Best Day EVER!!

We truly had the best day ever in kindergarten.  We covered several math, science, social studies, writing and reading standards with eggs,  and plants today!  Rather than a lengthy explanation I'll let the photos tell the story. 

 The kids stuffed bags with different materials to protect a raw egg from a long drop.   Four of our six materials came from plants.

 We used a plant based dye (beets, blueberries and grape juice) to dye our plant based popsicle sticks

 The kids check out our material bags after the drop to confirm their predictions of if an egg would survive the fall.

 Mrs. Keach asks the kids what will happen to an egg left in vinegar and the kids find out what will spin best, a hard boiled or raw egg.

 We dropped six bags of materials protecting the eggs.  Note the sugar, beans, and fur on the floor from bags exploding on impact.

 The best way to start off the experiment is with Humpty Dumpty.

 After the real egg drop, the kids tucked different materials (legos, tissues, dinosaurs) in plastic eggs to see if the plastic egg would break open.  It was constructive chaos!

 The class LOVED watching the bags drop.  It was more fun than Times Square on New Year's Eve.

 The end result of our packages.  There are broken shells in every bag but the sugar.

 Making predictions for our experiment.

Counting out popsicle sticks.  How many did we dye?  How many did we leave natural?  130 were dyed, and 169 were left natural.  One stick stayed out so we could use it to stir the dye.

On top of this, the kids finished writing their play AND earned all their marbles!  We will be celebrating with pajama day on Monday, April 1.  This truly was the best day ever.

Sight Word Eggs

Today we each wrote words and tucked them into plastic eggs.  Then the kids hid their eggs around the room.  When all the eggs were hidden the kids then went looking for eggs.  They brought the eggs back to circle and read the words inside.  We used sight words as well as palindromes (words spelled the same backward as forward). Whenever somebody came up with a palindrome we put it on our new chart.  So far we have the following words on our chart:  wow, did, hannah anna, peep, pop kayak, dad, mom, noon, bib, bob, and pip.  See if you can add any to our list with your child.

The kiddos are also taking bookmarks home today.  These bookmarks have strategies to read tough words.  The strategies include: looking at the picture, saying the first and last sound, stretching the word out, finding chunks you can read in the word, skipping it and reading on, trying different sounds that letters can make, go back to the beginning and try again.  Then, if you still can't read the word, ask for help.  We will be focussing many lessons on these strategies and it will help if you also support this work at home.

Tomorrow is going to be exciting as we use natural objects to dye eggs!

Guess the Number

Today we had fun working in pairs with a 100 grid.  One child would close his eyes while the other circled a number on the grid.  Then the child with the closed eyes put his finger on the grid while his partner guided him to find the circled number.  The directions given were up, down, left or right.  When the child found the circled  number he had to say what it was.  The kids enjoyed playing this game.  We also had to find purple word cards hidden around the room.  Once found the class sorted the words into "an" and "am" piles.  You could do this at home with our kindergarten sight words, or with the first grade words that will be coming home next week as so many members of our class already mastered the kindergarten words.

Potluck!

Our class read the book Potluck last week.  This was a book about children with names from A-Z bringing food to a potluck that began with the same letter as their name.  Then the kids paired up and made an A-Z list of fruits and vegetables, with some help from Lois Ehlert's book, Eating the Alphabet.

We each picked a letter to find a fruit or vegetable for and brought everything in today!

The kids were introduced to ugli fruit and figs, dates and nectarines.  We focused a great deal on all the sounds each item began with and then settled into a wonderful feast. We wrapped up our potluck by having each student write about a fruit or vegetable he or she liked to eat.  Even with so many new foods introduced, most kids stuck with their comfort foods, like carrots and grapes.  Thanks so much to all you parents who helped us pull off a fun and educational experience!

Popcorn!

Today Miss Heidi came in with her popcorn popper.  We read Tomie DePaola's book, Popcorn, and discovered that popcorn was found in a bat cave that was 5,400 years old.  Then Miss Heidi showed us how her popcorn popper worked.  The kids were astounded to know that when I grew up there were no microwaves to make popcorn.

We talked about how the volume of popcorn changes after it has been popped.  We know that you need to add a heat source to make the popcorn pop; and as a special bonus, when you add heat to butter it melts to pour over the popcorn.

Each child read a popcorn book and is taking it home to share with their family.  We all made a list of how popcorn looks, sounds, tastes, feels, and smells.  Then we each wrote a fact we learned about popcorn.  Now we are left wondering what else heat can changed.  Stay tuned!

Number Puzzles

We had fun learning the words for numbers today with a team activity.  Each child took one puzzle piece and then found two other students with the same number, either in dots, numeral or word form.  They kept begging to play this game again and again.

The class also had fun listing characters we will be using in a play about the sun. We will be writing this play and learning about characters, setting, props, and plot.  The class is excited to start this project from the ground up.

I hope everyone found our note about the potluck on Thursday, March 21.  EAch child is asked to bring in just one fruit or vegetable starting with the letter they chose.  If you have a question about this project give me a call at 882-7585.  Have a great night!

Wishbone

Today during recess we played a game I am calling "Wishbone."  You start by taking 10 unifix cubes in a train and two children break it apart like a wishbone.  The first child puts down the cubes she pulled, then a plus sign, then the second child's cubes, an equals sign and finally the number ten.  You can play this game with any amount, but the kids were having fun working with ten, and getting the same equations over and over.  We also worked with the concept "how many more than" by grabbing a fistful of manipulatives and sorting them into two piles, like cats and dogs.  We lined up the cats to the dogs and talked about how many of the lesser quantity we would need to add to equal the greater quantity.  You can do this at home with crayons (reds to blues), coins (pennies to dimes) or even silverware (forks and spoons). Give it a go and tell me what you used to work with the "how many more than" concept.

Measuring Monday

We had a special guest from SASSM today.  She brought her porcupine puppet and worked with the students on how to ask before touching someone else, and how to say no if somebody wants to get too close to or touch you.  The porcupine puppet asked permission to sniff each child.  Several children declined the chance to be "sniffed" by the porcupine, but many of them asked the puppet for permission to touch it.  (The quills were very soft, I promise).

Then it was time to measure!  Everyone picked a stuffed animal to measure with yardsticks, rulers and unifix cubes.  We talked about having to line up the animal with the zero point on the ruler, because some things are smaller than one inch long.

We spent some time talking about why it is important to use lower case letters in our journals.  When we write with all capitals it is like shouting, and we can't tell what is most important. The children are also working on using punctuation and spaces.  Everyone is adding more detail to both their pictures and words.

Our bulletin board by the library is almost finished.  We just need to think of a title for it now.  Be sure to stop by during parent teacher conferences to see it.  I sent home conference confirmation sheets with the students last week.  If you are unsure of when our meeting is please email me at broper@svrsu.org or call 882-7585.  I'll see you soon!

Fun Fridays

We played and learned all at the same time today!  Mrs. Keach showed use how to play a board game using the medial (middle) sounds in words.  We also took turns acting out how the moon went around the Earth while the Earth went around the sun.  Then our fourth grade buddies came in and we played a game pulling unifix cube trains of ten apart and tallying the data of combinations equalling ten.  The best part of that game was kindergarten students learned how to make ten, and fourth grade students reviewed how to find the mode (most frequently occurring number).

We played with Head Start friends who came in for a visit and showed them how to use all our games.  The kids were also excited to read a play for the first time. Groups of kids each assumed a different role and learned how to read from a script.  This was a very fun Friday, learning by play is everyone's favorite!

Planting Seeds With Farm Abby

Today Farm Abby came in to plant seeds with us.  We talked about how important the sun is to plants.  Then Abby gave us some seeds to observe:  kale, spinach, lettuce, and pumpkin.  She told us how smaller seeds need to be planted closer to the top of the soil.  Then we decided to do an experiment.  We planted two sets of kale, spinach, and lettuce.  One set of plants was put in a window, and the other set was put under a cubby.  We will observe the progress of our plantings each day.  The kids hypothesize the plants set in the window will grow the best.  Keep an eye out for updates!

Making the Sun

As Mrs. Keach has been teaching us about the sun, moon, and Earth during our reading time I thought it would be fun to incorporate what we are learning into our PIE bulletin board by the library.  At choice time a crack team of artists joined me in creating a torn paper collage of the sun.  We used red, orange and yellow because those are "warm" colors.  Tomorrow we will make an Earth and then a moon.  I'm excited to show you the final product, but for now I am including a picture of the sun creation.

We put our first piece of work on the "Work that Shines" board today.  A book report complete with name, colored picture and words written done neatly was the first piece.  Now the kids are all hungry to get a piece of their work on the board.  It's great to see the kids striving to improve their work each day.

Parent Teacher Conferences

Parent Teacher Conferences

Can you believe it is already March? We are thrilled for the chance to meet with each of you to talk about your student’s progress. Conferences will be held Wednesday, March 13 and Thursday, March 14 from 3-7. Please pick a time that will work for you to meet and send this form back as soon as you can so we can schedule the two nights. We’re looking forward to seeing you all soon.

Your Partners in Learning,

 Becky Roper

And Jen Keach

Guest Blog from Mrs. Keach =)

What do you get when you merge math, reading/writing, and science all together into one activity? You get excited students eagerly making birthday hats.  Yes, these hats may be simple objects but one must look deeper to understand that these hats show true learning in progress!   Yesterday in math we explored 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional shapes.  The students searched the classroom for 3-dimensional shapes and each student shared the shape they discovered with the class.  This gave them a great foundation for an activity planned for the following day.  This week we have been exploring the moon and the stars through literature.  Today we read Happy Birthday, Moon by Frank Asch (reading).  The students were delighted by this tale of Bear giving the Moon a hat for his birthday.   Enter the birthday hats or shall I say our 3-dimensional cone shaped objects (math).  The students decorated their hats by writing and drawing something that they learned about the moon or the sun (science and writing).   Who would have thought that so many common core areas could be addressed with one activity!  This Padawan, as Ms. Roper would like to call me, is learning as much from the students as they are learning from me!