Non-Fiction and Counting to 100!

This morning we worked on a shared non-fiction book we are writing: All About Insects to share all that we have learned in our insect study.  Today we discussed what we would include in our book and added the table of contents.  Kindergarten authors decided that we would have a page about the body parts of insects, a page showing the life cycle of a butterfly, a page about bees and a page about ants.  Our cover page and table of contents is finished and tomorrow we will begin working on our "all about" pages as Kindergarteners call them.

During Math we took a look at a 100's chart and Kindergarten discussed what they noticed.  Kindergarten noticed that when you go up and down the first number changes but the second number stays the same but when you go across the second number changes.  Kindergarten also realized that you can count by 10 by starting at any number and we practiced counting by 10's by starting at 6 and ending at 96.   We also played a mystery number game where I chose a number and gave clues and Kindergartners had to guess the number I was thinking of!

A Trip to Fire Station Number 4!

This morning was quite exciting!  Kindergarten was surprised to see that two butterflies have emerged out of their chrysalis!  It was quite exciting to watch them fly around in the net and some student collected flowers for the butterflies when we were outside.

We also had the chance to visit Fire Station No. 4 on North Ave.  Firefighters Tim and Dennis let students sit in the truck, watched them put on their fire gear and what it looks like to slide down the fire pole!  Kindergarteners asked many great questions such as: how much water does your fire truck carry?  how long is the ladder?  why do you need to wear special clothing?

Some AMAZING work by Kindergarten!

You may often hear me say that kindergarteners amaze me every single day. Today was certainly not an exception.  I was truly amazed by the work Kindergarten did this afternoon.  This week we have been talking about maps with the focus being an introduction to what a map is as mapping will be a skill built on in later grades.  This afternoon I read the book Me on the Map a story in which a young girl shows readers herself on a map of her room, her room on the map of her house, her house on the map of her street--all the way to her country on a map of the world.  After reading the book I gave the students a task of creating their own map focusing on something they know could be their house, the school, the woods or their neighborhood.  What I perceived to be a quick activity took the entire afternoon!  Some kindergarteners chose to collaborate and built elaborate maps with local pizza shops, stores, CP Smith and the houses of their classmates.  The work was truly amazing!

We also had the chance to visit with baby chicks in Mrs. Spinner's class and caught (and released) a toad in the woods!

Officer Difranco visits!

This morning we had a special visitor at CP Smith our school safety officer, Officer Difranco.  Officer Difranco brought his police car out back for students to see and then came into our classroom to talk about what he does to help our community.  Kindergarten was excited to meet this community helper and learn more about how Officer Difranco keeps our schools safe.

Map Making!

Kindergarten is excited to look at and learn about maps.  Some students even chose the map as a background when building withe legos and were questioning the location of different places. Today I read Henry's Map a story about a pig who makes a map of the farm he lives on and after we worked together to make a map of our classroom.  Kindergarteners chose an item to draw, drew a symbol for it on a sticky note and then posted it in the correct location on our large paper map.  Later this week Kindergarten will work to make maps of their own.

On Friday we had a special treat - the circus came to CP Smith!  One of our kindergarteners was selected to be part of the show!

This morning I moved the chrysalises into the Butterfly Garden.  Sadly, one of our caterpillars did not make it but this morning we buried him outside under a tree.  Some students decided to add rocks, sticks and flowers over where he was buried.

This afternoon we listened to the book There's a Map on My Lap and Kindergarten shared what they know about maps: they can lead us to things like buried treasure, they help us get anywhere in the world, places look small but really they are big.  We also discussed that there are 7 continents and the continent we live on is North America.  We watched a silly video to help us learn the names of the 7 continents.

A Sunshiny Day

We enjoyed the warm weather and sunshine today in the Woods and on the playground.  There was a lot of wondering about our caterpillars who are doing a lot of moving in their chrysalis.  We discussed how it is hard to be patient and are curious about what is going on as the caterpillar's body is changing.  

This morning I read the Becoming Butterflies by Anne Rockwell and we learned that just like butterflies look different, caterpillars do to!  We looked at photographs of Painted Lady Butterflies and made predictions of what our butterflies will look like.  

The start of a chrysalis

After lunch today we noticed that one of the caterpillars is beginning to form a 'J' shape at the top of the cup!  This means that a chrysalis is beginning to be formed and that our caterpillars cannot be moved for 3 days.  During Reader's Workshop some students decided to read to our caterpillars in hopes that this would make them sleep and form the chrysalis quicker!  Yesterday we read our poem and Kindergarten helped to fill in the missing parts with illustrations:

During Writer's Workshop Kindergarteners began writing their on 'How-To' books remembering to use the words First, Next, and Then.  Some topics include: How to Catch a Rat, How to Catch a Butterfly, How to Break a Rock, How to Use the Roku Remote and How to Teach a Dog to Listen.

Happy Monday

Kindergarten was very excited to see how much our caterpillars grew over the weekend!  We expect that they should begin forming a chrysalis any day now.

 Last week our poem focused on Daffodils and how they change from yellow flowers we see outside now to the fluffy white flowers we make a wish and blow on.  There was lots of excitement when some of the fluffy white flowers were found!

In Math we practiced counting teen numbers with the 'say 10' way, i.e. 13 is 10 ones and 3 ones.  Kindergarten worked to circle groups of 10 and quickly counted on the ones that remained.  We continue to work on How To Writing during Writer's Workshop today Kindergarten co-created How-To Play Tag.  I recorded their language and then in small groups they worked to illustrate each step.  Our book today was Butterfly House by Eve Bunting.  A beautiful story of a girl who saves a caterpillar from a Jay and with the help of her grandfather is able to observe it change into a butterfly.  Each year butterflies return to her garden because she was so kind to the caterpillar as a girl.

Lots of Reading, Fairy Houses, How to Writing and Caterpillar Grown!

Yesterday we began to make a list of possible how to writing topics such as

How to:

• roast a marshmallow
• walk a dog
• babysit a bee 
• play video games 
• brush your teeth 
• speak Nepali 
• make toast

Next week Kindergarten will begin writing their own How to Books!  We also looked at some how to steps for drawing two of our favorite story book characters: Elephant and Piggie!

Ms. Beth taught Kindergarten about Fairy Houses this week in the library and there has been lots of Fairy House building during outside play.  Our caterpillars have also grown A LOT since we first got them last week!

How to Writing

Today during Writer's Workshop I introduced "How-To Writing" and we discussed how sometimes authors write stories and sometimes writers write to tell others information.  I read a (silly) book How to Babysit a Grandma which gave directions for how to "babysit" a grandma and then as a whole group we wrote and illustrated "How to Plant a Seed."  Students worked in small groups to illustrate each of the six steps we came up with:

During Reader's Workshop I read a favorite book of mine, Bob and Otto by Robert Bruel.  It is the tale of two best friends who at first seem very much alike but Bob and Otto soon learn that they are indeed different.  Bob is a caterpillar who turns into a butterfly and Otto is a worm who digs underground!  Otto feels sad that he cannot fly like Bob but Bob teaches him that if he didn't dig underground then there wouldn't be tunnels for water to get to the roots of the trees.  If the trees didn't get water then Bob would not have green leaves to eat!  A lesson not only on friendship and appreciating differences but also on the importance of worms in our environment. 

Introducing...Star Light, Buzz, Alex, Mango and Hairy Caterpillar!

On Friday afternoon we to got a special delivery - caterpillars!  Kindergarten has been learning about insects and what better way to extend this learning then to watch caterpillars change into butterflies.  Today we learned that this is called metamorphosis.  We have 5 caterpillars which Kindergarten wanted to name. The names are: Starlight, Buzz, Alex, Mango and Hairy Caterpillar!  After about 7 days the caterpillars will eat up all of the food in their cup, climb to the top and attach themselves to the underside of the lid.  There they will hang in a "J" shape, shed their exoskeletons one last time and harden into chrysalides.  In another 7-10 days, the butterflies will emerge from the chrysalides - how exciting!  Mr. D also shared an empty beehive and bee that he found with us.  Kindergarten enjoyed getting a safe, upclose look at a real bee hive.

 

Planting our Pea Plants!

We had the opportunity to enjoy the beautiful weather today both in the woods and later this afternoon in our school garden.  Ms. Christine from the Burlington School Garden Network visited us again today to help transplant our pea plants to our raised garden bed!  While we were in the woods we collected some sticks to build little teepees for the vines to grow up.  One group played a pollination game with Ms. Christine while the other group worked to prepare the soil for planting.  We are excited for our first pea pods to grow!

Kindergarteners are Entomologists!

What is an entomologist you ask?  An entomologist is a scientist that studies bugs!  After reading a few books on bees kindergarteners said that they are very interested in learning more about insects.  This morning during Morning Meeting I passed around a pair of bug goggles and discussed how bugs have compound eyes.  Kindergarteners said that it was hard to see out of the bug goggles and that they saw more than one of anything that they looked at.  We learned that insects have compound eyes because they are invertebrates (have no backbone) and that these eyes help them spot things that are moving quickly past them!