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!

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!