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!

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.