Kindergarten is Out of This World!

3-2-1 Blast Off!  We headed to space this week to begin our exploration.  It has been so much fun!  We are learning about planets, NASA, the moon, astronauts, different colors and sizes of stars, how engineers designed Mars rovers to land so they wouldn't crash, and we are working on place value to learn about really big numbers, like the number of stars estimated to be in the universe!  

I asked the kids one day when we were studying the galaxy, "Doesn't that just blow your mind?"  and one of them said, "My brain is coming out of my head!"  It's been lots of fun.  

We did space art with chalk rubbings...

We are doing astronaut math, and writing and reading about space!  

Ms. Brenda Overcast, our technology specialist, brought us some SUPER COOL Merge Cubes to play with.  When you hold them under a screen it looks like you are holding the solar system in your hand, and you can turn it every which way to look at it from different angles, while all of the planets appear to be orbiting!  This is something you could print off and glue onto a block of your own at home, just download the free app!

We had several Kinders who participated in the Science Fair on Tuesday, through the Science Fair POD class that they chose for an elective this quarter.  Our whole class went up to see the fair, and the cool projects everyone had done!

The kids loved climbing on the rock wall in the gym this week.

And it finally snowed on our Poet Tree!  We have new winter poems up, so take a look when you go by!  (It looked like it snowed in our classroom, too, after this project!)

Caribou, George Washington, and moldy bread...

What do caribou, George Washington, and moldy bread have in common?  They are all things that your Kinder learned about last week in Kindergarten!  We celebrated Presidents' Day by learning about what it might be like to live in the White House, (Bowling alley, movie theater and private pool, anyone?!) what a President actually does, and why we honor George Washington and Abraham Lincoln!  We had fun making George Washington tricorner Hats, and learning about statistics by playing Heads or Tails with Abe Lincoln on the penny!

Our whole school also had the great opportunity to learn how to butcher a caribou on Wednesday.  Tim Lorenzini from Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge came in to butcher a caribou with all of the classes.  We went in to see just what butchering was all about, where our meat comes from, and we learned a lot about caribou in the process!  It was a great hands-on learning experience about biology and subsistence in Alaska!!!

On Wednesday we learned all about the steps in the scientific method and began our science experiment.  The kids came up with their own questions like, "What will make bread mold fastest, rubbing it on spit or the toilet?" and "Which will mold faster, homemade bread or store bought bread?" and "Which cleans our hands better: sanitizer, or washing with soap and water?"  We came up with hypotheses and tested them with pieces of bread.  The kids had lots of fun coming up with places to get germs on our bread!

Finally, I leave you with a picture of our class at pillow pet time.  Isn't this what Kindergarten is all about?  :) . Every day after lunch the kids get their pillow pets out from their desks and find a place to lay down.  We read part of a chapter book and just chill out with the lights off and our stars glowing.  Right now we are in the middle of Charlotte's Web.  If you come for lunch with your child, remember, you are always invited to Pillow Pet time afterwards!  You just might enjoy a little nap and read-aloud yourself!

We had a LOVE-ly week!

We had several fun events going on this week!  We had Book Buddies on Wednesday!  The kinders made Valentines and were so excited to give them to their Buddies!

Then we went to the library for Buddy Reading time.

Then it was time to play some games in our room... word search contest and finding out how many words we could make with the letters in the word H-E-A-R-T.  There are lots!

Then we had some treats and a rockin' Cupid Shuffle!  Go Mrs. Brown!!!

The kids earned a Bouncy House party by blasting off all the way from Pluto to the sun!  Every time the whole class does something awesome, our rocket blasts off to another planet.  When we get all the way through the solar system to the sun, we get to have a party!  So we pulled out the Bouncy House Thursday morning!

Then it was time for our class Valentine's Party!  First we had Candy Math, tallying up and graphing the colors of our M&M's.

The kids had fun delivering Valentines to each other!

We had a STEM challenge where the kids (and some talented parents!) tried to build the highest tower possible with candy hearts! 

After a little Valentine's Four Corners...

...we had some yummy treats!  Thank you to everyone who brought snacks to share and all of the parents who came to party with us!

Happy Valentine's Day!  I hope you all have a LOVE-ly weekend!