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Today we had an upside down day! We did what we usually do in the morning in the afternoon and what we do in the afternoon in the morning. We changed our schedule like this to go to see the plays Odyssey of the Mind presented today in preparation for their competition a week from Saturday. We continue to work with ways to make ten, which we started yesterday, and continued today. We read a great book called What Do You Do With a Tail LIke This? We talked about the external features of animals and what they do. This book is so interesting because it shows animals using their external features, like their ears, eyes and noses, in some very interesting ways. Steven Jenkins is a great author with very interesting animal books! The illustrations in the book are from cut paper and are made into a collage, which makes the pictures very interesting to look at and the external features really pop! Ask me which animal I found most interesting in the book! In the afternoon, we read The Cat in the Hat and the children did some writing about the poor choices the children made in the book, as well as what they thought the children should have done. We ended our day with a Mystery Reader!
We didn't travel anywhere today on our Read Across America journey, but will resume on Monday! Have a great weekend! Juliet
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Today we had a visit from a police officer whose child is in our class. He read a book about police officers, talked to the kids about what police officers do, and showed his uniform and things he carries with him on the job. I think the children were surprised to learn that most of his job is to help people and keep them safe, and not to just chase "the bad guys." He also talked to them about not touching guns if they would happen to find one somewhere or see one at a friend's house. He talked about calling 911, and told the kids something I had never thought about, probably because I'm so old and don't really use a cell phone! He reminded them to press 911, but to also press the call button or however the cell phone works to complete the call, as well as staying on the phone until help arrives. Ask me to tell you about what I learned and what I might be wondering about. A huge thank-you to this police officer from coming in on his day off to share about his very important job! We continued our Read Across America journey by going to the swamps of Louisiana and reading Petite Rouge, A Cajun Red Riding Hood, by Mike Artell. What a fun book to read! It has Cajun dialect and is a bit tricky to read, but fun to listen to. The kids enjoyed it and we learned a little about a swamp habitat along the way! We often take a Brain Break in the morning to stretch our legs and move our bodies, and to just take a break from learning. Recently we started taking a break with this dance video. The kids want me to make a movie of them dancing to it, but I haven't done that yet. I promise I will because they are so adorable dancing, but for now I'll post the video that they dance to. I know you'll want to get up and move with them too! We continued on our journey reading across the USA with a stop in California. We read a great book called Pop's Bridge, by Eve Bunting. This book is about the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. The little boy in the story, Robert, is so proud of his dad and his "skywalker" job. We learned about teamwork in this story. Ask me to tell you about this story!
Your little people are coming home with a tangram puzzle. We made different shapes using the tans in a tangram. I suggested they show you how to do it, but then we decided it would be more fun for you to do it. They absolutely loved that idea! So get ready to solve a few quick tangram puzzles. Today we talked about making good choices. We watched The Cat in the Hat, then took a poll to see who thought the children in the story should tell their mother what happened at their home that day. We had 19 children say they should tell their mother, and 3 who thought they should not tell what had happened. We talked about both answers, and although by telling what happened meant they might get in some trouble, most children had very strong answers that it's more important to tell the truth and get in some trouble, than to not tell the truth because then you would get in big trouble. Today was another bumpy day. They were very noisy for me during reading groups and station time, but most of the rest of the day for me, they were great. However, when we had indoor recess, they were reluctant to clean up, did not listen and were extremely noisy and rowdy! Yep, I said rowdy! Our paraeducator was in charge and their behavior was disrespectful. It continued in the cafeteria with some children actually getting up and running around the cafeteria tables. We had a very stern talk today about respecting all of the adults in our building. I'd like to say it was just a handful of kids, but almost everyone today was not showing their best behavior, so I reminded them that they need to behave and to follow our school rules and expectations until the last second of the school year. We talked at the end of the day too and I reminded that tomorrow is a fresh start and that when they walk through the doors of our school, they need to take every opportunity to show their best, just like Mrs. Ogelsby reminds us every day! I know tomorrow will be a better day! Have a nice evening! Juliet Today we started a very exciting journey! We are going to Read Across America! That means we are going to read a story that is significant for each state. The story might take place in that state, or it might be about a person who is from that state. Today we visited Oklahoma, and read and sang "This Land is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie, who was born in Oklahoma. The illustrations in this book are beautiful! Each day, your child will bring home a postcard that tells you what book we read. Ask me to sing "This Land Is Your Land" to you! The children had learned this song already in music with Mr. Sheetz and did such a beautiful job singing it as we read this beautiful book.
Today we worked on decomposing numbers in math. We played a fun game called Mingle. Ask me what mingle means! Then we used ten frames to show different ways to show numbers within ten. We also learned about wants and needs today. We know living things have certain needs to live a healthy life. We also know there are things we want, but don't necessarily need to live. We read Pigeon Wants a Puppy I came back to very good reports from both the substitutes, as well as the other kindergarten teachers, about the kids while I was gone. They worked hard, and I will be looking over their work and sending it home soon. Today we studied fireflies. We watched a video of a firefly up really close! We knew about the parts of an insect, but the video really gave us a great look at how those parts work! Check it out! We also worked with "ow" in words like glow and wow. We sorted words by whether they ended like glow or wow. We also practiced writing our word wall words and writing the letter s.
In math, we played a shape game. We had a bag with solid shapes in it. We had to put our hand in the bag, pick a shape, describe it and finally name it. We used math talk so we used words like faces, edges, corners, and of course the solid shape names. We missed school on Read Across America Day so we played Musical Seussical Chairs. We put our chairs around the carpet, put a Dr. Seuss book on each chair, the danced around the chairs until the Seussical the musical music stopped. Then we sat down and read our Dr. Seuss book until the music started again. Later on this evening I will be updating the Kids' Page on our website. There you will find links for games for your kids IN CASE we get a bit of snow! It was hard to leave my family and Disney World, but it sure was nice to come back to such happy little people. Be safe! Juliet |
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