100 Days Smarter!

 

Yesterday was our 100th Day in Kindergarten. We had several fun activities planned for the day. We had a little kink in our plans, however, when an unexpected ice storm hit and we ended up dismissing even earlier than expected. Despite the change in schedule, we still had a fun day!

We have been counting up to this day all year long! Today we were finally able to count all the way to 100 on our hundred chart! We counted first by ones, then by 10's and 2's. Soon we'll add 5's to the list! It was very exciting to fill up the whole thing!

Then we made a 100th Day of School snack consiting of 100 snack items. Each student had a recipe for their snack and they had to gather the snack items that they needed and them lay them out on their 100 chart in groups of 10. Here's a copy of our recipe...

10 Cheerios, 10 Goldfish, 10 m&m's, 10 Kix cereal, 10 pretzel twists, 10 marshmallows, 10 chocolate chips, 10 pieces of popcorn, 10 cocoa puffs, and 10 teddy grahams. This equals a delicious 100 item 100 day snack! The children used their 100 charts to make sure that they had all of their ingredients before bagging them up .

 The finished product!

The students also made 100 things posters, but since we dismissed early we didn't get to share them. Look for these next week!

Happy 100 Days from Mrs. Tucker's Class!

Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.

We all love a day off from school, a long weekend, an extra morning to sleep in. Yesterday's extra day was a very special day that I was able to share with my students today. Yesterday we honored Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his contributions to our world.

Today in class we learned about who Martin Luther King Jr. was and why he is such an important figure in our nation's history. We learned a little bit about what it means to be different and how we should not judge people based on the color of their skin, but on what is on the inside... my own personal favorite Dr. King saying pens this "the content of their character", which I think says more than enough in itself.

We discussed why we choose our friends. The class had great answers. They choose their friends based on how they treat them, how nice they are, that they like to play together, that they are fun...the content of their character!

Today we barely touched on the surface of Dr. King's life and contributions. We learned that he spoke at marches and wanted everyone to be treated equally and fairly. Throughout the rest of the week we will learn more about his life and how he made a difference in our world. We'll learn about Dr. King's dream and dream our own dreams. Stay tuned for these later in the week!

I leave you with this...

Our future. Our diverse, precious little hands showing that we care about each other not because of the color of our skin, but because of the content of our character. Here in Mrs. Tucker's Class we believe in fairness and equality. Hands Down.

 

 



Mitten Math

As we continued with our journey through The Mitten, we did a little activity I like to call "Mitten Math". This activity integrates math and language arts by asking the students math questions related to the story.

First students we asked to estimate how many cubes long they thought their mitten was.This was a great introduction to non-standard measurement, which we will be studying later on in the year.

The students were placed in partners pairs with one threesome and were asked to estimate how  long they thought their mitten was and write that down on their recording sheet. This activity not only asked students to remember what the word estimate means and how to do it (we discussed it very  briefly at the beginning of the year so this was a great way for us to revisit and review!), but also asked students to work together in a cooperative group.

After writing down their estimate, the groups worked together to measure their mitten. Once they found out how long their mitten really was, they wrote that number down as the actual amount on their recording sheet. 

Finally, the students were asked to decide if their estimate was more, less, or equal to the actual number. This reviewed more and less, which were taught earlier in the year.

Next, the students were asked to estimate how many cubes their mitten would hold. We related this to the story by talking about all the things that the mitten in the story held and brainstorming if we thought "holding" meant just as many as would fit or cramming as many as you could. We, of course, decided it meant you could cram as many as you could- after all that is what happened in the story!

The partner pairs took turns adding cubes to their mitten and counted together how many would fit inside. After the students fit as many in as they could, they again wrote down their actual number and compared it to their estimate. 

This activity turned out to be a great ending to our study on the mitten. The students really enjoyed getting to fill up their mittens and try to see how many they could fit in at once. This was also a great activity because it incorporated so many different standards- the students were using non-standard measurement, estimation, and number sense all at once! This activity helped to reinforce concepts we have already discussed in class, while giving a nice intro to concepts yet to come.

The Mitten Retelling

 As we continued our literature study of The Mitten, we did a little retelling activity. This activity focused on recalling text, the concepts of beginning, middle, and end and also sequencing.

Each student made decorated their own mitten envelope and then colored and cut out all of the different animals from the story. 

We re-read the story and then practiced retelling. The children took turns telling different parts of the story. We discussed how important it was for us to remember each of the different parts of the story: beginning, middle, and end. 

As we told the story, the children added the different animals that snuggled up in the mitten.

And at the end, the mouse sat on the bear's nose, he sneezed, all of the animals flew out, and the mitten flew up into the air!

The Mitten

 This week and next week, we are spending some time with one of my very favorite wintertime stories...

 

We started out this week by reading the story and doing a little book talk.

The children took turns rolling our story cube and answering questions about different aspects of the story. Each question gave the children the opportunity to reflect on the story and give their opinion about a certain part or piece of the story.

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 "Tell about your favorite Character."          "Tell about your favorite illustration."

  "Tell about your favorite part."                  "Tell about what might happen next."

 "Tell about why you liked or disliked the   story. Why?"      "  Tell about words you learned."

 

                                                                              

After our book talk, we worked together as a class to complete a graphic organizer about the story.

 Our "Story Elements Butterflies"

Both of these activities were great introductions to story elements. We learned several great vocabulary words: plot, character, and setting. This is information that we will use as we move on in Kindergarten as well as First Grade. We are also getting used to organizing our information using different types of graphic organizers, which will be HUGE in First Grade!

We will continue next week with more great activities to broaden our understanding of The Mitten!