phonics we are continuing to go through different letter sounds. We have learned four out of five vowels, and ten consonants. The students are beginning to be able to sound out many three letter words. We have also been learning about capitalizing pronouns, spacing between words, alphabet sequencing, and punctuation.

We have been learning a lot of math this week too. WE can recognize and count up to 20, and have been measuring objects with a ruler. Dude's tank is 12 inches across!

With all this reading fever, I think it's a good thing that we have a week off next week. I hope everyone has a wonderful fall break! Remember, when you get back it's spirit week! The themes are:

Monday: Animal Day
Tuesday: Wacky hair/hat/sock day
Wednesday: Nerd day (Kinders not here)
Thursday: Twin/Triplet day
Friday: Class Competition (Kinders not here)

A Mismatch Week!

Question: What do you get when you cross a library, a pumpkin, and a campfire?
Answer: One fun week in KA Kindergarten!

With two field trips this week, Kindergarten has been busy (but in the best way possible!) On Monday we continued learning about books by traveling to the Wells County Public Library. The Librarian there read us stories about libraries, and taught us about authors and illustrators. We then got a tour of the children's section of library.

On Tuesday the whole field trip took a trip to Drennen's Pumpkin Farm. We went through a corn maze, went on a hayride, and picked out our own pumpkins to take home! They then gave a presentation about how pumpkins grow, where I think everyone learned a lot! However, the student's highlight of the day may have been the kittens there!

On Thursday we learned about another type of books, songbooks! We sat around the "campfire" and sang some of our favorite songs! Some students even made up their own songs for us! But what's a campfire with....SMORES! For snack we made our own non-cook smores using marshmallows, chocolate syrup, and graham cracker crumbs. 

This is the first month that Miss Susan from the library came to read, sing, and do activities with the students. She will be coming every month, and it is so much fun!

We learned three letter sounds this week, "u", "k", and "c". We also have a new sight word, "his". The students are reading more and more smoothly. I hope everyone is enjoying reading for Book-It. When the chart is all full, send it in to get a free pizza!