We started our day by looking at these unusual landforms.  We continued working on questioning, and sure had a lot of questions about these geysers.  We took a peek at the webcam at Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park.  The National Parks have webcams you can view to see what is going on in different parts of the parks.  We watched but didn't see Old Faithful erupt, but we did watch a short video clip so we could see just what happens with geysers.  If you would like to take a peek at Old Faithful and see what she's up to, here's the link:
www.nps.gov/yell/learn/photosmultimedia/webcams.htm

We played the game "I Have a Gift for You."  This is a theater game that helps children develop their theory of mind, their ability to  recognize others' beliefs, desires, intentions, emotions and thoughts, and to begin to understand that they may be different from their own.  This is a game we began today but will return to often to help develop these understandings more.  Today we thought about what the person sitting to the right of us likes and might like to receive as a gift.  The children were encouraged to dramatically hold the pretend item and pass it to the next person, telling them what it is using descriptive language.  We'll work on that more!  We also worked to use a "loud and proud" voice so that everyone in the room could hear them.  The other person acknowledged the gift and we moved on to the next person.  As we continue to play this game over time, I hope to see fewer puppies and kittens being given as gifts.  The last child to give a gift was practical and just gave the child to his right $20!  Ask me to tell you what imaginary gift I gave. 
The Social Emotional school-wide topic for December is diversity.  We got a little headstart today and read the book Snippets: A Story About Paper Shapes, by Diane Alber.  This story is about a little shape named Snippet who is an irregular polygon.  He notices the houses are all just squares and triangles, exactly the same except in color.  Snippet has an irregular shape so is directed to go jump in the pile of irregular shapes because he cannot be part of the other homes.  Ask me to tell you what happens when Snippet joins the pile.  
I introduced this story talking about diversity and what it is, and by introducing the word race and racism.  We had a very short talk about how groups can leave others out they perceive to be not good enough to be in their community.  
We did more writing today.  I encouraged the children to write two sentences about their favorite type of weather.  The first sentence was to identify the type of weather, and the second sentence was to tell what they do in the weather.  I modeled writing about my favorite weather, reminding them to put spaces between their words, start their sentence with a capital letter, and end the sentence with punctuation.  They did a nice job and will work more on this piece tomorrow.
We also learned about temperature in science.  We will be recording the weather each day starting next week.  The children will have weekly calendars and one of our recordings will be the temperature.

We had indoor recess today due to the cold, so I'm hoping tomorrow will be a little warmer so the kids can get outside.  Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe

Yesterday I made a shocking discovery.  Most of the class DOES NOT like mashed potatoes.  I really was surprised.  So I decided I would have my own, pretend, Thanksgiving Dinner with the kids.  They had to use their manners and ask for one of the delicious dishes from above.  Then they had to give a compliment when finished.  You will be happy to know they all passed the manners test and are ready for a proper Thanksgiving!

I hope you and your family have a relaxing, fun and safe Thanksgiving!
​Miss Wolfe

We started our day by studying photographs of a pow wow.  We listened to the story Jingle Dancer, by Cynthia Leitich Smith.  The book is about a modern day Muscogee girl who wants to dance at the pow wow, but needs jingles for her dress.  She asks different family members and friends for jingles and honors them by dancing at the pow wow.  We watched a couple videos that showed how to do the jingle dance, as well as other Native American dances.
We also listened to the story Please Mr. Panda, by Steve Antony.  This is the story of a panda who offers donuts to different animals who say they want the donuts, but do not say please.  Ask me to tell you who gets the donuts at the end of the story.  We talked about using manners and practiced saying please to ask for food that would be served at Thanksgiving.  We also talked about saying thank-you, and responding when people say good morning to them.  
Let's give this YouTube video below some love.  Ms. Lillis, Mrs. Jackson and Mr. Sheets performed the Koo Koo Milkshake song. They are wearing the costumes they wore for Halloween.  We LOVED the video!  

Have a great weekend!
​Miss Wolfe

We started our day by analyzing four different maps.  We studied them and compared them to see how they were the same and different.  Ask me to tell you about one of the maps.

We listened to the Tortoise and the Hare story again today.  We listened closely to learn about the main characters.  The Benchmark version of this story is very short, but we learned a lot about tortoise.  Then we wrote together.  We worked on describing one of the characters in the story.  We chose tortoise.  We wrote together with the children helping to tap out the words with guidance.  I emphasized putting spaces between the words, upper and lower case letters, and starting the sentence with a capital letter.  That's a lot!  I wouldn't expect kinders at this point in the year to all be able to do those things as they write, and when they write independently, the focus would be on on convention of writing,, but because I was writing on the screen with them, I pointed out all these conventions.  
We reviewed what the lesson in the story is, and I directed them to listen closely to the end of fables for the lesson.  Ask me to tell you the story of the Tortoise and the Hare.

Have a nice evening!
Miss Wolfe

We read The Tortoise and the Hare and wondered how tortoises and turtles are the same and different.  Ask me to tell you what I found out.

We watched this special video about bullying.  We noticed who the bully was right away, and saw that he tried to get the other birds to go along with him.  We will talk more about bullying after Thanksgiving and learn how to be an upstander.

​ Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe

Today we started our day looking at three paintings by Paul Klee.  We looked at how Klee used shapes to create interesting paintings.  We talked with a buddy about what we noticed and which painting was our favorite.
We listened to the story The Hare and the Tortoise.  We talked about how this was a special kind of story called a fable.  Fables teach a lesson.  Ask me to tell you what the lesson was in this story.  We also began to work on retelling the story.  
In math we continued talking about shapes.  We looked at shapes in different orientations to determine what shape they were by thinking about the definitions of the shape.  We talked again about straight lines, curves, corners or angles, and closed or open shapes.  
In Social Studies we began talking about geography.  We learned about maps and globes today.  

Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe

We started our day studying photographs of the celebration of Diwali.  We watched a short video to learn more about this holiday, then read a book called The LIght Within You, by Namita Moolani Mehra.  The Light Within You is a beautiful story of a little girl's love for her grandmother who lives in India. It's a beautiful story about know who you are and being confident which lets the light inside you shine for others to see. 
In Really Great Reading, we started learning three Heart Words.  We learned how to look at the word, spell it out loud, and how to tap from their shoulder, to the inside of their elbow, to their wrist as they spell the words.  We looked at the tricky parts of the words to know these are the parts we are to memorize.
We learned how to listen to dictated words and finger stretch them, then write the letter that goes with the sound down.  We did this together, but in the future I will spread the children out so I can see what they can do on their own.  We also took a quick sound test for one of the units in Really Great Reading.  
In math, we began working with shapes.  Today we were looking at a variety of shapes to determine if they had a curve or not.  This was tricky for some of the children who looked at shapes such as a hexagon and considered it's shape a curve.  I also think the poor format of the workbook page made the children think they had to place the shapes evening on the T-chart.  A big part of our geometry instruction is learning vocabulary to identify and compare shapes.  

Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe

November is Native American Heritage Month.  We studied and analyzed some traditional Native American homes.  We talked about how some of them were the same.  We talked about the materials that were used to construct them.  We also talked about which home we would like to live in!  These homes have interesting names.  Ask me to try and remember which home was which: teepee, hogan, wigwam, igloo, pueblo, cliff dwellings, kutcha (kuccha), longhouse.
We thought and talked about which home we would like to live in if we were going to live in a Native American home.  We made a pictograph to show what our class thought.  Ask me to tell you about the pictograph.

We talked about Snowden Farm today as part of our Remembrance and Reconciliation lessons.  Thomas Snowden had been a slave, but had 100 acres of land in the Clarksburg area.  He sold his land to other African Americans so they could live in a place where they would be treated fairly.  Now, Snowden Farms is an elementary school in our county. 
We met with our Bear Buddies today.  It was so nice to have Ms. White's class with us.  Today the children got to know each other and the third graders read to our kinders.  We are looking forward to future activities with them!

Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe
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We started our day with an SEL lesson about bullying.  We talked about what they thought bullying and conflict is, then added to our description as our lesson went on.  We watched the PIxar short Lou and watched to see who the bully was and what they did.  Ask me to tell you who the bully was in this story.  Was it J.J. or Lou, or was it one of the kids on the playground?  We talked about why J.J. decided to return all the things.  What made him change his mind?  

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In Really Great Reading, we started working with the letters s, h, c and i.  We will begin making words with these letters and the letters from last week.  We practiced making upper and lower case S's.  You might notice on the handwriting papers that children are drawing a midline.  They are copying what I did in the lesson to show they where the letter should be to help them in getting their letters to sit on the line and to have short and tall letters.  In January we will move to three line paper with a midline, so this is getting them ready for that transition.
We worked on DeBug today.  We reviewed what we have talked about so far with making sure the problem is a kid-size problem.  We talked today about moving away when, for example, someone is being loud and annoying during play on the carpet, or someone was standing too close in line.  While this strategy isn't always possible, it's a good one for on the playground or during indoor play.
Today we started our week-long study of Remembrance and Reconciliation in Montgomery County.  We talked about some very big words and concepts.  We talked about what a landmark is, what segregation is, and what integration is, as well as the word Negro.  We looked at pictures of the Boyd's Negro School near Germantown.  We learned how black children were not allowed to go to school with white children.  The black children living in this area first had to go to school in a church, and many of the children had to walk a very long way to get there.  Then, they were given a small amount of money to build the school and another small amount of money for supplies.  They were given old books from the white schools.  We discussed whether this was fair and why this could have happened.  It's such a big topic but it's important that children begin learning about this even at this young age.  
We did read a funny book today to lighten things up after the serious topics we discussed today.  The children thoroughly enjoyed Pig the Slob by Aaron Blabey.  

Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe
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