Happy Halloween!

We had a busy and fun day today in Kindergarten!  Mrs. Guilmette visited for Guidance and talked about ways to get our bodies back to the green "ready to learn" zone.  Some ideas were take deep breaths when our engines are too high or do jumping when our engines are too low.  We painted some silly pumpkins, enjoyed a couple of halloween treats, and watched The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown this afternoon!  (We also took a silly picture with 'vampire teeth').

A busy Monday

There was a lot of excitement and energy in Kindergarten as students are excited for Halloween tomorrow.  This morning we carved open a pumpkin and talked about what would be inside.  Students helped remove the seeds and the "guts" and then thanks to Mrs. Weishaar we were able to toast the seeds!  Last Friday and today we were lucky to have some of our Kindergarten Grandparents in as Mystery Readers!  Students were excited and surprised by our special guests!

This afternoon for Math station we did some Halloween themed activities - pumpkin fingerprint counting, card games with Halloween themed cards, and an engineering challenge where we used marshmallows and toothpicks to try to build a tall tower!

Knuffle Bunny Inspired Art!

This week we started a really cool art project inspired by Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems.  I printed out a variety of black and white photographs and like in Knuffle Bunny we added drawings of people or characters to the scenes!  We took it one step further and students used the app Chatterpix Kids to add talking to the characters.  Once all are done it will compiled as a movie but here is a sneak peek of a few completed today!

A busy Tuesday!

Happy Tuesday!  Mrs. Guilmette visited for Guidance this morning and brought her "breathing buddies" to practice big belly breaths.  She has been talking a lot about expected versus unexpected behaviors and strategies for calming our bodies down when we are sad, upset or mad.

I read the book Pumpkin Jack by Will Hubbell and we discussed what it means for something to decay or decompose.  We learned that over times pumpkins will change (get mushy, slimy and 'smaller') and if put in dirt the seeds can grow into a new pumpkin!

There was lots of work with the iPads during literacy and math and some fall tree painting!

We also played a math game that was a BIG hit!  First we arranged number cards in a chart from 1-20 then students closed their eyes and I hide a 'fish' under one of the numbers and students had to call out a number to guess where the fish was hiding.  A fun way to reinforce counting order and numeral identification. 

Marvelous Monday!

It was a busy and productive Monday in Kindergarten!  Thank you to our two Mystery Reader guests for joining and reading to us!  During Writer's Workshop we practiced writing uppercase M and N.  During Reader's Workshop I introduced the Words game on the Osmo.  Students worked together to match the correct letter tile for the initial sound of the picture shown.  During Math stations a group also used the Osmo to match the correct number of dots with the numeral shown on the screen!  It was a lot of fun.

Introducing iPads in the classroom!

On Monday I had 6 iPads delivered to the classroom!  There will be a slow rollout of the iPads over the next couple of weeks.  Three main things we will be using are: Raz Kids for literacy (leveled ebooks that allow students to earn stars for listening and then independently reading the books), Zearn for Math (Zearn Math is based on Eureka / EngageNY Math curriculum we use and creates a personalized learning experience for every student, the tasks get easier or harder based on how the student is performing) and the Osmo (a reflector that connects to the iPad and allows for students to use physical manipulatives - letters, numbers, shapes in conjunction with technology).  More information will be sent home in the coming weeks allowing you to access Raz Kids and Zearn at home on a computer, tablet or phone.  I introduced the Osmo to one math group today.  Students worked to use tangrams - shape pieces, to build the scene shown on the screen.  This required lots of team work and problem solving skills.

Fifth grade joined us in the woods today and our after school director Ms. Rosie and one of the 5th grade teachers Ms. Raudonat were our Mystery Readers.  Pigeon hide behind the clock today.

Where's pigeon!?

Every class has different things that they like which makes me constantly rethink how I do things as a teacher.  This year the class is OBSESSED with Mo Willems.  Two years ago it was Scaredy Squirrel and last year it was the classic Chicken Soup with Rice.  I am slowly expanding my collection of Mo Willems books as we are flying through the books.  We are using Mo Willems as our first author study this year.  Today we talked about how all authors have a different 'craft' that they use.  I showed how Todd Parr uses bright color backgrounds and characters that do not have 'normal' skin tones and then asked what are things that you notice Mo Willems doing?  Honestly, I was shocked how quickly the group picked up this idea of an author's craft.  We started to make a chart of what we SEE and why?

I also hide the pigeon in the classroom this morning like Mo Willems does in his books.  It took a little bit of time for the class to find him!

This afternoon we had our first CAT card celebration.  At CP Smith teachers give out CAT cards to students who are 'caught' being safe, responsible or respectful.  When the class earns 100 we vote on a celebration.  The class chose popcorn and a movie so we watched the Room on the Broom and enjoyed a popcorn snack!