Letter G & Math Videos!

Please play this song at home to help brainstorm some letter G words for your child’s Mystery Bag. Please have your child write their three clues! :)

In math this week, we will be counting to 100 by ones and tens. Please play these songs at home.

Gingerbread Houses Making Party Invitation!

All parents are invited to join us for our gingerbread house making party on Friday, December 18th from 8:30-9:30 AM. Please be on the look out for an email coming from our room mom, Beth Kizito, regarding items needed and to RSVP on SignUpGenius! This is always such a fun event and I look forward to seeing many of you there!

PS The kids don’t know it yet but we are going to have a pajama day that day! Parents can wear theirs too! :)

Reindeer Peek!

I started doing this project a few years ago and it is one of my favorite projects to do at this time of the year! Whenever we do art, I always try to incorporate writing. We made the reindeer first and then during my small group I gave the kids this prompt:

Pretend that a reindeer is outside your house and out of curiosity, he looks in the window.... what would he see?

Here are our “Reindeer Peeks"

I love how different each reindeer turned out even with the same templates for the reindeer’s body. Each child made their own eyes and holly on the reindeer’s ears. When they wrote, they had to use this week’s sight word and to describe two things the reindeer saw. Also, as you will see, I didn’t tell them how to write the word reindeer :)

“My reindeer can see cookies and me sleeping."

“My reindeer can see my elf and my mama."

“My reindeer can see my toys and me tree."

“My reindeer can see my Christmas tree and he can see our house."

“My reindeer can see presents and Santa."

Holidays Around the World: Germany & Mexico!

For the next few weeks, we will visit many different countries to learn about their holiday traditions. This week we boarded a “plane” and “flew” to Germany on Tuesday & Mexico on Friday. 

All aboard the Holiday Express Airlines!

As the kids came in, they were given a ticket to board the plane. 

We used this map to locate the United States, Germany & Mexico. Ask your child if they can find where we live and where we flew. Some of them were able to remember!

Ready for take off!

Before we took off to Germany & Mexico, we made sure our seat belts were tightly fastened, that our tickets were carefully stowed under our seat and that we were sitting up straight in our seats!

Checking to make sure the plane is ready to go!

And we’re off!

We started off on the “runway" (La Granada Drive) and I used Google Earth to fly from the street view option to the country we were visiting. I wasn’t able to hold the camera and zoom in, but we ended up landing on a dirt road next to the beach in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico! One of the kids said it looked just like Disneyland! :)  I think it was the big buildings and palm trees! 

Germany

Two of the holiday traditions that originated in Germany are gingerbread houses and decorating Christmas trees. The Germans create fancy gingerbread houses and we were able to see some in a history video on the Internet. We also learned about how the first people who brought evergreen trees into their house used to decorate them with fruit and candles. We learned how Thomas Edison created the very first strand of lights that was used for decorating the Christmas tree.

While visiting each country, the kids are keeping a suitcase full of all of their treasures from each country.

The kids color the country’s flag and a picture of the country from a map. We are also keeping a travel log which includes a sentence either about what we learned or made while in the country. Auden wrote that he made a Christmas tree in Germany. We also made gingerbread men. 

Here’s a look at some of the fun activities we did earlier this week:

When the kids came in to class this week, I had set up a HUGE gingerbread house for all of their gingerbread men! The kids did a great job on their gingerbread man homework assignment. 

We made these trees by using pre-cut strips by placing them in order from shortest to longest. This concept is often quite challenging spatially for Kindergarteners and is such a good exercise for them. They topped the project off with 20 white snowflakes. It’s fun to see where each child places the 20 dots. The kids were persistent through the process and the final product came out beautiful! This bulletin board looks like a beautiful winter forrest. 

We aren’t actually done with the following activity, but the pictures of the process were too good not to share. During math, we have been decomposing teen numbers. Every day we count the days of school using straws. We currently have 6 bundles of 10 and 5 ones. Stumped? That’s 65 days of school. We have used straws and our Ten Frames to help us count. I introduced the following video of a new way to decompose teen numbers: by using base ten blocks that we called a “tower of 10” and the single cubes were “ones”. 

We had practiced on Tuesday making teen numbers using unifix cubes. On Wednesday, we did a worksheet where the kids had to count the cubes and write the number. Finally, on Thursday, we were able to make our own teen number trees! The kids worked in groups to make 9 trees, one for each number 11-19. They cut out stars with the teen numbers on them and places them on top of the tree. They then grabbed a tens tower and some ones to show that number. I was really proud of the hard work the kids put in to the activity and how nicely they worked together in small groups!

Macy & Avery showing off their carefully organized trees waiting to be decorated with base ten blocks. 

Waylon & Dean hard at work assembling their trees. 

Kate & Abigail working away.

Siena, Camryn & Madylan making lots of trees.

Dylan, Carson & Jason 

Emily & Julia counting out how many tens and ones they will need. 

Mexico

On Friday morning we flew to Mexico to learn about their holiday traditions. We saw pictures of children taking part in a parade-like procession called Las Posadas, which takes place every night from December 16-24. We also learned about the legend of the poinsettia. We heard a story about a little girl who brought what many people thought was just weeds as a gift. To everyone’s surprise, the “weeds” turned into beautiful poinsettias! Ask you child what part of the poinsettia is actually the flower and which part is the leaf. It might surprise you!!

While in Mexico today, we made poinsettias, as Julia wrote in her travel log. 

We painted these BEAUTIFUL poinsettias today using sponges and added construction paper leaves. 

I wonder where we will go next week!?!

Thanksgiving!

We had a great Thanksgiving party & feast on November 20th! While the photos may be a little late, I am still as grateful as I was then for having such a great group of students in Room 1!

We started our morning off by attending the Second Graders’ play, Turkeys Go on Strike. The play, just like it sounds, is about a group of turkeys who decide that they don’t want to be the main course in the Thanksgiving meal. The cranberries and squash, just to name a few, try to state their case of why they should be the main course. The play also retold the first Thanksgiving story and was all around a fun way to start our morning!

After the play, we joined the other kindergarten classes in Room 18 for our Thanksgiving feast. The kids got to do many fun Thanksgiving themed activities including making Pilgrim hats, Native American hats, shakers, necklaces, as well as played tic-tac-toe, colored and drew turkeys.

Here are pictures from our party...

Carson & his mom having fun at the coloring table.

Kaleigh drawing a really nice turkey at the roll-a-turkey table!

 Auden making his Native American hat.

 In all seriousness, the shakers were fun! :)

 Noah showing off his necklace.

 Macy & Eddie making their Native American necklaces.

 Patrick with a Room 18 friend.

Julia at the coloring table. 

 Avery & Waylon adding symbols to their shakers.

 Sweet friends, Emily, Kali & Ava, making their Native American headbands.

 Cody making his necklace.

 Sweet friends having fun!

 Julia & her dad at our feast!

 SOOOOO yummy!

Camryn at the feast.

Dean during our feast.

Such a nice picture of Jason & his mom :)

Yummy! Right, Dylan?

Abigail enjoying the feast.

A room full of Pilgrims & Indians... I mean Kindergarteners! 

Thanks to Mr. Andrew (Patrick’s dad) for ending the day with a fun, hands-on art project .... Indian corn!

 Beading away!

 Hard at work counting those beads!

The finished product was great! Thanks, Mr. Andrew!

And of course, we couldn’t end the very exciting day without a nice calm-down with Maximo, our yoga instructor from the website GoNoodle!

I think this yoga position was called the pretzel! Is it bad if sometimes, when not participating in the yoga, I crack a laugh at these 5 & 6 year olds attempting to be tranquil during yoga exercises?! Too fun!