Sweet Kinders: February 2013

Monday, February 18, 2013

Valentine's Day Rewind

Valentine's Day was quite low key in our classroom. Yes, we still had a party and passed out Valentine's cards.

First, I love decorating for each holiday. My door always has a cute saying and always displays each child's name.

Each week we have a new poem. It usually is thematic or holiday based. I try to add motions to each line, hence keeping all learners focuses. This one is 'Five Little Valentine's.'

After our poem, there is always a morning message or letter written by me. It welcomes the students and tells our daily activities. I use my morning message for many things...some days we make graphs, write sight words, or share information.

During our Daily 5 time, we enjoyed some fun word work activities. Here is an activity I got from Mrs. Ricca. I added my own special flair, but it was super cute!

I made a Write the Room sheet for Valentine's Day and President's Day. Click the links for the freebies!

These are the super cute bags we made to collect our Valentine's in.

I found it from the ladies at Me and My Gang.

Before our party, we got started with some sweet tarts. We sorted, graphed, and analyzed. The students LOVED graphing and eating.

This sweetie was so hard working :)

We had a fabulous party filled with food, games, and crafts.

Hope you had a very special Valentine's Day!

Sunday, February 17, 2013

100th Day

100th Day and Valentine's Day...back-to-back!!! Whew it was a busy week!

The children entered Wednesday morning to a sign much like this (Thank you Pintrest and Ms. S from First Grade Fresh). I have seen these popping up all over Pintrest, so I just had to create one!

Last year I made these wacky hats and found they were not worth all the time. Thus, this year we purchased special crowns from Really Good Stuff. They were a hit.

I don't know about your Kinders, but mine always need cut and paste activities. I cannot remember where I found this idea but it is a blast. Even my students who lose focus quickly LOVE these.

Ice cream scoops. Count by 10's to 100!

In my classroom we have some serious allergies and bringing food into the classroom is really tough. My teaching partner did a super cool 100th Day Snack mix. I still wanted to do something fun, so I went with Tootsie Pops and Life Saver Gummies. We even made the number 100 with them! They were a huge hit!

Last but not least....my favorite 100th Day activity! 100 year old students!

These crack me up every year! The children were even laughing.

I love the hair on the sides. This student also made a tie! How precious!

This one below is my FAVORITE!

Hope you had a great 100th Day of School!

Oceans Intro & Wk 1: Dolphins

Jellies, sharks, and dolphins.....OH MY!

Last week, we ventured to our local Aquarium for a field trip surrounded around all things ocean related. We are kicking off our two month unit of Oceans. Here student will apply math, reading, and writing skills to fun aquatic animals. We will be covering dolphins, jellyfish, seahorses, sea turtles, sharks, crabs, and many more ocean animals.

Three of my students enjoy an underwater view of the dolphins. I just LOVE this picture!

Students learned all about dolphins from trainers in a live FREE show.

The week following our big trip, we dove into a week long study of dolphins.

On Monday afternoon, we gathered both Kinder classrooms for a short time to learn together about dolphins.

We first talked about what we already knew: Our Schema.

We wrote these on blue post it notes and posted them on our large anchor chart.

I did not get a picture of this anchor chart completed, hence you cannot see our 'New Learning' post-it notes.

Next I used a powerpoint presentation to teach the students about dolphins. Download a free copy of this HERE.

Please note: Images are from Google Images. I am not the owner of these photos, simply using them to teach children.

Over the course of the week we enjoyed many fiction and nonfiction books about dolphins.

My favorite was:

This book is worded beautifully. It explains mammals, dolphin families, and basic dolphin characteristics.

We created a dolphin diagram mid-week and students did fantastic.

Here is a copy of the diagram HERE.

I forgot to take a picture of the student's completed diagram, but I will on Tuesday.

Lastly, did you know the Orca or Killer Whale is a part of the dolphin family. I learned something new this year.

We also read about the Killer Whale and created this super cute orca from Deanna Jump's Ocean Unit. I love their unique personalities shown through their work.

Did you know an adult orca is a long as 8 children stretched out from head to toe? We loved seeing how big orcas really are!

Week 2 starts next week. My teaching partner will be teaching all our students about Jellyfish next week.

Monday, February 4, 2013

A Month of Penguins

January has come and gone!

We have enjoyed a month of penguins: Emperors, Adelies, and Rockhoppers.

Here is how we broke it down:

Week 1- Penguin Introduction

We made a penguin book to hold all our activities.

The book is made with a large sheet of blue construction paper. All you have to do is fold part of the bottom up to form a pocket. Then we used a hole puncher and bound it with yarn.

This pocket contained general penguin fun!

Readers have been blossoming in our class and we practiced many sight words in this book. See a few pages below. (I do not remember who created this book, though I'd love to give credit)