Munchie Math

Something special that I like to do in first grade is munchie math. I love these activities because it helps us to learn lots of different skills! We not only study math concepts, but we also learn real world applications for these concepts. The children love to have a treat and they are learning at the same time! Can't beat that!

This week's munchie math activity was making numerals using twizzlers pull and peel. This activity went along with what we had been doing in class for the first week very nicely. While we learned all of our numbers in Kindergarten, we have been on a break so we wanted to make sure that we could still remember how to make them the correct way.

This activity was great for tactile-kinesthetic learners who learn best when they are making something. It was also great practice for our gross motor skills!

We practiced each number and then discussed what came next and made that number. I think the children's favorite part was getting to eat their numbers when they were done!

We will do some type of munchie activity each week. We may be sorting, graphing, counting, cooking... the possibilities are endless! I hope the children enjoy learning in such a tasty way!

First Day of School!

Welcome back everyone!
We had a great first day of school yesterday!

We began the day by reading First Day Jitters and talking about how we felt coming to school after such a long break! Some of us felt excited, some nervous, but we all were happy to be back and see our old friends! After we read the book, we made a little treat called First Day Jitters Fritters. We added Raisin Bran for the little bumps and flutters we feel in our tummies, corn syrup for the teachers smile, powdered sugar for fun and exciting things sprinkled all around, and soy butter for friends to stick with. The kids had a blast making and eating this fun treat.

We completed a journal entry about our first day of school and the most popular thing of the day was free centers! The children had a blast getting to play together, be creative, and just have fun!

We're looking forward to a great year in first grade!!

Look for updates weekly!

Another fun visitor!

This week we had another fun animal visitor. Kyle brought in his hamster, Lucy, for us to meet!

The children were very excited to get to meet her and also to learn about hamsters. Kyle passed her around and let everyone either hold her or pet her. The children noticed that her little feet felt prickly and we learned that that helps keep her safe if she needs to climb up onto things. Kyle also told us what he feeds her and we got to watch her hide away some sunflower seeds in her cheeks and eat a piece of corn. We also learned that if you have a hamster you have to clean out its cage every few days to keep it healthy and clean.

This visit went perfectly with what we were learning about this week. We read a book called An Egg Is Quiet and we learned about many of the different kinds of eggs that animals lay. We talked about where each animal lays their eggs and learned that this is called their habitat. We also learned about the ways that animals keep safe in their habitat. While Lucy wasn't hatched from an egg, she definitely has lots of things that keep her safe like her teeth and her little claws that let her hold on. She is also super fast so we made sure not to put her down.

We are having lots of fun learning about different animals and how they are similar and different.

Thanks Kyle for this fun experience!

Happy Easter!

Over the past few weeks we have been learning all kinds of things about spring. We have discussed how the plants and animals have been changing. The children have planted seeds and a garden wiht Mr. Thomas and have been observing the changes over the past few weeks. Jackson brought in his baby ducks and we learned how baby ducks hatch from eggs and then grow into grown up ducks. When we get back from Spring Break we will learn about all the different kinds of eggs and what animal they belong to. Then we will be receiving a very important package in the mail...caterpillar larvae! We will be watching and observing their growth and maturation over the next few weeks , then releasing the butterflies out into our magic garden.

While learning about spring, we learned about the springtime holiday, Easter. We discussed both the religious and secular celebrations of Easter and then had our very own Easter Egg Hunt to celebrate. All four of our kindergarten classes joined in and it was a huge success!

The children were very excited to get started!

Happy Easter from the Sherpas!

A Springtime Surprise

Today Jackson's mom brought in his pet ducks Fluffy and Diamond to share with our class! His grandma came and read us a book about baby ducks earlier in the week and this was a great hands-on activity to go along with it! We've also been studying Spring in science class and have learned all about little baby animals!

The children loved getting to pet the fluffy, yellow ducks and many of them were very taken with how cute they were! Some of them even called them beautiful! They peeped and ate crackers and were wonderful guests!

Thank you Jackson for sharing with us!!

Guess who's back!

First off, I apologize for my lack of entries over the past few weeks. As many of you know, I am working on my National Boards this year. This has been an all-consuming task for the past 5 months. It consists of 4 huge entries and an exam. Each entry has very specific instructions and even packing the box has a long list of very specific instructions. While this has been a difficult task that has taken up most of my Saturdays, my Christmas break, and many days in between, it has been such a learning experience for me and has caused me to look at the things that I do in my classroom and try to find new and exciting ways to teach the curriculum to my wonderful kindergarteners. That being said, I mailed my box today!!! Now I just have an exam to take and to wait until November for my results.

Now onto my classroom!

Over the past few weeks, we have been learning about clouds. We learned about the different types of clouds and then we went outside to practice our observation skills. When I asked my children what it meant to observe, one of them said "discover". I love this definition! Each day, we went outside and "discovered" the clouds around us. We sat outside and the children were asked to draw the clouds that they saw in their Cloud Journal. If it was sunny, they should make their picture sunny. If it was rainy, their picture should be rainy. After we observed and discovered, we came in and looked at different pictures and decided what type of cloud it was and wrote that in our Cloud Journal.

Today, we read the book, It Looked Like Spilt Milk, and I let the children go outside and do a little imaginative drawing. They observed for five minutes and then picked a cloud that they wanted to draw and drew it. Then we came in and they had to describe what their cloud looked like. We had ice cream, dinosaurs, and flying saucers! This was such a fun way to end our unit on clouds.

I hope the children have enjoyed going outside and observing as much as I have. There is no better way to teach science than to just get out there and experience it first hand!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Last week we celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday all week long! We had a ball reading some of our favorite Dr. Seuss books and finding fun ways to celebrate.




On Monday we read The Cat In The Hat and journaled about our favorite rainy day activities. We also made a graph of which character was our favorite. The majority of our class liked Thing 1 and Thing 2 because they were silly and did fun things. A smaller number liked Fish because he was trying to keep them out of trouble and , surprisingly, none of them liked the Cat because he was doing bad things and getting them in trouble! (I was SO impressed!!)


On Tuesday we read Fox in Socks and had a crazy sock-feet day. The children enjoyed wearing socks in class and LOVED picking out their craziest ones to wear! We had fun reading the story and getting our tongues all twisted!


Wednesday was "Wacky Wednesday!" The children were able dress wacky tacky and they looked fantastic! Some wore shirts backwards while others wore mismatched shoes and socks. We looked at Dr. Seuss's book, Wacky Wednesday and actually put the pictures of it up on the smart board and the children were able to come up and circle all of the things that were Wacky.


Thursday we read one of my personal favorites, I Wish That I Had Duck Feet. The children laughed at the different animal parts that the boy wanted and then were asked to draw their own pictures and write what they would like to have if they could have any animal parts. They also had to tell me how they would use them.

Friday was a really fun day! We read Green Eggs and Ham and then made our own for a breakfast treat!

I gave the children recipe cards and they had to help me put in order how we should make the eggs and then they got to add the ingredients and scramble up this delicious treat!

We had a wonderful week learning about some of Dr. Seuss's stories. We also practiced some of Dr. Seuss's signature techniques! Dr. Seuss loved to rhyme. We practiced rhyming at puzzle center where the children had to put together rhyming puzzles. We also used rhyming words as our ticket out the door to go to the playground. We also enjoyed watching the video for Horton Hears a Who during lunch time several days.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss! We sure did have a ball celebrating!