Spring has Sprung in Room 506!

At the end of last month we celebrated the first day of Spring by creating visors! I was a little worried that the kids would think these were lame. But boy was I wrong... visors are awesome!

Miss Farnie and I did a little Spring cleaning and moved things around in the classroom. The science center is looking especially Springy in it's new location with lots of sunshine!

Miss Farnie brought new fish, snails, and crabs in to add to the fish tank. The kids have enjoyed observing them while they are in the science center!

We even got new Spring nametags!

Last week we brought in a few new class pets (if you can call them that)! We now have 5 caterpillars that we hope to watch transform into butterflies over the next 3 weeks!

In the mean time, we'll keep watching our pretend butterfly flutter!

Happy Spring!

Howdy!

We have talking about Texas since the beginning of last week and it has really been a lot of fun! We've been talking about the size of our state, where it is located, and the state symbols. We've also had fun reading some fiction books about cowboys, horses, and farms.

One day we talked about how Texans joke that everything is bigger! The kids each came up with their own idea about something that's bigger in Texas!

Pizza

Pickles

Schools

Today the kids created chili pepper patterns that we hung up in the hallway because they're so darn cute!

Parents have been sending in pictures for the "Name That Texan" activity. The kids will have to see if they can name all their friends by looking at the baby pictures!

In the art station, the kids are creating cowboy sunset silhouette pictures!

Last week we made fingerprint bluebonnets.

We also read Monarch Butterflies by Gail Gibbons and talked about our state insect, the Monarch Butterfly. The kids colored their own monarch butterfly during snack and we added those to our Texas display in the hallway!

We are looking forward to the "Rodeo" on Friday! :)

Fair Share!

This week in math we are learning about sharing a set objects equally amongst two or more smaller sets. We began on Tuesday by reading The Doorbell Rang. The book tells a story of two children who must split their batch up cookies up equally as more and more friends arrive at their door. As we read, we passed out cookies equally to model the happenings in the book.

I happened to be getting observed this day and the kids' enthusiasm about the cookies, although great, was a little overwhelming! We quickly put the cookies away after the book to chat quickly about how the cookies were divided into more and more groups but it was always fair!

To end the lesson, the kids created their own example of a "fair share" using cupcakes!

Today, we continued to practice by playing Kim Adsit's "Let's Share" games! The kids rolled the dice to find the amount of objects in their set, then divided the set for four friends. They recorded their findings on their cute little recording sheets!

Poetry

Today we began studying poetry during writing time. We have been following the Lucy Calkins Units of Study for Primary Writing. She has one book dedicated to teaching poetry and that was our jumping point for getting started today.

We talked about the way that a poet sees things with their hearts, brains, and imaginations. We talked about the way that their writing is not always real, its sometimes pretend. How poems can rhyme, but not all of them do. We talked about how poetry is a creative way to write. The kids seemed to be pretty excited about starting something new!

As recommended in the book, we set up a "museum" of objects. Ours were an apple, some flowers, a pretend butterfly, and some real grass. The kids were each given a poetry notebook and sent off to make notes using "the eyes of a poet".

I was pretty impressed with the notes that they made. However, this is only the beginning and we are going to continue practicing seeing things with a poet's eye until we are ready to start writing our own poems!

Here are a few cool poetry sites for kids:

Jeff's Poems for Kids

Shel Silverstein Official Website

Create Online Magnetic Poetry

Jack Prelutsky's Official Website

Field Trip!

Today we visited the Oil Ranch near Houston! It was a gorgeous day and we had the place to ourselves! The kids had a great time!

They got to milk and feed cows, ride ponies, visit a petting zoo, go on a train ride, climb on haystacks, enjoy some snow cones, go on a hayride, play mini-golf, bounce in a moon bounce, visit an indian village, and I'm sure there's more I'm leaving out!

Here are some pictures from our day!

I realize that "Let Them Be Little" is kind of a sappy song for such a fun day but they kids truly were just little today. They were so excited to see the animals and to just run and play with their friends. Their innocence is so precious and I think that song really captures what we saw in the kids' faces today!

A few of their sweet smiles:

More Fraction Practice!

Miss Farnie read Eating Fractions by Bruce McMillan to continue our learning of fractions!

The kids used play-doh to practice cutting shapes into two equal pieces, then three equal pieces, and finally four equal pieces.

It didn't take the kids long to catch on! Miss Farnie finished up the lesson by reiterating to the kids that it is only a true fraction when we have equal pieces!

Journaling in Kindergarten!

We began keeping journals a few weeks ago. I feel like this journaling time in the mornings is really helping the kids learn how to think and express that thinking in writing. Some of the prompts are silly and some are about things we have been talking about in class.

We have the prompts printed on labels so the kids can grab a label and get to work writing their response. The kids have all been writing each day... some more legible than others... but all are writing!

What are some things you do at school to be helpful?

Shake hands. You could hug somebody. If somebody is sad I would give them a high five.

Tell about something that makes you smile.

I smile when somebody makes a funny face.

How do you brush your teeth?

I'm pretty sure that says "I brush my teeth in circles but not floss."

However, when it was read to me I was told that it says "I brush my teeth in circles and floss."

What is something you learned on President's Day?
I learned George Washington was the first president.

What are some things you do at school to be helpful?

I listen to the teacher. I have safe hands. Also I have safe feet.

Tell about someone you love.

I love my mom because she loves me.

(How Sweet!)

Dr. Seuss: Day 5

Today was our final day of celebrating Dr. Seuss! We squeezed in as much as we could!

This morning, we read Dr. Seuss's ABC Book. Then we made our own. Here are a few of the pages:

This afternoon some of the boys were looking at the completed book and proud to show off the pages that they did!

Then during snack, we read Oh Say, Can You Say by Dr. Seuss. This book is full of alliteration and rhyme! It's quite the tongue twister! After reading, we made up tongue twisters for each student in the class. The kids got so tickled over them!

I stole an idea from another blog (help me out if you know where I saw this!) to attach their tongue twisters as "tongues" to their pictures! Look how cute:

This week during our read alouds we have been discussing story elements. So today we talked about Dr. Seuss's creative characters that he uses in his books. Then the kids had the opportunity to create their own Seuss-like character from a toilet paper roll and assorted materials!

We had a Dr. Seuss Let's Find Out by Scholastic that we read this afternoon. Scholastic also had a great, short video on their website about Seuss with the March Digital Resources.

During free choice time today, Miss F brought out the bowling set! It was great to see the kids all doing something together!

A sneak peek of next week!