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!