Time Flies

I can't believe that I have just finished working on May's calendar, already! It just seems like last week I was meeting 20 new, excited, nervous kindergartners. And now, I am preparing to send them to 1st grade! Where does the time go?

This week we are studying plants. This is the beginning of the best 6 weeks of kindergarten, in my opinion. We will study plants, bugs, butterflies, frogs, Mother's Day, and Eric Carle over the final 6 weeks of school. These days are filled with fun projects, crafts, and exploration.
Today we planted flowers and practiced recycling by using empty soda bottles...pictures to come. Special shout out to "Mr. R" for volunteering as a Watch DOG and bravely helping us today!!! The kids really enjoyed planting their seeds and are journaling as we go about plant growth.

We also received a "letter" today from Beatrix Potter (OK, so I fibbed a little...it was me in disguise). Anyways, we read The Tale of Peter Rabbit and then, miraculously two hours later, we had a letter addressed to Miss Taylor's Kindergarten Class! Wow!
"Mrs. Potter" asked us lots of interesting questions about the book, and we wrote a letter back to her. The kids got really excited about it and formed some of the best sentences all year! YAY! (I wonder what author can write us next?!?!?)

Parents, I just want to take a minute to say that it has been a wonderful year! Thank you for letting me have the privilege of teaching your child, your baby... I consider it an honor to be a teacher, and do not take my job lightly. I worry about them, fret over them, celebrate with them just as you do. And sadly, my time of teaching is about to come to a close with them. Always know that your children have a special place in my heart, and I will always remember "Miss Taylor's Kindergarten Class 2011-2012"

Spring

It has been a wonderful but busy two weeks since spring break! We have continued learning about the continents, vowels, shapes, and greater than/less than.

This week we have begun work on antonyms! Check out our new song:

Tune of London Bridges

Antonyms are opposites

Fast and slow

Stop and go

Antonyms are opposites

They are different!

The students love this song too! We are still learning, so it may take a few days for them to rememeber all the words, but they are catching on fast.

We use songs during instruction because it helps the kindergarteners learn the material faster and retain it longer. We have found that if you can set educational material to a tune, the kids will be more interested, retain the information, and have the desire to learn more! (Bet you can remember a song you learned from your childhood too!)

That sneaky little leprechaun!

The leprechaun came and destroyed our classroom today! 

 He left silly string, where he climbed all over the walls...

 Messed up our leprechaun traps.... (He's so sneaky!)

 Left footprints all over our tables...

And then got away!

The kids loved seeing the mess that the leprechaun made, but were disappointed that we didn't catch him. We wrote some awesome stories about our adventure though! Be sure to check them out when you come to parent teacher conferences on

Tuesday, March 27th and Wednesday, March 28th!

Have a great spring break! Happy St. Patty's Day!

To Catch A Leprechaun

Today we worked on our higher order thinking skills, building leprechaun traps.

Below are a few of our creations! Enjoy...

 A castle for the leprechaun...

One group of students created a maze for the leprechauns

to go through, before they can get to the gold!

Mrs. Greer at the BMX Bike Show... The kids were super impressed by this!

This week we have also been working on shapes... The students were making shapes out of play-doh as I called them out. When we come back from Spring Break, we will be working on making 3D shapes and recognizing shapes regardless of size or orientation (upside down, flipped over, rotated, etc).

Back in the Swing of things

Wow! I can't believe how time gets away from us! We have been hard at work in the classroom, learning subtraction strategies and money in math. In literacy we have been continuing to learn about good sentences, rhymes, and things good writers do!

 We wrote thank you letters to Dr. Ellis and Dr. King, thanking them for teaching us about how to have healthy teeth.

 This is our song to learn the continents of the world. It is sung to the tune of "Take Me Out To The Ballgame"...

 We talked about different words that tell us to subtract and strategies we can use to help us solve subtraction problems. I encourage the students to know several different strategies to solve one problem! This will be important in later years when they have to explain HOW they got an answer.

We have read numerous Froggy books, discussing the adventures that Froggy goes on. The kids really LOVE Froggy! Especially when he does something silly!

The students also had to write an opinion piece, stating what there favorite Froggy book was and why it was their favorite. Notice that this student has written 3 complete sentences, that is the MINIMUM number of sentences that students must write now.

Another Froggy writing. This writing also has three sentences, and has a very detailed picture to accompany the writing.

Brush, Brush, Brush Your Teeth

Today we had a wonderful visit from two local dentists, Dr. Ladd Ellis and Dr. Mitch King! They came in and taught us how to brush our teeth, floss, and when to go to the dentists. They also showed us what happens if we DON'T take care of our teeth!

YUCK!

Thank you Dr. Ellis and Dr. King for teaching us so many wonderful things.

We wrote thank you notes to Dr. Ellis and Dr. King for their wonderful presentation!

A fun song your child can sing as they brush...

Brush Your Teeth

(Sung to "Row, Row, Row Your Boat")

Brush, brush, brush your teeth
Till they're clean and white.
Brush them, brush them,
Brush them, brush them,
Morning, noon and night.

Snow Day!

As the kiddos are in art, I have been reflecting on what a wonderful day we have had. We began our day catching snow and writing about how it feels, smells, and what we see in the snow. I think it was the kids favorite writing by far.

We then worked hard all day long on addition, editing our writing (we are working on spacing this week), and on remembering characters, settings, and events of a story. Tomorrow is another fun filled day, as it is Valentine's Day!

An example of our editing...students went back and reviewed their work. Students went back and put in red lines where they forgot to put spaces. Hopefully this will remind them to put their space in whenever they write! :)