My First Blog!

This is my first blog...ever! After perusing other teaching blogs for hours on end, I have been motivated to create my own. So here it is....My first post on my first blog! I am looking forward to my new project and I am especially excited to get it fully up and running! Stay tuned....

Valentine's Day

For our Valentine's Day party, we had a Friendship Ice Cream Party. The students had to read the sentences and then find a classmate who agreed with each statement. As the students proceeded through the activity, they earned the items that were needed to create an ice cream sundae! The students and room parents seemed to really enjoy this activity. The clean-up was very easy and the students kept themselves busy!

Dental Health

During our Dental Health unit, we created a cross-section of a tooth to help learn about the parts of our teeth. The students found this activity to be hilarious as they added a "crown" to the top of the tooth! I found this idea on Pinterest and I will definitely be doing this again next year. It is so adorable! 

Here is a close-up of the completed project. We glued on "googley eyes" to make it even cuter!

Chinese New Year

In January, we learn about the Chinese New Year during social studies. We spend about one week studying the holiday by sharing nonfiction texts, showing videos of past Chinese New Year celebrations from YouTube.com, bringing in artifacts, making Chinese New Year lanterns, leisees, and dragon hats. Throughout this week, the students work on creating their own dragon for our Kindergarten Chinese New Year Parade! We discuss cooperative groups and the social language that should be used during this type of whole group activity. At the end of the week, we put on the parade for the whole school and march up and down the hallways with our dragon. If it is still in tact, I try to hang parts of it up on our bulletin board. The students are always so proud of their dragon! 

Gung hay fat choy!

Decorating the dragon head.

This will be the dragon's body. 

Creating dragon hats. 

It's finished! Now we just have to cut it out.

He is making a silly dragon face. His hat was awesome!

Another cute hat.

A couple more...

The students completed the scales for the dragon by rounding the edges of a fourth sheet of paper and glueing it onto the butcher paper.

They are practicing their dragon faces and getting ready for the parade.

Here they are!

Lots of smiles!

Fractions

After introducing fractions, I created a sort for 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4 using the Easiteach program for our Interactive Whiteboard. I found all the images on Google and then resized them and rotated them to show the students a variety of fractions and how they can appear. The students used the stylus pen to select a "mystery fraction" out of the blue box on the bottom of the screen. I created the box by overlaying it on top of the fractions and locking it in place (for those of you who use this program). The students enjoyed this very much and it's a great tool to use as a refresher!

Holidays Around the World

During the month of December, we learn about the different holidays around the world. This is a great unit that allows the students to make connections to their own culture and share their traditions with their classmates. We also open it up to parents to visit our classroom and talk with the students about their holidays and traditions. As teachers, we feel it is important for the families to share their holidays not only with the students, but with us teachers. It is wonderful learning opportunity for all of us! Below you will see some of the activities we do for the different celebrations.

*Unfortunately, I did not get pictures of the students celebrating all of the holidays we learned about in class. Next year, I'll make sure to have my camera battery charged!

ST. LUCIA DAY

All the girls in the class created crowns for St. Lucia Day by glueing pre-cut green squares, red circles for the berries, and candles onto a sentence strip.

The finished product!

The finished project!

For St. Lucia Day, the boys glued stars onto their sentence strip. 

The finished product!

The finished project!

 RAMADAN and EID

One of our kindergarten parents came to the classroom and spoke to all of the kindergarten students about Ramadan and Eid. This was really special for all of us as learned more about our students who celebrate these holidays. The students were excited to share their family traditions with one another. Our kindergarten parent volunteer and her son wore their traditional clothing, read a story about the night before Ramadan, and shared some of their favorite food that they love to eat with their family members. 

 CHRISTMAS

After we read several fiction and nonfiction stories about Christmas, the students painted pine cones and then rolled them in glitter (or as the kindergarteners call it, "SPARKLES!"). After they were dry, I attached a string to each pine cone so the students could either hang the ornament on their Christmas tree or on a door knob at home. They looked super cute and so sparkly!

She's showing off her great project!

So adorable!

 WINTER CLASS PARTY

I wish I captured more photos from this amazing day, but unfortunately, I was racing around the room with the kiddos all day trying to prepare for winter break! For our classroom party, we had a Polar Express party that lasted for the whole day. The day began with the students wearing their pajamas to school and bringing in a stuffed animal or a pillow to use for our movie portion of the day. 

Some of the activities that we did were the following: 

1. Read the story The Polar Express

2. Created a three car train. On the first car, we wrote the beginning of the story. On the second car, we wrote the middle of the story; and on the third car, we wrote about the end of the story. We displayed our train on the door of our classroom. 

3. The students wrote about a place where they would want to visit on a train. 

4. We made conductor hats using a pattern and a sentence strip

5. We watched The Polar Express movie and got cozy in our classroom.

*It was a very busy morning!

In the afternoon, the room parents came to the school to help us manage a rotating Polar Express party. All three kindergarten classrooms participated in this fun event. One classroom was the snack room where the students had hot cocoa and sugared donuts. In the second classroom, the students played different holiday games; and in the third classroom, the students created a small craft. The party lasted for about 1 hour and it was so much fun to have the students switch rooms and travel on their "imaginary Polar Express train" to get to each room. 

Here is a picture of the students right before the movie began!

Feast of Thanks

Before Thanksgiving break, we organize a Feast of Thanks for the kindergarten students. This is something that would not happen if it weren't for the wonderful families in our school community. Because our school is so diverse, we decided to have a cultural feast as opposed to a typical American Thanksgiving feast. All I can say, is WOW and YUM! We were so fortunate to have all the families send in their favorite cultural food and to also have extra sets of hands during this special event. 

After reading several books about Thanksgiving and the relationship between the Native Americans and the Pilgrims, the students reenacted saying peace to one another and preparing for their feast. 

Here are my pilgrim girls.

Here are my pilgrim boys.

Here are my Native American students.

The children loved the feast!

We had two tables of food and beverages!

This is a picture of our left overs....it was overwhelming! The other teachers in the building loved it though! The teacher's lounge had so many tasty treats!

OTHER FUN THINGS WE DO FOR THANKSGIVING

Before reading Gracias, the Thanksgiving Turkey, the students had to decide whether they thought a turkey would make a good pet. As you can see from the photo, most of the students thought a turkey would make a great pet! Watch out parents....

We made applesauce as a special snack. All the students helped prepare the treat!

Here it is in the crockpot, ready to cook! 

Yum! Our classroom smelled so good!