Meet Miss Rushton!

We are so fortunate to have a student intern from the University of Vermont working in our classroom this semester. Jill Rushton, a junior education major from Springfield, Vermont, will be in our kindergarten class on Tuesdays (half day) and Thursdays (full day) as a part of her program. We are all enjoying getting to know Miss Rushton. Please feel free to stop by and welcome her to H.C.S. if you get a chance!

May the Force Be With You!

On Friday, we wrapped up our exciting unit about force and motion. Throughout this unit, students had the opportunity to be scientists and investigate how things move. We asked questions like scientists do, we made predictions, we observed, and we made conclusions based on what we saw. We started our unit by creating a schema chart, thinking about what we already knew about force and motion. We read many informational texts and added to our chart as we learned new information throughout the week. We did several experiments, including a Toy Truck experiment, where we tried to move a toy truck with a metal ball, a rubber ball, and a foam ball, as well as Surface Safari (thinking about friction), and Roll or Slide? Our culminating event was the Shoe Box Car Derby, held on Friday afternoon. Families were invited to work together to create a shoe box car. The hope was that students would incorporate what they had learned during our unit as they designed and built their car. I was so amazed with the impressive cars that students brought to school and we had SO much fun at the derby! I hope you enjoy these pictures of the Shoe Box Car Derby!

Valentine's Fun!

We had a wonderful day on Friday celebrating Valentine's Day and our friendships with each other! We spent the day immersed in learning, with a valentine twist. During literacy, we played Valentine Bingo with CVC words, wrote valentine's letters to our families while working on fine motor skills, sorted real and nonsense CVC words, read and colored a valentine emergent reader and listened to a valentine story book on tape. 

During math, we visited various valentine centers, including "Heart Breaker," a game in which partners built teen numbers in tens frames and compared their sets, "Valentine Bump," a game where partners added the dots of two dice and tried to bump each other off of the numbered hearts, we sorted and graphed candy hearts, and we estimated and counted how many candy hearts we could hold in our hands.

We ended our day with a fun celebration, complete with fruit salad, cheese and crackers, pretzels, and juice, all served on fancy valentine plates! Thank you to everyone who contributed items for our party. We all had a super time together!

Global School Play Day

On Wednesday, February 3rd, we were lucky enough to participate in Global School Play Day, an international day devoted to acknowledging and honoring the importance of uninterrupted, unstructured play time for young children. Students were invited to bring in one (non-electronic) toy from home to share with classmates. The first half of the day was set aside for children to explore, create, and PLAY! It was amazing to watch these children creating elaborate and imaginative scenarios. Students played very well with one another, with a great deal of sharing, collaboration, and problem solving taking place. It was amazing to watch! I feel very lucky to have such a supportive administration, as well as wonderful families, who all understand the benefits and necessity of play. If you would like to learn more about Global School Play Day, you can visit this link:  http://www.globalschoolplayday.com/

100 Days of Fun!

Wow! It's hard to believe that our one hundredth day of school happened already! It seems like just yesterday that eighteen bright-eyed kindergartners cautiously walked through my classroom door. Now, they are more than halfway to becoming first graders! We had so much fun celebrating this special day on Friday, February 5th. We spent time throughout the day celebrating the number 100! We made Fruit Look Necklaces, made 100th Day Crowns, played Roll to 100, build structures using one hundred cups, and read several 100th day books. Thank you to all of you for helping your children complete their fun projects. Please enjoy the collection of photos from our day below!