Pumpkin Carving

On Tuesday, we had the opportunity to have some early Halloween fun! Our class, along with several other classes in the school, were invited to participate in a pumpkin carving activity as a way to help Burton Snowboards with a contest they were having at their offices. We had SO much fun scooping pumpkin pulp and seeds, designing our jack-o-lanterns, and having some sixth grade buddies help us carve our designs! Please enjoy the pictures of our efforts here:



Thank you to Mrs. Lasher for organizing this event, and Brady's "Bompie" (Howard) and Taylor's Mom, Dawn, for all of their help!

Spotlight On: Math Work Places

As a part of the Bridges math program that we use, children regularly go to work places to practice skills related to the concepts we are focusing on. Work places range from games to play independently or with partners to tasks to complete with a variety of manipulatives. I occasionally add in a work place that focuses on an area I notice students need additional support with, as well. Today, I took pictures of students at each work place and then asked them to describe what the expectations are for each work place. Hopefully, this gives you a better idea of what your child is talking about when he or she tells you about our math work places!

Bucket of Frogs: We use plastic frogs to sort by attributes, make patterns, and to practice counting and grouping.







Beat You to Ten: This is a partner game that we play to see who will collect ten unifix cubes first. You spin the spinner and add the number of unifix cubes that you spun. You switch colors for each spin. We can think about who has more and who has less, as well as how many more unifix cubes are needed to get to ten.




Pattern Blocks: We use pattern blocks to make designs and patterns. The shapes we use are: triangles, squares, rhombuses, trapezoids, and hexagons.






Which Bug Will Win? This is a game you play independently. You spin the spinner and mark the bug you get (either the ladybug or the spider). It is a race to see which bug's column you fill in first! The concepts focused on here are more than and less than, counting, and probability.








Unifix Cube Patterns: You use the pattern cards provided at this work place to build a pattern using unifix cubes. You can then record the pattern you created by coloring in the blank unifix cube record sheet.









Geoboard Shapes: You use rubber bands and geoboards to make the shapes that are on the example cards provided. After building the shape on a geoboard, you draw the shape(s) you made on a recording sheet using a straightedge (ruler) and a pencil.








Work places change every few weeks as we begin to explore new concepts. Ask your child what his or her favorite work place is this week!

Halloween Celebration

On Monday, October 31^st, we will be having a Halloween party and costume parade (we will parade around with the other kindergarten classrooms).

I am inviting students to BRING their costumes to school, as we will be changing into the costumes for our Halloween party. Please do not send accessories such as swords, guns, or any “loose” items with your child’s costume…I would hate for them to get lost!

If you are able, please sign up to send in an item for our Halloween party (i.e., baked goods, fruits, veggies, drinks, cheese and crackers, etc.) I will provide paper goods (plates, cups, napkins and utensils). Here is a link to the electronic sign-up for this celebration: http://signupgenius.com/go/halloween2390 Thank you in advance for your support!

Rainbow Jell-O!

As a part of our Colors unit, we spent time last week making "Rainbow Jell-O." Each day we made jell-o to match our color of the day and added it to our clear plastic cup. By Friday, we had a rainbow of red, orange, yellow, green, and blue jell-o! We topped our rainbow with purple whipped cream and enjoyed our yummy-and colorful!-snack. Enjoy the pictures here!

Can you see the rainbow?

Brady enjoys his Rainbow Jell-O!

Veronica and MacKenna eating their treats.

Yum, yum, yum!

Noah and Evan gobbling up their jell-o!

Important Dates and Upcoming Activities

Please join us for an Apple Picking Party! Next week on Monday (10/10), we are going to be at Shelburne Orchards after school picking apples for the Harvest Dinner and Open House Night and we need all the help we can get! If you are able to come and help out, we would love it! Baby Mia will be there to help :) Please see the poster and let me know if you can join us.
Apple Picking Party

Here are some additional dates that you may want to mark on your calendar:

• Wednesday, October 12: Walking School Bus (Safe Routes to School is running the Walking School Bus on Wednesdays. Meet at the Post Office at 7:30. Group will depart at 7:40 to highlight alternatives to driving to school.)

• Thursday, October 13: Harvest Dinner & Open House 5:00-7:00 p.m.

• Monday, October 17: Picture Day & Flynn Theater Field Trip

• Friday, October 21: No School

Shoo Fly Quilt

As a way to conclude our initial unit of study around shapes and patterns, we created a class quilt. Students each made a quilt square using green and orange triangles. We then put them together in an A, B pattern and discussed what we noticed about our quilt. Here is a picture and student observations about our work:


Students noticed many things about this quilt, including:

Helen: “There’s a pattern in the middle. Green, orange, green, orange.”

Grace: “Some quilt squares have green on the outside and some have orange on the outside.”

Noah: “The quilt is in a big rectangle.”

Veronica: “Some of the quilt squares have orange in the middle, some have green, and if you turn your head, some have both orange and green!”

Danny: “There’s sort of some big triangles inside our quilt.”

Brady: “I noticed that it’s not really both colors in the middle because that’s from another quilt square.”

Emily: “On each one, the names make a pattern, green, orange, green, orange. It looks cool!”

Evan: “If you turn your head, there’s another line of squares. It goes diagonal!”

Linni: “Some are patterns. Green, orange, green, orange.”

Kaleb: “In the second row, orange is in front of the green.”

Nate: “It reminds me of our pattern on the calendar. When you go down on each row, it’s a pattern, too [top to bottom].”

MacKenna: “The pattern goes up.”

Taylor: “I see a rhombus on our quilt squares.”

Helen: “I see triangles. If you look at two quilt squares together, it kind of looks like a butterfly!”

Aren't these kids amazing?! If you have a chance, feel free to stop by and look at our quilt in person! It's hanging in the hallway outside our classroom.

Welcome to Kindergarten!

Now that it is our eleventh day of kindergarten, we are settling into a great routine and are already hard at work doing lots of learning! I am sure you have heard some of the highlights of our first few weeks of school, including:

• our hunt for the missing gingerbread cookies!
• hatching and releasing two monarch butterflies
• watching a puppet show from Mrs. Lasher about the Gingerbread Man
• filling each others' buckets
• learning how to play the "Counting Game"
  
• earning stars
• learning routines and procedures for MANY different things
  

and much, much more. We are spending time practicing, practicing, and practicing some more the routines of our day and discussing and learning about school rules and expectations. I am proud to say that this is a group of children who clearly care about each other, their school, and their teacher and they are working and playing very nicely together! I have been handing out many stars each day when I "catch" a student being respectful, responsible, and/or safe. Ask your child what he or she did to earn a star this week!

I plan to use this blog as a way to communicate some of the activities that we complete in the classroom. I will also post my newsletter here for those of you who prefer electronic copies of information. Feel free to share the link with family members and friends who may be interested in seeing what your child is up to in kindergarten! Please let me know if you have any questions or ideas about this blog.

I will end this post with a picture of one of our favorite things that happened this week in Room Eight: Mr. O'Hara, our assistant principal, visited to read us some of his favorite children's books. He read Where the Wild Things Are (his daughter's favorite) and The Monster At the End of This Book (his favorite when he was a child). The children enjoyed having a guest reader and Mr. O. was thrilled to have a chance to visit our classroom. We look forward to having him visit again!