Books, Books, and More Books!

I hope everyone is having a great Street Fair week! We're on to our new unit in KA Kindergarten...BOOKS! We will be learning about all different kinds of books and what we use them for. On Monday we studied "How To" books. We followed some directions carefully to draw our own houses!

Tuesday was a super fun day! We learned about cook books! We followed a recipe to make cookie dough, which we then baked, which we of course then ate!

On Thursday we studied science books, more specifically magnets. We did a science experiment with magnets to see if we could guess which items were magnetic, and which weren't. The students felt like scientist as they hypothesized, experimented, recorded data, then made a conclusion!

Besides having fun discovering new books, we've also been reading books! We learned about the letters "B" and "P" this week, and started to incorporate their sounds in our reading. These kindergartners are sure growing quick!

In math we just finished our number unit, and will soon be learning measurements. Weight, height, and inches are a few things that the students will be learning in the upcoming weeks. 

Have a great weekend everyone!    

Let's Stay Healthy!

If  your children have been coming home asking for vegetables this week, do not be alarmed! They are not sick, we have just been learning this week about staying healthy and community workers that help with this.

On Monday we talked about dentist and keeping our teeth healthy! We discussed different foods that are good and bad for your teeth. We then did a little craft by "brushing" yellow teeth and turning them white. Of course with all this teeth talk we had to make a fun snack! We took apples, peanut butter and marshmallows to make big smiles! At the end of the day we talked about f

Tooth Cleaning

Smile Snack

Dental Floss Painting

On Tuesday we talked about nurses and keeping our bodies healthy. We worked up a sweat by doing some fun exercises! Then, some brave students tried many different kinds of vegetables. Surprisingly, most of them loved them! The pepper was a favorite (even though I don't even like them!). At the end of the day we made veggie monsters with the leftover vegetables.

Veggie Monsters!

Thursday we had two special visitors come in. In the morning a dental hygienist came in and talked about keeping teeth healthy. In the afternoon a nurse came in to talk about her job and hand washing. Both of them brought special goodies to bring home. A big thanks to them for coming in!

Dental Hygienist 

Nurse

This week we also learned all about the letter "e" and sounding it out in words. The students are growing in learning, and I think really enjoying it!

In math we are continuing to talk about different numbers and their values. We also discussed ordinal numbers, which has been tricky. But I think the students are getting it!

Have a great (and healthy!) weekend.

The Mail Never Fails!

Happy late Labor Day! I hope everyone enjoyed the extra day off last week! Even though the holiday made for a short week, we still learned so much! The Community Helper we learned about this week was mail carriers! On Tuesday we made letters to the different teachers in the school, and even put them in envelopes with stamps! We then acted like we were mail carriers and delivered the mail all throughout the school! On Tuesday we discussed how hard being a mail carrier would be sometimes! So using stamps we made thank you cards for our mail carriers, and placed them in the school's mailbox.

We've been busy readers this week as well! There are now ten words on our word wall! We started our first reading books with words in it, and the students took on the challenge wonderfully! Those books came home today, so you can read the book with your child!

Math has also been busy. We have begun learning more about numbers and their values. The students are counting quickly, and we;ll start counting higher and higher!

Enjoy the weekend!

Community Helpers

Sorry about not posting last week, I need to get into the habit again! We have been busy these last two weeks learning about about some heroes in our community. Firefighters and Police Officers is what we've been focused on.

Last week we learned about firefighters and fire safety. We talked about what exactly firefighters do, fire safety, and fire escape plans. We discovered through a science experiment about how fire burns, and what puts it out (don't worry, it was safe!)

For snack we even made firetrucks that taste delicious!

We also discussed smoke alarms, and made our own using paper plates and yarn.

Using paper, paint, and plastic wrap, we were also able to make flames on paper! It was fun to see the colors swirl together!

On Thursday we were lucky to have a police officer come in and talk about his job! He was so interesting, and learned a lot with the students! We even got to see the inside of the police car, and the lights on!

The following week we talked about safety on the streets and stop lights. Of course, a snack had to come with this!

Today we discovered out fingerprint and how God made everyone's unique! It was pretty interesting to see ours using a stamp pad, and then think about what all we leave our print on!

Besides learning about community helpers, we have been learning letter sounds and hearing them in words. We're also beginning to learn to read some words! So keep an eye for sight words and reading books coming home to practice! In math we just finished learning about patterns, and will be exploring numbers more! It's such an incredible thing to see little minds grow!

Have a wonderful weekend, and enjoy Labor Day!

First Week of a New Year!

I am so excited to start a new school year! I feel so blessed to have another year to teach darling five to six year olds. This year I have six students, four girls and two boys. For the first week we learned all about the rules of school, our classmates, teachers, and started the adventure of learning.

The first day was focused on getting the students settled into their new room. They unpacked their bags, set up their lockers, and explored the classroom. In the afternoon we had a surprise visitor! Pete the Cat (from the children's books) left us a note that he was somewhere in the school! We searched classroom to classroom all the around the school for the ornery cat. Sadly, Pete left the school the school before we could find him, but he left lots of goodies for us in our classroom!

On Tuesday we started out kindergarten routine. It was amazing to see how fast the students started to show the rules and be comfortable in the classroom. We also started talking about colors and shapes. We explored mixing colors with a science experiment! The student learned all about how some colors come together to make a new color!

Thursday we discussed how God made every student and their families special to them. In the morning the student drew pictures of their special families. It was neat to see how each student viewed different members in their family.

During phonics time we started to practice hearing and coming up with rhyming words. The students had some disgusting fun by finding rhyming words in the rhyme slime! Their hands got covered in slime, but they learned a lot about rhyming words.

In the afternoon they started a project of making their own self portrait. If you looked at the picture, you would think that they always wore colorful feathers and shiny shapes!

I've had so much fun getting to know these kinders this week! I can't wait for another week full of discovery and learning! Have a fun weekend!

Growing Minds

This week in KA Kindergarten we began to learn about gardens and how plants grow. This is such a fun theme, that we're going to spend two weeks on it! On Monday we discussed different plants and flowers that are grown, and how God made them each unique! We then wrote about our own uniqueness in this cute flower assignment.

On Tuesday we learned about what plants need to grow, and did an experiment by watching colored water travel up a celery. By the end of the day, the tip of the celery was blue like the water! Below is the idea of the experiment, I forgot to take pictures though!

On Thursday we journeyed outside to draw some plants that we could observe. However, it was so rainy, that we're moving the activity to next week. 

In reading we are continuing to work with sight words and letter blends. This week we worked with "er", "ur", and "ir". A way to help us remember the sound of these letters is by this picture.

The story is that "er", "ir", and "ur" love to drive, but they are absolutely terrible at it! So, they have to constantly be hitting their brakes and making an errrrrr sound! 

In math the students are becoming quick at addition and subtraction facts! They also began to combine different types of coins to make different amounts. We might have some future bankers in the making!

This week we learned about another famous artist, Monet. We made our own water lily pictures. On Monday we painted the water, and used plastic wrap to make waves in the paint. 

Then on Tuesday we made the lily pads and lily flowers using tissue paper. The result was gorgeous Monet like pictures!

We also started the IOWA test this week. We will be working on the test a little bit everyday for the next few weeks. The first day the students thought it was pretty fun to fill in the bubbles! But the enthusiasm wore off by the next test. With just doing one test a day though, the test shouldn't be to bad! Plus, they get to read their favourite book, Tap the Magic Tree after every test as a little reward!