Our First Writing Celebration

We just wrapped up our first unit of study for Writer's Workshop. Since the beginning of the year, we've been working hard to learn what good writers do to produce great stories. We start by thinking of something that really happened in our lives. Then, we practice telling the story orally to plan how many pages we will need for our story. When we write our story, we make sure to add many details, including who is in the story, where it takes place, and what happened. We even learned to add speech bubbles in our writing! At the end of our unit, we each chose the piece that we were most proud of and decided to edit and "publish" it. At our writing celebration, each child read his or her story into the circle for all of us to enjoy. We finished our celebration with an apple juice toast and a pretzel snack. I am so proud of the hard work of these wonderful young writers! We are so excited to begin our next writing unit soon! 

'Snow' Much Fun!

As we kicked off our winter unit, we spent time last week doing many snowman activities. One of our favorites was a guided drawing activity of a snowman. Students had to use many skills, including following directions, fine motor, planning and adjusting, and more. They were all so proud of how their snow people turned out. I love how, even though everyone followed the same directions, each snow person is completely unique!

Holiday Happenings

Polar Express Pajama Day!

It was wonderful to return to school today to see my favorite kindergartners refreshed and excited to get back to our work and play! Prior to the holiday break, we had a whirlwind of a time learning about holidays around the world and celebrating our own family traditions. Please enjoy the photos of our December learning!

Drew models his note and napkin, a holiday custom in Italy.

We made gingerbread ornaments when we learned about Germany. 

The poinsettia flower, a symbol of Christmas in Mexico.

Karen, our school secretary, shared with us about holiday traditions in Sweden.

Meg models her St. Lucia crown. 

We made "Sandmen" like they do at Christmastime in Australia

A matryoshka ornament we made when we learned about holiday traditions in Russia.

Parent volunteers helped us make potato latkes when we learned about Hanukkah. Yum yum!

We learned to play dreidel. 

Dreidel game. 

Drew enjoys the hot cocoa we made for our Polar Express pajama day.

Yummy hot cocoa!

We also did a mini-unit about reindeer. We read stories, as well as informational texts. My favorite project was the Reindeer Guided Drawing that we did. I wanted to take every single one home and frame it! I hope you enjoyed your little "deer's" work as much as I did ;) 

 

 I hope you had a wonderful and restful holiday break with your families. I am so excited to be back at school during this amazing part of the year, when kindergartners seem to just explode with learning!

Foxes & Dens

Please enjoy this video of two students explaining our newest math station, Foxes & Dens. This is a game where students practice adding two numbers together, ideally using math facts they already know or counting on strategies.

Four Winds: Snags and Rotting Logs

Today, we were lucky to have our very first Four Winds lesson. Four Winds is a wonderful, hands-on science program that is coordinated by parent volunteers. Today, Heather and Laura presented a lesson about the importance of snags and rotting logs for our forests. Everyone had so much fun and learned lots of interesting facts! Please enjoy these pictures of our activities!

Thank you, Laura and Heather, for a memorable morning!

Save the Turkeys!!

We had a wonderful couple of weeks learning about Thanksgiving traditions and comparing the lives of pilgrims and Native Americans to our lives today. We read many wonderful books, both fiction and informational, and watched several educational videos about the daily life at Plimouth Plantation and for the Wampanoag people. Perhaps our favorite project from our Thanksgiving unit was the family project that you all completed! We read the book Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano and asked families to disguise your turkeys so that they would not get eaten for Thanksgiving dinner! All of the disguises were so wonderful, that I am sure the turkeys will be spared! Take a peek at our flock of turkeys!

A snowmobiling turkey.

A football playing turkey.

A princess turkey.

A princess turkey.

"Mr. Peacock"

A zombie ghost turkey.

A princess turkey with the chicken pox.

A gymnast turkey.

A gymnast turkey.

A snow-turkey!

A football playing turkey.

A turkey at the movies!

A chicken!

A colorful turkey.

A rainbow turkey.

A turkey with family pictures on it. 

A soldier turkey. 

A ballerina turkey.

I was so impressed by the hard work and effort that families put into this project. Thank you for taking the time to help your child complete this memorable activity!

I hope you all have a relaxing and enjoyable Thanksgiving break with your families. I am so thankful for the time I get to spend with your children, as well as for the daily support that we receive from all of you. Happy Thanksgiving!