We are thankful for so many things!

With the days getting shorter we have noticed it's hard to do our weather chart in the morning now!  It's usually still pretty dark! But... in the spirit of being thankful this week, we were thankful for the beautiful sunrises that we get to see out our window!!!

We took this opportunity to have a mini lesson on why it gets darker in the winter, and why we have day and night.  Then we painted day/night pictures! (They will be displayed at the school... so they haven't come home yet...)

In another mini science lesson, we dissected a fox to look at its organs and body parts.  The kids were absolutely fascinated.  We found the stomach and looked at what the fox was eating, opened up its heart, looked at intestines, muscles, tendons, spine, eyeballs etc.  It was neat for the kids to see all of the parts of the body that we learned about last month in our body unit!  Then we wrote in our journals about what we saw.  I got everything from, "We cut open a fox. It was cool!" To "The fox was bloody. I didn't like it."   I am thankful to my son for getting me a fox to dissect, and I am also thankful for the wonder that I get to experience fresh every day when kinders learn about the world around them!

The kids wanted to make turkey puppets like the one I used at Morning Meeting, so we did!  Hopefully you got to hear the poem that goes with them!  I am thankful for the enthusiasm of 5 and six year olds!

In math one day we did a hundreds chart turkey mystery picture.  This is really good for helping the kids get familiar with patterns of numbers and how they are organized in the hundreds chart.  I tell them one number or set of numbers at a time, and they watch their picture emerge and try to guess what it is!

We had a fun pumpkin pie making party on Thursday with our Kindergarten Grandma, Carol.  The kids each made their own mini pies to take home and share with their families!  We practiced reading and following a recipe.  We are so thankful for Ms. Carol volunteering in our classroom!

And last but definitely not least, we took time this week to be very thankful for all of the people at the school that help us everyday.  The kids listed everyone they wanted to say thank you to, and we made turkey cards for them.  Then we delivered cards all around the school.  It was fun to watch all of the smiles come to people's faces as the kids handed them their cards and shouted a chorus of, "We are thankful for you!"  When we got back to the classroom, the kids all said how much fun that was, and we talked about how good it feels to do something for someone else.  

I am so thankful for my wonderful kinders, and all of the people in their lives who help them be successful at school.  

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Thank you Veterans!

We started off the week with our annual Veteran's Day Celebration!  The Kinders sang Yankee Doodle and This Land is Your Land.  They did a great job!  The kids and I had some good conversations about what a Veteran is, why we need our military, and what they do for us.  They had fun making the huge handprint flag as a gift to the Veterans in our community!  

Our number talks last week centered around introducing subtraction: what it looks like in a number sentence, what it means as a concept, telling subtraction stories, modeling subtraction with dice, teddy bears, and ourselves!  

Our morning message one day was even about subtraction.  I love how the kids were willing to give it a try, and we had lots of brain growing as we discussed their answers without judgement, just learning.  It was great!

We always look forward to our Book Buddies the second Wednesday of the month.  This time Mrs. Brown, the 4th grade teacher, planned a fun Thanksgiving theme! First we read a Thanksgiving story, and then went into the library for some Buddy reading time!

Then it was back into the classroom to make turkey masks and yummy turkey cookies!

Such a wonderful flock of readers!!!

We had another special reading time on Thursday, when Ms. Carol came in and told us a story she had written herself, about farm animals and Tom Turkey.  The kids were so excited to act it out, it was more of a reader's theater, as they got to become the characters in the story. 

Ben was the Chicken Hawk trying to get the farm animals, but Tom Turkey saved the day!  We discussed the theme of the story, and the kids came up with some great ideas about helping our friends, and accepting others who were different.  The kids all took home a coloring book about the story, and their homework was to retell the story to their families when they got home!  Thank you Ms. Carol for such a fun, interactive reading experience!

We had yet ANOTHER fun reading time this week, with an exciting visit to the Book Fair!  It was great to see the kids SO excited about books!!!!  If you haven't had a chance to visit the Book Fair with your child yet, it is open before school from 8-8:30 and after school until 5:30, and this Saturday from 10-2.  Books make great Christmas gifts!

Excitement

Kinders, your excitement is contagious. I think we could power up the whole town of Tok with your energy!  Everyone who comes into our classroom leaves with a smile.  We have a Kindergarten Grandma that comes in to volunteer, just because being around you brightens up life!  You don't realize it now, but your precious, wide-eyed love for life is such a gift to everyone around you.  And I get to soak in that excitement every single day!  How lucky am I!  I get hugs, I get to laugh with you, and watch you learn things like how to write your name and read, how to be kind, and all about our world. Everything is new and fresh in your eyes, and that keeps it new and fresh in mine.  I love you guys!

This is Mrs. Carol Wentz.  She and her husband Dan just retired to Tok from the Kenai Peninsula, and when she said she wanted to volunteer in our classroom we were thrilled! She is our kindergarten Grandma, and comes in once a week.  This week the kids built a reading fort in the hallway and she spent time reading one on one with them.  Thank you Carol!!!

Also in reading we are working on vowel sounds and chopping up words, hearing each sound, and spelling simple consonant/vowel/consonant words.  We continue to work on letter sounds and identification, and learn popcorn words (sight words).  The kids have made great progress already!

We are already getting ready for Thanksgiving in our room!  We've been focusing on what it means to be thankful. The kids wrote things they were thankful for on their turkey feathers, and came up with some great ideas.  

Our decomposing pumpkin experiment was a gross success.  After one week, the kids found that the only way to keep a pumpkin from getting moldy was to put it in the fridge or freezer, or put salt on it.  We talked about ways that people used to preserve food back before they had refrigeration, and then the kids wrote up their scientific conclusions and drew pictures for their journals!

We work super hard in Kindergarten, but not all of the time!  Our classroom has so many fun things to do, and it's really important for kids to develop social skills by playing together and get a brain break using their wonderful imaginations!  Here the kids are having free center time!

Lucky Eragon got to be one of the centers and get a bath!!!

We were fortunate to have Tim Lorenzini from Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge come in this week to kick off our new unit in science, learning about different classes of animals and how Alaska's animals survive the winter!  He brought furs for a touchy feely show and tell about mammals that was so fun! The kids learned a lot and were SO excited!  

On Monday at 9am the kids will be singing a couple of songs in our annual Vetaran's Day Assembly.  You are all welcome to attend, and if you are a Veteran, or know a Veteran in our community, please invite them and let me know, as we like to do a roll call and honor all of the Veterans in attendance!