Monday, April 30, 2018

Fast and Furious to the End!

Looking back on the pictures from this week, I can't believe it was only ONE week!  From now 'til the end of school we have so many great things planned, it is an exciting time.  I love this time of year.  My kinders are so much more capable than they were at the beginning of the year.  This is when we put all of their learning to work and watch it click!

We did a little bit of everything this week, it seemed... we studied magnets, electricity, symmetry, fractions, life cycles, astronomy, botany, engineering, pottery and tie dying!


We began the week by meeting our new butterflies! 


We got out the microscope and looked at slides of butterfly wings, legs, and antennae, too!



In math we've been working on dividing things into fractions, and looking at lines of symmetry, so we practiced symmetry by painting one half of a butterfly and folding it over to make it symmetrical.  Beautiful!



This week we explored folding paper strips into fractions.  The kids figured out themselves how to fold halves, and that folding each half in half gave them fourths, then eights, and so on.  Then we compared fraction sizes, and put them in order.  There were lots of "ah-ha moments", and it was awesome to see those little wheels turning!  I have to admit... I am pretty proud of my class.



Our next reading and writing unit is about plants, so we took a field trip to see the school's greenhouse!  Ms. Bonnie Emery gave us a wonderful tour, and in exchange, we gave her the ladybugs that we raised in class!


She let each of the kids pull up a carrot.  Yummmm!!!




We also got a look at the compost pile.  Each day after lunch, the kids throw their leftovers into a compost bin, so it was great to see (and smell) where it goes, and learn how it helps the plants grow!


We had the wonderful opportunity to go stargazing in the planetarium brought down by UAF.  Thank you to Mrs. Dunning for sponsoring this event.  We got to see a star show all about the planets and constellations.   Below is a view from inside the planetarium showing how the sun rises and sets in the winter as opposed to the summer in Alaska.  



In science we are learning about magnets and electricity.  We spent some time being curious about magnets, and the kinders had wonderful questions, like "What do magnets look like inside?  What makes magnets stick to things?"  and "What kinds of things do magnets stick to?"  Here the kids are answering their own questions...by going fishing for different things in our room with magnets, and then we classified what did and did not attract magnets.   It was super fun.  Who doesn't love to play with magnets?!




We learned about "force fields", or magnetic fields, and watched a movie about the Earth's "secret weapon" against solar storms - it's magnetic field!


Mr. Monroe, the shop teacher, was kind enough to come in and share his circuit kits with us. Your kids are making electrical circuits... how cool is that?!  They are learning about circuits by experimenting.  What makes the lightbulb light up?  Where is the electricity coming from?  What happens if I hook up TWO batteries?  Three?!  Why isn't mine working?  By troubleshooting and collaborating they are answering their own questions and figuring things out for themselves... it was so fun, and they couldn't WAIT to get their hands on these kits again!  That's all they wanted to do in their free time!  Thank you Mr. Monroe!




To go along with our mini unit about Goldilocks, we did an engineering project about building a better chair... one that wouldn't break!  The kids had to work together using the engineer's design cycle to build a better chair and then test it using weighted figurines of Goldilocks, Baby Bear, Mama Bear, and the heaviest of all, Papa Bear.  They even got creative and began designing bunk beds!






We had art class with Mrs. Lee and learned how to make pinch pots!



We also did an art project with Mrs. Fastenau for music to create tie dye T-shirts for the Spring Concert THIS TUESDAY at 2pm and 6pm.  



Just thinking back on our week, I can't believe all that we did!  But I also realized how MANY MANY people help us and create amazing opportunities for our kids.  THANK YOU to Mrs. Dunning, the 5th grade teacher who brought the planetarium to the school with a grant that she wrote.  THANK YOU to Bonnie Emery in the greenhouse, Mr. Monroe for sharing his electrical kits and knowledge with us, Mrs. Lee for volunteering to teach art in our school, Mrs. Fastenau for providing music opportunities, and many others. I feel so fortunate and grateful to work at a school where so many people are collaborating to bring together these amazing opportunities for our kids.  
















Sunday, April 22, 2018

Happy Earth Day!


It's a Pizza Party!  OK, it was only a Paper Pizza Party, but it was still fun to design our own pizzas and imagine what we would be eating with our choices of toppings!  We practiced our fractions by writing down the recipe for our pizzas, which were divided into halves or fourths.





Look closely and you will see that Easton even happened to wear his PIZZA PANTS for fraction Pizza Day!  Perfect!


The many lifecycles happening in our classroom right now continue to change and grow.  The caterpillars were in cocoons last Monday, so they should be hatched into butterflies by the beginning of this week!  The ladybugs hatched out as well, and we candled the duck eggs to see veins and tiny embryos inside!!!!!



We are learning about Venn Diagrams, and using them in reading to compare stories.  We also did one just for fun to compare Kindergarteners and First Graders!!!



In writing we finished up our letters to Goldilocks, focusing on the trait of Voice.  They kids wrote wonderful letters, as if they were one of the Three Bears, and then they created their bear to hold the letter.  They were all so creative and different!  Everyone did such a fantastic job!!!




We are cruising right along in math, learning fractions, 2-D and 3-D shapes, time, as well as our regular curriculum.  We also find time for some math games.  Here Willow and Melody had a wonderful game of dominoes!


We started KinderTech 101 this week!  The kids are learning to use the Google Classroom online learning platform that the rest of the school uses.  This link is now available on the right side of the blog (only on computer view, not phone view).  You can get into your child's Google Classroom, and see some of our assignments.  I will continue posting some assignments here so that the kids can access them in class and get used to this system.  For our first time, we recruited our Book Buddies to help the Kinders log in and show them around the site.  It was lots of fun, and we really appreciated the one on one tech help!  




This time the assignment on Google Classroom had to do with magnets, our new unit of study in science.  So after the kids watched a video and completed an online quiz, they were able to do magnet experiments together!  They learned how to magnetize a needle to pick up a paperclip, and about the magnetic fields that attract and repel magnets from each other!


I love excited faces like this in science class!!!!!


Last but not least, we studied Earth Day all week!  We learned about picking up litter to help the Earth, and then without even being asked, my class began picking up trash at recess on the playground.  I was super proud of them!!!!!!!  Just goes to show, Small Hands Can Change the World!  Happy Earth Day everyone!















Saturday, April 14, 2018

Life Cycles!

We wrote a book this week, called Kindergarten Countdown!  We came up with some very appropriate adjectives to describe kindergarteners:


And then focused on word choice and rhyming to create this book! You can read it here, or listen to the kids read it by pushing on the sound icon on each page!  Kindergarten Countdown


Our caterpillars grew like crazy this week!  We had fun observing and measuring them, and journaling the changes we saw!  The quote of the day was one of the kindergarteners mimicking what I am sure she has heard many times about herself... "Oh, they grow up so fast.  I remember when they were just so tiny! " sniff, sniff...(wipes away a fake tear).




We continued our study of color mixing in art class with Mrs. Lee.  The kinders created cute spring critters!




Soon we will have some new spring critters of our own in our classroom!  This week we began incubating duck eggs!  They should hatch around May 8th.  We are tracking their stages of development with growth charts.  We are so excited to meet our little ducklings! 




In math we are exploring the concept of fractions.  We will spend some time learning about dividing a whole into parts and exploring equivalent fractions.  This would be a great way to with connect your child's learning at home!  There are many opportunities for dividing things into fractions every day, whether it is making or eating dinner, sharing toys, cutting and folding paper, etc.  



Thank you for sending extra "just in case" clothes to school!  We definitely need them this time of year at recess.  The kids have so much fun playing in puddles, and they'll soon be gone, so I don't have the heart to deny them some puddle splashing... to a point!