Happy Chinese New Year!

Sorting, measuring, drawing, painting, parading, dog mushing, slurping, exercising... lots of action going on this week!

In math we are learning about sorting by different characteristics: size, shape, count, weight, capacity, etc.  Here the kids are sorting and organizing our school supply bins in different ways!

Measuring and comparing capacity of containers was so much fun!  Try this experiment at home.  Get a skinny tall container and a larger, wide, short container, and ask your kinder which has the greater capacity.  They will pick the tall one almost every time.  Then have them do the experiment to see which can hold more water.  It is fun to watch them be amazed!

Our school participated in Alaska's PLAAY Day ... a synchronized physical activity event for schools around Alaska.  We had fun learning exercises and working out in the gym while we watched other classes online doing the exact same thing all over Alaska!

Our class got our first introduction to the new STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) room this week!  Mrs. Lee did a lesson on drawing aliens to go along with our space unit!

You can see our final projects up in the hallway by the lunchroom!

As we are finishing up our science unit on space we did some other fun space projects this week as well... including chalk rubbing planets, constellation viewer cans, and learning about constellations and writing our own constellation stories!  Make sure to remind your kinder to look up at the stars! (We won't see them for much longer this year!!!).  Also, Moon Journals are due this week...  I have special Moon Pies for kids who turn them in!  They don't have to be completed every day... just so that your child spent some time observing how the moon has changed this month!

The Idita-Read contest continues!  Remember to log all of your kinder's reading minutes, including the ones you do for their blue slip every night, on their reading log.  Every minute counts!  As a part of our contest, we had an event with Mrs. Sara Richards, our new librarian.  She taught the kids about dog sleds and they got a chance to be a dog team, pulling their teachers!  

And finally, the big event of the week was celebrating Chinese New Year!  We had so much fun learning about some traditions related to this holiday, and sharing them with the whole school in our dragon parade! Thanks to Alexa Peet for creating our amazing dragon head and letting the kids help paint it!  Check out the video on the Tok School FB page!

We paraded with noisemakers all around the school scaring away the bad luck and bringing in the good!  We also enjoyed a traditional meal for Chinese New Year, of LOOOONG noodles for a LOOOONG life, and SWEET oranges for a SWEET life!  We got some chopstick lessons from Alexa, and had a hilarious time trying to eat our noodles!

The kids each made their own fire breathing dragons to celebrate as well!

This week we are celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday!  Here are the dress up days for the week.  We also have some other events planned, including a birthday party and reader's theater on Friday at 1:00 that you are invited to attend.  You may also join us for green eggs and ham lunch in the cafeteria before the party, beginning at 12:10.  Stay tuned for an invitation coming home soon!!!

We LOVE learning!

First of all... we welcomed warmer weather this week!  The kids had a great time finally being able to go outside for recess!

In reading and writing we continued our study of amazing creatures... this time focusing on dinosaurs!  It was a great week to really focus on fiction/nonfiction and fact/fantasy.  We did some writing about factual information we had learned about dinosaurs, and some writing using our imaginations to create fantasy around dinosaurs!  Finally, we added a hands-on piece to create fossils!

In science we studied stars this week.  We began by asking "What are stars?"  We watched what Timone and Pumba thought about the stars: Astronomy 101 with Lion King Movie.

Then we did an experiment with a flashlight.  We looked at it close up and noticed how bright it was.  Then I walked farther and farther away, into the hallway.  The students had an a-ha moment when they realized that the light hadn't changed, but the distance from the light made it look much smaller...  "You mean all the stars are really other suns?"  Yep!

Then we learned that stars are different colors because they are different temperatures.  We looked at a flame and noticed the different colors within the flame, just like the stars.  Finally, we made delicious, different colored stars to eat, including Red Giant star cookies!

We LOVED all day Valentine's Day learning on Wednesday!

In math we did tally marks and graphing of candy hearts!

We had our Book Buddies come in and help us with Valentine's Day literacy.  We read a Valentine's book together, had some reading time in the library, and then came back to the classroom for a fun word building contest!  How many words can you make using the letters H-E-A-R-T?  The Kinders had some great ideas and found many popcorn words that they could make!  This might be a fun challenge to try at home!

Finally it was time for our party!!!  (As if we hadn't been partying all day?)  Here are our mailbags!

We played some games, delivered valentines to each other, and had lots of yummy food!  Thank you SO MUCH to all of the families who came, helped, or brought snacks!  It was lots of fun!

100 Days!

We are 100 days smarter!  And we celebrated all day on Monday!  We had several 100 second contests:  a contest to see how many times we could write our names, how many Popcorn Words we could read, and how many words we could write in 100 seconds!  

We made a 100's Day snack... thank you everyone for bringing 100 pieces of snack food to mix in!  It was very eclectic and yummy, as you can see!

In math we got to see what 100 looks like, in many different ways! Legos, cards, beads, toys, marbles, paint chips, track pieces, and wiggliest of all... 100 red wiggler worms!

We also decoded a secret message on our hundreds charts!

In writing we celebrated Hundred's Day by writing about what life will be like when we are 100 years old.  I told the kids that I time traveled to the year 2112 and took pictures of them.  (We must have been having a class reunion...).  We had a hilarious slideshow of everyone's old person pictures.  The kids said I didn't look any different in my old picture.  I guess that means I already look 100 years old!  Check out the great essays in the hall by the lunchroom!  

Monday afternoon we had our Idita-Read contest kickoff assembly, with special guest Jeff Wells, and his dog Cora!  He told us about how reading books about mushing when he was a kid sparked his interest.  He made his dream come true, and ran the Iditarod with Jeff King's kennels out of Denali.  The kids learned about the Iditarod race, and then made and packed their own mushers packs for the reading race, including "puppy chow", a compass, their reading log, and their first book to read, all about the Iditarod.  Keep track of reading minutes at home, and turn in your reading logs when they are full.  I'll send another one home.  Our class earns miles along the trail for the minutes we read, and the winners get a day dog mushing and a pizza party at Fast Eddy's!  The first class to the halfway point gets Gold Miner Sundaes with edible gold flakes, and vials of real 24 karat gold!  There are also cash prizes for the individual top three readers.  So let's Idita-Read!!!

On Thursday the kids got to read with Winter the dog for library time, to celebrate the Idita-Read contest.  They loved it!!!  

Our next project in writing was to write Fishy Poems, and illustrate them.  They were silly, but good rhyming practice!  It was also a great way to practice adjectives, which we have been working on lately!

Finally the day arrived for our field trip to the bank to buy a Helping Hand for the Food Bank with the money the kids donated.  We brought in over $67 to donate.  The kinders got a great tour of the bank... I think the money counter machine was their favorite.  Thank you to Cory and Lacey for showing us a great time!  They got to hold Canadian money, and then see all of the money in the safe. 

Next on our trip, we went to the Helping Hands Food Bank to see how their money would be used.  Helen Olsen gave us a wonderful tour and helped the kids understand how the Food Bank works and what its purpose is.  They kids all got to pretend to be in families and go "shopping" downstairs!  

Thank you to Julie Lance, Scott Holmes, and Michelle Erickson who were able to come with us on our journey.  We appreciate you, and couldn't do it without you!  It was a neat trip, and made our collecting coins much more meaningful, as the kids learned that they can play an important role in our community by lending a Helping Hand!

💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗

Our Valentine's Party will be on Wednesday from 2:15-3:00.  We will play games and exchange Valentines, so if your child would like, they may bring one for everyone in the class.  Let me know if you need another class list of names.  We will be decorating cookies, so also please let me know if you would be willing to bring frosting, sprinkles/toppings, or a healthy snack!  Happy 💗 Day!