What a week we have had! We showed great school spirit with all of the rock stars, neon outfits, super heroes, and jerseys! We also learned about the different shapes and worked with wiki-sticks for the first time and loved it! The most exciting part of Red Ribbon Week is that our monster door won for best Kindergarten door!! Woooo hooo!! Thanks to the moms who came and helped put it up!
For a week that was full of math assessments we still had fun and learned about a lot of new things. Today was a day of first for our class. Their first time riding on a bus, their first field trip, and for some their first time at a pumpkin patch! We did so many fun things. We started off the day riding the bus, they were so excited the whole time! "Mrs. Cartwright we're moving! Mrs. Cartwright we're turning! Mrs. Cartwright we're stopping!" Once we got to the pumpkin patch we went to the bee house where we learned all about honey and how it's made and how good it is for the Earth and us! We got to taste honey made from the farm's bees. We also had a candle made for us out of bee's wax! After that we were off to the animals where we learned interesting facts about them, from their names, things they ate, and how old they were. We even got to feed the goats, pigs, and llamas! It was so fun to watch all of the different reactions, but once they tried it all you heard were giggles. Then after that we went through a maze made out of tall bushes! After that we went to another maze made out of bails of hay! We climbed on a train and learned about Indian corn. We then made our way down to the pumpkin patch where we learned (reviewed) the life cycle of the pumpkin. After that we went to pick out our own pumpkin! After everyone found their perfect pumpkin we jumped on a tractor for a tour of the whole farm, seeing all of the Christmas trees, apple trees, and avocado trees. Tired from all the walking, climbing, and learning it was finally time for snack and refreshments! Today was definitely an awesome day, we made tons of new memories that will stick with them forever! Thanks again to all the parents for volunteering! Well it's been a little while since we last updated you on the happenings in the class. The past few weeks have flown by! We have been in school now for almost 8 weeks and have been learning so much. We have tried different apples, peppers, and grapes over the past few weeks. We have explored the life cycle of an apple and this week we learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin. We are definitely ready to go to the pumpkin patch and put our new learned information to use! We read the story "The Bumpy Little Pumpkin" and made our own bumpy little pumpkins! We painted for the first time as a class and did great! We also explored our new class pumpkins. Then the class compared them by size, color, and coming soon how many seeds are in each. We then tried pumpkin pie, and lets just say there wasn't a single crumb left over! The students have also been working on math centers and reading centers and working independently. They have been working on "adding one" and soon "subtracting one". We will have so much more to come! Especially pictures from our field trip next week! What a fun filled week we learned all about apples! We talked about the different things that you can make with apples. We learned about the apple life cycle, labeled the parts of the apple, and we used what we learned about our 5 senses to taste and explore different kinds of apples. Everyone also got a chance to try peeling apples, to put into our applesauce! They also tried apple cider for the first time, and boy did they love that! After we tried all of the different types of apples we described what each one looked like, and compared them. We also talked about which one was our favorite. After we were full of all the delicious apples we then made our first art project! They turned out great! Come sneak a peak at all of our apples hanging in the classroom. We also have a project in the office, where we chose our best sense. We talked about our 5 sense and learned about what they could do with each different sense. Then each student chose which one was their best, and why it was their best sense, they did a great job! Come by the office to see our work! Today we had our first assembly as Kindergartners and we did great! We sat quietly and listened respectfully to all of the presenters. We had the high school Junior ROTC color guard presenting the colors. We were also lucky to have a live performance of taps for all of the people who died that day. After our assembly we went back to our classroom to read a couple of books about September 11th. We read "September Roses" which was about how two women made roses for all of the fallen people. We also read "14 Cows for America" which was also about helping people out during tough times. Then we talked about how we use this day now to remember those people and do service for others and our country. So we decided to make cards for the Yucaipa soldiers who are currently serving, and we made cards and colored pictures for our local police officers and firefighters. After doing our service project, we worked on our "play" skills. In other words we worked together to play and build while sharing and communicating with our table partners. This is a huge stepping stone for Kindergartner's growth as a student and a community member. Stay tuned for next weeks fun "Apple" adventures!! This week has been filled with amazing new things! We have been learning about living and nonliving things, our five senses, and we even tried Math and ELA (English Language Arts) stations. We have been practicing math fluency with the Rekenrek, the students love to show how their brains are thinking differently from one another. We also love to read in the library! This week we worked on reading with a partner and explored all of the new books together with a friend. Then on Friday we had a jam packed day full of hands on fun! We each had a rotation to do at our table. We learned how to work independently while also working simultaneously with our table groups. They loved every minute of it! Then after a morning full of math rotation, we moved onto ELA rotations. They loved that just as much! Then before we knew it, it was time for our "Alphabet Soup" project, where they cut out their names and put them in order on their soup bowls. Once they had their names spelt out, they decorated their fabulous little bowls. Today was another great day! We reviewed and practiced all of our classroom routines. We read the book "Chrysanthemum" and learned about how our words and actions can wrinkle someone's heart. We talked about how we need to be smart and think about how words can hurt our friends. We all made a promise, to "Be smart and think about our words and actions so we don't wrinkle someone's heart" and sealed it with a bandaid. Then we compared how many letters were in our name! Look at what we found! After that we practiced working with counting bears and unifex cubes so that we could understand the right way and the wrong way to work with math manipulatives. They did great! They have such inquisitive minds, they compared them and noticed the differences in sizes, colors, etc. We had lots of fun learning and exploring! Another great day! We had an awesome first day! The kids came to school with such bright beautiful smiles, excited to meet new friends, meet their teacher and learn amazing new things! We started off by reading "The Kissing Hand" outside and said good bye to everyone, with no crying! :) On our first day we got to know each other, played a few ice breaker games, colored, read a story about a dinosaur and how we shouldn't bring one to school :) Then we wrote our names and drew a picture of our first day of school, to put into our scrapbooks that we'll keep for the whole year! We learned and practiced tons of routines and before we knew it, it was time to go home! Our first day of Kindergarten is down in the books as a great success! Thank you to parents for all of your overwhelming support of classroom supplies and donations. My heart is very full! |
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Welcome to our Kindergarten class! We are learning so many new things! Come see our journey. Archives
April 2016
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