Valentine's Day Party

We had a great Valentine's Day Party on Friday afternoon in our classroom
We made valentines during journal time

Made a super cute tissue paper heart craft (thanks again Julie!)

Plus an appearance from "The Box Lady" (Riley, you are truly a RIOT)





100th day of Kindergarten

Well in case you missed the memo, yesterday was our 100th day of kindergarten and we had a WONDERFUL, learning-packed day :-)

We've come to school for 100 days,
The time has just flown by.
Five months, two seasons and we're half way done,
When another surprise does arrive.
It's the 100th day of school today.
Let's start the day with a grin.
For tomorrow will be 101,
So let the celebration begin.

 We started off the morning by making a paper chain that was 100 links long

Next we rotated around to stations set up in our room
putting 100 polka dots on a dalmation dog

reading 100 Hungry Ants

building a tower of 100 dixie cups

using a dice to roll to 100 with a partner
 


For journal time, we wrote about 100 things that we could eat and 100 things we could not!

I can eat 100 swedish fish.

I cannot eat 100 snowmen.

I can eat 100 snowballs.

I cannot eat 100 kindergarteners.

We read Hetty's 100 Hats
Predicted how long 100 seconds was
Colored a 100 picture page

Read Centipede's 100 Shoes

Happy GroundHog Day

well if you missed the big news of the morning, Mr. Punxsutawney Phil

did indeed see his shadow, scaring him back into his hole with a prediction of another six weeks of winter. Want to read the whole story? Phil sees his Shadow

The kids have actually been talking quite a bit about this calendar day in bits and pieces all week. This morning, we were blessed with an hour's time (usually spent in the computer lab but 2nd grade was taking their ISIP assessment) to learn more.

We read Substitute Groundhog were Groundhog is too sick to perform his duties and so he interviews other animals to help him by coming out of his hole on Groundhog Day

Afterwards, we made our own groundhog book (check out your child's folder to see their own personal copy)

This afternoon, when I caught the sun poking out from behind the clouds, we quick went out onto the playground to go shadow hunting



More All About Me pages

Friday the children completed their handprint page:

Josue

Isaac

Clara

And Yesterday on Monday, they completed their favorite colors page:

Brandon

Sophia

Luke



A self portrait

Our second page of our All About Me book is a self portrait
Here is Lily

and Dakota



and Kayley





All About Me Book

At the end of the day, Miss Miller has been creating an All About Me book with the children

Their first page is titled My Name and she had them "rainbow write" their names on the pages.

Here are a few of her favorite examples

I have a dream

All week our kindergarten class has been learning about Martin Luther King Jr.

• We listened to a book called Young Martin Luther King, Jr. "I have a dream
• We read a little paperbook during guided reading about Martin Luther (complete with circling words from our word wall and locating his name throughout the text)
• We created portraits of Martin

• We listened to another book entitled Happy Birthday Martin Luther King Jr
• We watch a short video on his life and famous speech

And we wrote a speech about our dreams are:
(here is what a few of the kids wrote)
Ezra: "My dream is that all trash is picked up."
Gavin: "My dream is that I don't get bit by a shark."
Kamden: "My dream is that I spend time with my mom and dad."
Dakota: "Me and Luke are superheroes." 
Adrianne: "I don't have to go to the doctor anymore." 
Sophia: "I wish that Martin Luther King Jr. did not die." 
 Clara: "My dream is that everybody would love each other."

Merry Christmas

Hope all are having a wonderful and blessed Christmas
See you back in the classroom kiddos on January 3rd - enjoy your break!

Author Visit

On Friday morning, New Franklin had the pleasure of hosting a local Shippensburg author by the name of John Graham. It was an amazing experience for everybody. I didnt tell the kids until that morning what was happening (they had been talking briefly about it in library class though). Their react?

"A REAL LIVE AUTHOR!?!?"

"He is truly coming to see US?!?!"

"This is AMAZING!!!!"

(and a WHOLE bunch of screaming!)

Off to the library we trot to hear a book called No Sweets for Santa written by John Graham (a book that we actually learned was 11 years in the making)

If you are interested in checking out the book and learning more about it

visit his website No Sweets for Santa

That afternoon we were finishing up our Christmas Junie B. book Jingle Bells Batman Smells P.S. So does May and one of the children asks "When is the author of Junie B. going to come visit us?" haha

Same & Different

In Math and in Reading, we have been talking about how things are the same and how they are different.
In Math, we compare shapes, buttons, children, etc.... and we observe how things look alike and how they look different. Today we did a craft (thank you SO much to Miss Julie, Mr. Cubbage, and Miss Confer who came in to help with our project. Wet glue and glitter is sometimes a dangerous combo to a 5 year old HAHA) to test our skills on being able to tell how things are the same or different. Using just some paper, a cardboard roll, and our handprints, children were given the choice to make either an angel or a reindeer for the Christmas season. Here is our end results:

reindeer

angels

"How are these two crafts the same?"

• they both use our handprints
• they both used paper
• we made them out of a cardboard tube

"How are these two crafts different?"

• one is an angel, the other is a reindeer
• the angel is white, the reindeer is brown
• the angel has glitter
• the reindeer has googley eyes

In Reading, we look at different stories and see how they are the same or different (compare & contrast). The easier way to do this in Reading is to find two different versions of a book (the characters are slightly different, the story is told from a different perspective, etc...) Some of my favorites are:

• The Three Little Pigs/The TRUE story of the Three Little Pigs
• The Little Red Hen/The Little Red Hen makes pizza

Today, for our appropiate holiday season, I chose The Gingerbread Man (one we read a few days ago) and The Gingerbread Girl

A little background info. I am sure that you are all familiar with The Gingerbread Man story (runs away from the little old man & the little old woman, plus a bunch of other characters only to end up being eaten by a devious and sneaky fox at the end of the book). For those of you who have never read The Gingerbread Girl, you are in for a treat! The lonely old woman and the lonely old man decide to bake a girl this time, but when they open the oven, she runs off like her brother did. Never fear, this smart cookie has a plan to outfox the fox. Will it work? You betcha! She takes a piece of her licorce hair, ties the fox's mouth shut and teaches him some manners to turn him into a pet :-)

"How are these books the same?"

• They both have cookies made out of gingerbread
• there is a little old man and little old woman
• there is a fox who tries to eat them

"How are these books different?"

• one is a girl, one is a boy
• the fox doesn't eat the girl
• the girl runs past a school, an artist, and a lady walking dogs

I encourage you to challenge your child to find things that are the same and different with common everyday objects you find at your house. As you can tell, they are pretty good at it :-)

Ship girls have left the building

In case your child hasnt mentioned the fact, besides Miss Miller (who will return next semester to be a student teacher), we have had 3 other placement students from Shippensburg University with us this fall. This week has been their last week in our classroom before it is off to take finals next week and then a relaxing month winter break in between semesters (aaah, I think that is what I miss most about college! haha)
Wednesday we said good-bye (for now) to Miss Silvis and Miss Fischer (both sophmores and their first year in my kindergarten classroom)
Yesterday we said goodbye to Miss Bergan (a junior who I worked with last year and who will, fingers crossed, be coming back next year as my pro-sem & student teacher) who brought us yummy brownie cookies and candy canes. We also said good-bye to Miss Miller who cannot wait to return next semester as a student teacher.
It will be a lonely month without our Ship girls, but I am oh, so proud of all the hard work that they have been into this semester. They made great relationships with the children and myself and we cannot wait to see them in Janaury!

I have some good news & some bad news

Well, like the title states and I said to the kids this morning "I have some good news and I have some bad news. I will tell you the bad news first so the good news will cheer you up!" (this is what my Mama always said to me and this is what I say to my daughter now)

Bad News:
Hunter Middaugh has left our room and gone to a new classroom unexpectedly :-( Yesterday his Dad came to pick him up without warning or notice and told us that their family is moving to St. Thomas. We will miss him GREATLY and hope that he meets lots of new friends at his new school and has a good time learning with his new teacher

Good News:
Today our University student Miss Miller got to be our teacher ALL DAY LONG! Her school assignment for this semester was to pretend to be Mrs. Eckenrode's "sub" for the whole day. Miss Miller was a little nervous & anxious, but as the day wore on it became crystal clear that she had nothing to be worried about. She did a FANTASTIC job!
Miss Miller will be with us for three more days (tomorrow, next Tues, and next Thurs) before she leaves for her winter break. She will be returning to our classroom in January where she will visit us each day and be our student teacher. We are very blessed to have her!

Happy Thanksgiving

To you and everyone in your family I want to wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving Day.

I have many blessings to be thankful for this year

• Riley
• Xander
• Josue
• Kayley
• Gavin
• Hermila
• Dustin
• Luke
• Myleigh
• Hunter M.
• Brandon
• Ezra
• Clara
• Kaylyhn
• Dakota
• Trai
• Sophia
• Isaac
• Levi
• Adrianne
• Lily
• Hunter T. 
• Marissa
• Kamden
• Madison

Our 5 senses

This morning we began a discussion about discovering our 5 senses

I decided that I would introduce this topic by using a pumpkin that Luke had brought to the classroom weeks ago. We had tons of fun answeing the following questions....

• What does a pumpkin look like? Our answers: orange, fat, big/medium/small, a green leaf, a brown stem, circle/oval/sphere, jack-o-lantern. We looked through our newly donated magazines and found something that had one of the attributes that was the same as the pumpkin. Children cut out pictures of wreaths (they were round), pajamas (they are orange), woman (she is big), and many other things
• What does a pumkpin sound like? I had all the children close their eyes and listen to what the pumpkin sounded like. Their answer? Quiet.
• What does a pumpkin smell like? I cut the top of the pumpkin off and passed it around the circle for them to take a big whiff. The reaction? "stinky, good, soup, candy, sweet"
• What does a pumpkin feel like? This question is a two fold question because a pumpkin feels very different on the outside vs. the inside. Once again, we passed the pumpkin around the circle with strict instructions to only touch the outside first (the top was still off from smelling it). Answer? smooth, hard, bumpy, cold. Then came the fun part: Let's pass the pumpkin around and feel the inside!  I actually put some newspaper down in the middle of the rug with some wipes and told them that they could reach their hands in and pull out some seeds/pulp if they wanted to. Watching them complete this task was hilarious: 1/2 just stuck the tip of their pointer finger, some pulled out a pumpkin seed or two, and some didnt want to do it at all! They then stated that the inside of a pumpkin felt "sticky, gooey, slimy, and icky!"

and last, but not least.......

• What does a pumpkin taste like? I explained how you make pumpkin and I brought a can in to school from the store. I also told them that pumpkin puree is different from pumpkin pie mix because we have to add more ingredients to it to make it into pie. I asked them that even though it doesnt taste the best, does anyone want to go on a "food adventure" with me and try some? About 3/4 of the class raised their hands. I put a very small portion on their spoons and told them to wait for all of us and we would try it together on the count of three. "One, two, three!" Oh, the faces they make are truly priceless (not gonna lie, my face doesnt look the best either).

I LOVE kindergarten!

Weekly Newsletter

our school is currently out of toner for the printer in the office and so I am unable to print off weekly newsletter for everyone to keep up to date on what is going on in our classroom next week
here is what our schedule looks like

MONDAY

• Sending home baggie book homework

TUESDAY

• Gym (please wear appropiate footwear)

WEDNESDAY

• Music

THURSDAY

• Library (please return books for exchange)
• Good News Club
• Happy Birthday Sophia

FRIDAY

• Art
• Stand up to Bullying Day (wear pink)

MISC.

• thank you to all who donated cardboard tubes and magazines. Keep 'em coming :-)
• Next Wednesday November 23rd there is a 1 hour early dismissal
• NO SCHOOL on Thursday or Friday (November 24th & 25th) for Thanskgiving break