Friday, December 13, 2019

Christmas Concert

I am so proud of the kids for doing a great job at their Christmas Sing!  Even with the technology glitch of no piano, they rocked it out!   It is amazing to look at them and see just how far they have come and grown since the beginning of the school year.   






They did such a good job waiting patiently!

Thursday, December 5, 2019

Candy Cane Science

Today we started our Candy Cane Science Unit!  The kids were so excited to be scientists today.  We started with one simple experiment where we predicted if a candy cane would sink or float.  We talked about what we needed to complete our experiment and we recorded the process together. 




Many of the students were surprised to see that Candy Canes SINK!  As we recorded our observations and results, I left the candy cane in the water.  The kids were very intrigued that the candy cane disappeared!  We will do another experiment with dissolving candy canes next week.

The next experiment we did was to compare a soft, round peppermint to a traditional peppermint candy cane,  The kids were each given one to sample and then they had to decide which they preferred.  We talked about what was similar about the candy and what was different.  We then recorded what the class most preferred.  We even got opinions for Ms. Pam (Secretary) and Ms. Chelsea (School Nurse).  It was a close race, but soft peppermints were preferred over traditional candy canes by a small margin. 






We can't wait to complete more candy cane experiments next week!!  

Thursday, November 7, 2019

GLOW DAY!



This summer I was perusing pinterest and I came across a teaching blog that was all about setting the stage to engage children in learning.  One of things that they mentioned was to flip the classroom quarterly to keep kids excited about learning.  One of the ideas they had was to have a GLOW DAY.  As soon as I saw that, I knew it was something I wanted to try.  I submitted a Donor's Choose project and crossed my fingers that it got funded.  Through Donor's Choose I was able to get four black lights to hang around my classroom, some black light flashlights, and a few glowing items.  I then scoured my house, my classroom and Walmart for all things glowy.    I also asked parents to send in baking soda and vinegar for glow volcanoes.

In the morning we focused on Litercy.  We had 8 centers that each group rotated through.  One of the centers was sight words and fine motor combined.  They had to read the sight word and then place beads on the letters.


We took a break in the middle of Literacy centers to make GLOW VOLCANOES!  This was amazing.  The kids loved it.  It would not have been possible with out a parent volunteer.

I made a glow sensory bin that focused on reading and spelling simple decodable words.  They had to pull a word and then find the letters hidden in the rice to spell the word. 
We worked on strategy a little bit today too.  I was surprised that many kids did not know how to play tic-tac-toe so we learned how to play that as well.  
We also had a week and find sight word center using highlighters, and ABC order center using pipe cleaners and neon alphabet beads and roll and read using giant neon dice!

After lunch we took a quick group photo and then reset with a coloring activity using neon crayons and highlighters. 

After RtI we went back to work in glowing centers, this time doing math activities.  Some first graders came in to help for a while, so if you see an unfamiliar face, that is why!

One station had kids working on counting objects from 1 to 15. They pulled a card and then counted out the correct number of neon pom poms. 

We had a station where students made shapes out of neon yarn. 

We played a memory game to practice subitizing numbers zero to ten. 




We worked together to build a tower.  Each student took turns rolling a glow in the dark dice.  Whatever number they rolled, that is how many glow cups they got to add. 

We practiced numbers 9-20 by using glow play-doh and neon beads and ten frames. 


All in all we had a WONDERFUL day full of learning.   I heard "THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER" frequently throughout the day!

If you would like to check out my Donor's Choose page, you can click here.  You can subscribe to learn about future projects that need funding or you can donate towards a future project as well.

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Fire Safety

This week in Kindergarten it is all about Fire Safety.  We began talking about fire safety yesterday and today we were lucky enough to have the South Beloit Fire Department come and give our kids an assembly on fire safety.  They also brought the smoke house for the kids to practice safely evacuating.

Many students were not able to tell me where their families meeting place is.  This is something that you could talk about tonight at dinner time. 






For math today we matched fire fighters to fires.  They were very excited about cutting out the firemen and women. 




Thursday, August 15, 2019

First Day!

We had an energetic first day of Kindergarten!  We are learning how to be good listeners and all about how our classroom works.  We even read a poem using some friends first names!  By the end of next week everyone will have had the chance to read the poem with his/her name in it.

First Day of School Pictures:























We even got to have a little fun outside!  Check back tomorrow for more pictures!!