Count Down Begins!

We took pictures of some strange looking reindeer that showed up at our school this week!  Pretty cute reindeer, I must say!

We learned about biographies in reading, and discovered many facts about the artist Vincent Van Gogh!  Ask your child what they remember about his life... you might get some very interesting answers!  We will continue to study how to write biographies as the year goes on. 

We learned about how Van Gogh's style evolved, and then worked on our own copy cat masterpiece mural of Starry Starry Night.  Alexa was a great art teacher as she guided the kids on colors and strokes.  It took us all week, and they were all SO proud of what they had made at the end, and were happy to point out the parts that they had painted!  

This will be displayed on the Kinder Art wall!

As we were painting the night sky, we took some time to be curious about space.  The kids had SO many great questions!  We will address these during our Space unit!  We began with Earth, and are reading books about the planets in our solar system in reading.  

We wrote some very important letters in writing this week.  The kids worked really hard on letters to Santa, doing a rough draft, and then a final draft to make sure he could read everything really well.  

They really wanted to make Santa some cookies to send with their letters, so the kids read and followed the recipe for Santa's Favorite Cookies.  Of course we had to sample some, too!  

We took our Very Important Package down to the office to have the office staff take it to the Post Office.  This is why I love being a Kindergarten teacher.  It was SO fun!  

Last but not least, the kids worked on patterning and counting with Christmas chains in math.  They hung them above their desks at school, and will take them home for the break to finish counting down to Christmas!  

It's the Doubles Baby!

Happy Thanksgiving!  I just have to say, first of all, that every day I am thankful I get to hang out with such awesome little people in my class.  They challenge me, inspire me, and fill my days with love, smiles, sparkles, hugs, and laughter.  I am very very blessed!  💖

This week I taught a bunch of turkeys.  Want to see?

We had lots of fun in math reading recipes and measuring to make our pumpkin pies!  We are still learning about 3D shapes, so we turned SPHERES of dough into flat CIRCLES of dough!

Ready for the oven!  Then later that day we had our school's delicious Thanksgiving Dinner as well!

The sledding hill is officially open!  The kids are having lots of fun at recess sledding on the playground!

The Kinders turned in to Rap Starz on Wednesday.  We made a video of our Doubles Baby Rap....  Here are some exclusive photos from backstage before the performance...

And you can get a sneak peak of our soon-to-be viral YouTube video here:

https://youtu.be/SVfTWgatieA

Last but not least, we celebrated Saylor's birthday a couple of days early on Wednesday with unicorn treats from her Mom (who also put together the school's Thanksgiving Dinner that day!  What a busy Mom!)  Happy Birthday Saylor!!!  The big 6!!!

Long, dark nights and busy days!

When I look back at our pictures from the week, I am always amazed... the things we did on Monday or Tuesday seem like they were a couple of weeks ago, because we have been so busy!   How did we fit all of this into our week? 💁

On Monday and Thursday for P.E. we got up on the rock wall in the gym.  First we practiced falling... and the kids conquered their fears, helped each other, and had some great moments of accomplishment!

We revisited our concept of Growth Mindset this week... the idea that when we make a mistake, our brain grows.  We wrote down three things we can do now, that we couldn't before, and one thing that we can't do.  YET.  We talked about the Power of Yet.  If you put a "YET" at the end of your I Can't statement, it becomes a goal!  Try it!!!

In science and reading we explored why we are having longer and longer nights now.  This will be the intro to our new science unit about space!!! 

We did Night Art... making our own versions of Starry Starry Night by Van Gogh.

We also extended our study of night into math, studying spheres like the earth and the moon, and other 3D shapes, and beginning to learn about time zones and telling time!

Here the kids are on a scavenger hunt to find spheres in our room!

In reading we also read the wonderful book, Snowflake Bentley, about a man named Wilson Bentley who was taking amazing photographs of snowflakes around 1900.  Here is a short movie if you want to watch it with your Kinder to learn more about him!  

So, inspired by Snowflake Bentley, we got out magnifying glasses and looked at the beautiful fluffy snowflakes we've had lately!  We looked at EVERYTHING under the magnifying glasses, including snack and each other!

The Book Buddies Thanksgiving Party was one of the highlights of our week.  We read a Thanksgiving story, and the 5th grade buddies did a great job of helping the Kinders do a Thanksgiving word search.  Their kind and patient teaching to help them find words and letters was really wonderful to see.  We also got to make Oreo Turkeys, and play games!!!