Whitney's Class

We will be celebrating Valentine’s Day in our classroom with a focus on friendship. We will make some valentines in our room (maybe you’ll be so luck as to get one ) but your child may wish to bring in valentine cards for their friends. I ask that your child bring in one card for each child if they choose to bring them in, this way we avoid hurt feelings.

We will also have a little party and welcome healthy and sweet treats if you’d like to send something in.

Here’s our class list:

Jaden, Jason, Georgia, Libby, Poppy, Scout, Maddie, Phin, Schuyler, Victor, Omri, Anthony, Rowan

Thanks!

After I handed out this month’s snack calendars, I found about 5 on the floor when the kids left. In case your calendar was one of the ones left behind here are the dates- 7th-Schuyler, 9th- Poppy, 10th- Libby, 13th- Georgia, 14th Valentines party, 15th-Victor, 16th-Phin, 17th-Omri, 21st- Scout, 23rd- Jaden, 24th- Jason.

We’ve started a new unit on penguins. The kids are absorbing tons of new information about these birds. So far we have learned about their body features, diet and habitat.  Next up is learning about life cycle, types of penguins and more.

I created 3 life size penguins that live in our classroom- one Emperor penguin, one Macaroni penguin and one Little Blue. The kids measured themselves to see if they are taller than the Emperor penguin and then entered the information on a chart.

Phin measures himself against the Emperor penguin

And against the Macaroni penguin

Have you heard about the Orbeez craze? They were circulating the school this fall. When I was thinking about turning the sand table into a water table for a week, I was worried that the carpet would be soaked with water.  I realized that if I could add something to the water, the amount of splashing would be lessened.

I was at Ben Franklin walking up and down the aisles and I saw them! Generic Orbeez for silly cheap.  I bought a bunch in a variety of colors.

The kids helped me take the sand out of the table and I told them that we would be adding water, but I kept the Orbeez addition a secret.

The kids had a great time using the water table and the Orbeez. I sent some home today for each kid to keep at home.

Keep them in water. If they dry out, put them back in water. Don’t let your babies eat them- they are a choking hazard. Enjoy!

Did you hear about our ice cream party? We had it right after vacation. Our class was plagued by interruptions during meetings and lessons. As an incentive, I challenged the group to have fewer than 5 interruptions at each meeting. When they reached that goal, I would add a star to a chart with 30 empty squares.  When all 30 squares were filled with stars, we would earn an ice cream party. And we did!

Yum!

As a culminating activity to our Jan Brett author study (yes, waaaaay back in December) we made gingerbread baby dough during choice time in the morning. While the students were busy at specials, I rolled out the dough and baked the gingerbread babies- I was extra careful to be patient and not peek! Then the students decorated them with icing and candy galore!

I am so behind on blogging! I apologize. I have a lot of great posts in the works. Hope you enjoy them!

Each day after lunch and before recess, we have Number Corner. The math program we use builds in this time as calendar routine, patterning and weather practice. I bump it up a little bit by focusing on other number sense activities- counting orally, counting sets of objects, counting by tens, using fingers to show numbers, LOTS of practice with the teen numbers, using tens grid cards, playing quick math games and more.  Recently, I realized that the math program really focuses on solidifying number sense through 20, but that the kindergarteners were using bigger numbers and needed to start exploring them.

I pulled out number cards that range from 1-100 and popsicle sticks.  First we started making groups of ten and practicing counting those. Then we started building numbers with tens and loose ones (or extras).  The students are getting so fluent with this! We have also added writing the number they have built as well.  See photos below of this work in action. Notice that the tens and ones are separate for easier counting.

As part of our Jan Brett author study, we read The Hat.  Our class loved the little hedgehog main character and we made Hedgie hats to wear.

Some kids wore their hats all day, even for handwriting! The occupational therapist asks me to sometimes lead handwriting on the floor as it’s a great way to use and build core strength.

Our class has a morning meeting each morning. Once a month, we meet as a whole school to have a morning meeting together. Each class chooses a month to lead the meeting. We had this month.

We chose the 2, 4, 6, 8 who do we appreciate? greeting to greet each class.

We created a video about how to get ready to play in the snow and snowy playground rules. The children narrated the movie. I’m trying to post the movie to the blog so that you can see it, but need Dawn’s help. Stay tuned.