Welcome Back!!! New VOWEL! Letter Ii!

We finally have another vowel to make words! Letter I! For this week’s mystery bag, please have your child find something that either starts with the short letter I sound /i/ (as in insect & igloo) OR a word that has the short i sound in the middle of it (as in bin or tin).

Letter D

Use this song to help your child come up with an object that starts with the letter D for their mystery bag. Have your child help sound out the words and write any of their sight words in the clues.

Sight words we’ve done so far: a, I, see, my, can, the, have, go, to, like, is, are, for, they, come

Fun Run Pictures

I am so proud of how well the Kindergartners did during our Fun Run! (And boy am I out of shape!!!) I tried to get some snapshots of the kids while they were running. I will also try to update this page with some group photos. If you took a group photo, could you email it to me so I could share it here? Thanks!

Run Waylon!

Speedy Abigail!

Go Macy!

Yahoo, Dean!

Go Avery! (And Mrs. Meager!)

Emily & Julia holding hands!

Let’s go, Siena, Auden, Jason & Dylan!

Ava running so fast!

All smiles for Kali!

Having fun!

A nice Kodak moment with Siena & Noah!

So Much to be Thankful For!

We had another great week full of fun celebrations and lots of learning! 

After the Fun Run on Thursday, we met with our 3rd grade study buddies from Mrs. Shen & Mrs. Shaffer’s class. The kids worked together to trace each other’s hand to represent a leaf. Then, the kids wrote what they were thankful for. Here are some snapshots of the Kinders with their study buddies. They sure like them :)

Siena & Teila

The 3rd graders were such helpers showing the Kindergartners how to trace their hands and to write what they were thankful for.

Cody & Noa

Ruby was lucky enough to have her brother, Waylon, join her and Abigail.

Parker was a great study buddy to step in for Emily’s study buddy who wasn’t there.

Deangello & Auden

Finn & Dean

Julia & Emily

Kate & Avery’s big sister, Nyla!

Kali & Nathan

So much fun!

Patrick’s study buddy was thankful for him :)

It says, “I am thankful for the leaves that fall on my hand.” We have some very poetic 3rd graders at MATES!

The hand print leaves covered our library tree. So festive!

The final touches of our scarecrows and the patterned corn we made this week.

We started the week off learning about the pilgrims who came to America. We brainstormed what pilgrims had and what we have now. We completed a Venn Diagram comparing the two groups and the kids wrote about it.

Kali wrote, “I have a Rapunzel. A pilgrim did not."

Dean wrote, “I have a toothbrush. A pilgrim did not."

Dylan wrote, “I have a pencil. A pilgrim did not."

Look at our completed turkey! I have to say, this is the most beautiful turkey I have ever seen! 

In preparation for Friday’s pizza party that we earned for having the most out-of-state pledges, the kids at Mrs. Dinardo’s Dictionary table were very excited.... and they LOVED that pizza and party started with the letter P!

Ms. Priske didn’t eat too much of our pizza, she had to wear the blow up suit for us meeting our goal for the Fun Run! SOOO funny!

The kids loved the pizza party & Ms. Priske!

A final thank you to “Touchdown Trevor” who visited our class every day and taught us lessons on how to be a leader. 

Touchdown Trevor even joined us for a dance party with Room 18 on our pajama day! 

Letter.... P!

Play this song to help your child come up with some letter p words for their mystery bag. Don’t forget to let them sound out some of the words and write their sight words! This week’s sight word is for.

Also, we will be learning teen numbers in math in our next chapter. Here are some fun songs for numbers 11-20!

It's Looking Like Fall!

After spending last weekend in Indiana with all the beautiful autumn hues on the leaves and the cool crisp air, it felt kind of strange teaching the Kindergartners about the fall season. We did a fall vs. summer sort that was kind of humorous for these California kids. We wrote about what happens in the fall and also what doesn't happen... That was challenging to come up with ideas. We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful place with nice warm weather that feels like summer year round! I was so happy to finally break out a sweater this week! 

I did share a couple of my pictures from my trip to help the kids get a glimpse of what fall looked like in Indiana. 

This is the park my friend got married at in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

On Halloween, we went to a small pumpkin patch across from a farm. When you combine piles of leaves and two California girls you get silly leaf throwing :)

Beautiful fall colors.

On Thursday, two of our art helpers came to help assist me as we did one of our first "Directed Draws" of scarecrows. I love how each child's scarecrow is uniquely there's down to the shapes, sizes, colors and descriptions they chose. 

This week, we will pattern color corn to add to the corn stalks.

Waylon's scarecrow is a pirate!

Kate's scarecrow is happy.

Maryland scarecrow is nice.

Dylan's scarecrow is scary.

Don't forget to bring in your finished turkey feather to add to our turkey! This is going to look beautiful once they all come in!

This was my first time doing this leaf project. At first, when the kids were drawing the leaves I was a bit nervous of how they would turn out but they are GORGEOUS! This was a 5 step art project! First the kids drew the leaf with a pencil. Then they used tempura paint in a glue bottle to outline the pencil lines. While waiting for it to dry, the kids chose their own pattern for the border. Once the pain dried, they water colored their leaves using fall colors. Finally, the kids cut carefully next to the black paint lines and glues the leaves onto their backgrounds. They came out just beautiful!

As you can tell, every week our centers reflect a theme --- as you can tell, this week was all about fall. The kids used their fine motor skills to careful rip paper to make the tree branches, trunk and green grass. They finished the project by adding up to 20 fall "leaves" of each color using tempura paint with a q-tip. This is a great fine motor skill and math activity as well as a beautiful project to do during our thematic unit.