Bouncing into Christmas!

This week was full of excitement as we began counting down to Christmas!  December first was a big day, as we changed months and put Christmas on our calendar.  We also made count down pattern chains and Count Down Christmas trees!

The week we had a special PE class to participate in Native Youth Olympics.  We learned eskimo games such as the seal hop, the seal crawl, the kneel jump, and the stick pull.  The students learned why the eskimos would have needed these skills to help them be successful hunters, and then got to practice.  It was so much fun!  

This week in science we did an experiment to show that the sun is really just a star that we are very close to.  We used a light close up to simulate the sun, and as we got farther and farther away from it, it looked less and less bright, like a star.  We watched a slide show of some beautiful images of objects in space, and got our creative juices flowing about what it might be like to visit some of these places.  The kids wrote some FANTASTIC stories about exploring space!  We focused on coming up with great ideas, and having a beginning, middle, and end to our stories.  

I just need to include here, once again, how much we enjoy having Ms. Madison come to our class and help during reading time.  Here she is helping students in a reading center blend sounds together to make words.  We love our Ms. Madison!!!

We wrote some new winter poetry to decorate our Poet Tree.  Our class really enjoys writing collaborative poetry.  The kids get really creative and it is quite hilarious!  If you are in the area, stop and read these kindergarten gems!  You'll find poems like, "I went to the beach in a bikini, and ate a zucchini!"  Or "I slice the ice", "The Christmas lights are wearing some tights", and, "The snow is blowing.  It keeps going and going!"  The last one describes our chilly weekend very well!  

The class earned a party for good behavior and hard work this week by making our rocket blast off all the way from Pluto back to the sun, one planet at a time.  SO.... we took a trip to the moon on Thursday, where there was very little gravity!  I had a big bouncy house set up in our classroom first thing in the morning as the kids walked through the door.  Watching their faces light up was like Christmas morning... They had a blast jumping, and can't wait to earn another party!

Friday was birthday day in our classroom, as we celebrated not one, but two birthdays on the exact same day!  Happy birthday to Aiden and Rylee, who turn 6 on December 4th!