Mrs. Johnson's Kindergarten

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Shoo Fly Quilt

We have been spending time during math learning about and using shapes in a variety of ways. This week, we explored with triangles and squares and created a beautiful paper quilt using our shapes.

We talked about what we noticed about our quilt with our math partners and then shared as a class. Here are some of the students' observations:

Wyatt: "The pattern is purple, yellow, purple, yellow."

Blake: "There are diagonal lines."

Stephanie: "One square has yellow on the outside, one has purple on the outside."

Addie B.: "The pattern goes across and up and down."

Jared: "There are 35 squares altogether."

Brendan: "There are 7 squares going across the top."

Anderson: "There's 5 rows of 7."

If you can, stop by our classroom to see this beautiful, mathematical quilt in person!

Other Exciting Happenings!

We did lots of other things during the month of February! Please enjoy these pictures of a few of these things!

BOTH of Lexi's grandmas were able to come be our Mystery Readers! How fun!

We had a Four Winds lesson about the importance of Air. Laura and Kristin came in and did a fabulous job teaching us about this. I am always impressed with how engaging the activities are for this hands-on science program!

Starting off with a little puppet show.

How many pumps of air to pop the caps off of the plastic containers?

Addie flies a plastic bag parachute.

Lexi tries out a plastic bag parachute!

Thanks to Laura and Kristin for another fun Four Winds lesson!

Dental Hygeine

February is Dental Health Month, and H.C.S. is lucky enough to have our very own "Tooth Tutor." Darcie is a dental hygienist who offers her time to teach students how to take care of their teeth. Check out the photos from her visit!

Darcie demonstrates brushing using her giant toothbrush and model teeth.

Blake pretends his fingers are teeth as Darcie demonstrates proper flossing technique.

Dylan and Clement practice "flossing" their fingers.

Anderson and Brendan give flossing a try!

We even got to take home a new toothbrush and activity book! Thanks, Darcie!

Valentine's Day Fun!

Even though our Valentine's Day celebration was postponed due to a snow day, we still had great fun on Monday!

Thanks to everyone for sending in cereal boxes. We used them to make our valentine's mailboxes!
Everyone enjoyed giving and receiving special valentine's to their friends. I was super impressed with all of the candy-alternatives you came up with!

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We did a number of fun activities to celebrate the day. We sorted and graphed paper conversation hearts, played games, and read a valentine book modeled after Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

Blake makes his conversation heart graph.

Stephanie, Jared, and Clement play CVC Word Bingo (Valentine edition!)

Coloring in the book "Valentine, Valentine, What Do You See?"

We ended the day with lots of yummy treats! Check out this spread! Thank you to everyone for sending in the delicious snacks for our party.

Friday, February 14, 2014

Hip Hip Hooray for the Hundredth Day!

Haysen's awesome cape for the 100th Day!

Thursday, February 6th was a very important day at Hinesburg Community School: we celebrated being in school for one hundred wonderful days! One hundred days of learning, one hundred days of friendship, one hundred days of fun! To celebrate this special day, we did many activities about the number 100, including building structures using 100 plastic cups, drawing what we might look like when we are 100 years old, and playing a dice game called "Roll to 100." Here are some pictures of the fun:

Our festive classroom door.

Trey thinks he will be bald when he is 100!

Working on their 100 cup structure!

It's getting bigger!

What Brendan will look like when he is 100!

Close up: The speech bubble says "I'm an old man!" Love the walker!!

Roll to 100!

Each student was invited to bring a 100th Day Project to school. I was so impressed with the creativity and hard work put into these projects! We were able to visit the other classrooms in the primary wing to see what everyone brought in.

Leo's 100 colorful trucks.

Trey's 100 colorful coins.

Addie B.'s necklace with 100 beads.

Kate's bracelet made with 100 rubber bands.

Blake's 100 candy hearts.

Anderson's necklace made with 100 rubber bands.

Grant's paper chain made with 100 links.

Ella S.' necklace with 100 beads.

Stephanie's 100 snowflakes.

Clement's 100 pieces of colorful duct tape.

Wyatt's 100 noodles.

Addy O.'s necklace made with 100 beads.

Brendan's snowman made with 100 cotton balls.

Jared's 100 pennies.

Haysen's shirt with 100 googly eyes and pompoms.

Lexi's creation made with 100 legos.

Ella O.'s drawings of 100 animals.

At the end of the day, many friends thought that it was the last day of kindergarten. I am so happy that that is not the case! I, for one, am looking forward to the rest of our time together!

Monday, January 27, 2014

Mystery Readers!

I've had such fun continuing Miss Livingston's "Mystery Reader" tradition! It is so exciting to read the clues each day and watch children get excited at the prospect of someone they know coming to read to the class! Here are several pictures from recent Mystery Readers.

Kate's grandparents were the Mystery Readers on her birthday!

Kristin M. reads to us from Olivia and the Fairy Princesses

If you are interested in signing up, please visit the online sign up here: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090B48AFAC2C7-mystery There has been some talk about who is "allowed" to be a Mystery Reader. In my opinion, anyone who is willing and interested, is welcome! Grandparents, older siblings, moms, dads, or others! Let me know your ideas!

All About Erosion!

A couple of weeks ago, we had the pleasure of having Laura Howard and Doug Stewart visit our classroom to teach us about this month's Four Winds topic of Erosion. We had so much fun watching a puppet show to learn what causes erosion and then did a couple of experiments and a demonstration using our bodies. Take a look at these pictures!