We've been busy in Kindergarten!

A rare double post day (because I forgot to hit publish last Thursday - whoops!). Today during Math we had some fun with measuring.  We went out into the hall and found things that were longer and shorter than a ruler, one foot.  Then we came back into the classroom and students were given a random object and worked together to line them up from shortest to longest.  One thing that was tricky was making sure we lined up the endpoints so that we got a correct measurement.

Also below are some of the AMAZING shape creations students created last week.  They are all on display in the hallway outside of our classroom.

100 Days of Kindergarten!

Last Thursday was the 100th day of Kindergarten!! We used teamwork and 100 cups to make a structure, rolled a die to 100 and made necklaces with 100 pieces of cereal!  I also took pictures of students using an app, aging booth, to make them look '100 years old!' It was a fun day.

Measurement and Polar Bear Cam!

Yesterday we began our next math unit on Measurement.  Today students were given a piece of yarn and worked with a partner to find things in our classroom that were longer than or shorter than the yarn.  Students recorded and then shared their findings.

This afternoon I read the book A Pair of Polar Bears by Joanne Ryder.  A story about two polar bear orphans who were rescued in Alaska and brought to the San Diego Zoo.  The two polar bears named Kalluuk and Tatqiq are still at the San Diego Zoo.  We enjoyed watching them this afternoon on a live webcam: Live Polar Bear Cam!

The Shape of Things

Last Friday at our Martin Luther King assembly, Mr. Phelan read the book All are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold.  Our 5th grade book buddies were inspired by this and presented us with a beautiful banner based on the book.  5th grade worked hard to draw themselves with their book buddy.  The banner is on display in the hall outside of our classroom.

Today I read the book The Shape of Things and we began creating our own Shape of Things book following the pattern of the text.  Some Kindergarten ideas:

A circle is just a circle until you add arms, legs and a body and it becomes a human.

A circle is just a circle until you add some lines and seats and it becomes a ferris wheel.

A rectangle is just a rectangle until you add gas, windows, wheels and doors and it becomes a school bus.

A circle is just a circle until you add a stick and it becomes a lollipop.

A rectangle is just a rectangle until you add a triangle, rockets boosters and a window and it becomes a rocket ship.  

Be on the lookout for our completed illustrations!

Word, Letter or Sentence?

This morning we talked about the difference between a letter and a word.  Students were given a sticky note and wrote one letter.  We said letters make sounds and words are made when you put letters together.  We also realized that when you put letters together it doesn't always make a word.  It needs to make sense.  Tomorrow we will put words together to make a sentence.  

During Math today students worked with rubber bands and geo-boards to create different shapes or used triangles, trapezoids and parallelograms to fill a hexagon.   

This afternoon I read The Emperor's Egg and we learned about Emperor Penguins. 

Pierre the Penguin

We were happy to get outside and play in the snow this morning.  We had a mystery reader (thanks!), some snack, practiced writing the letters S and A and played a bit inside.  This afternoon we read the true story about a Penguin named Pierre who was in need of a little help.  It was great to watch this news clip and see Pierre and Pam in "real life."

Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King

This morning we began the day with explore, practiced writing uppercase Q and G and talked about Dr. Martin Luther King. Last Friday I showed this video from Kid President and this morning I read Martin's Big Words we talked about the importance of using our words to solve problems, showing love and welcoming all people.

I also read the book Big Blue Whale by Nicola Davies.  We learned some amazing facts about blue whales:

• the blue whale is the biggest animal that has ever lived on earth 
• a blue whale can weigh as much as 25 elephants or 115 giraffes!
• blue whales visit polar oceans during the summer and migrate closer to the equator during the winter 
• blue whales eat krill 
• blue whales do not have teeth they have baleen plates that are long and bendy 

During Math we took another look at 3-D shapes and talked about how we can sort them into groups based on their attributes, or what we see when we look at them.  Some ways we sorted them are by shapes that roll, shapes with circle faces, shapes with square faces and shapes with curvy lines.