Christmas BUSYness~

I apologize for not updating sooner. I was at NCCAT for a seminar and then we had a snow day and then all of a sudden we were out of school for Christmas break! It is amazing how quickly that hits each year! It seems like only yesterday I was getting my new little ones for the year and we were just getting to know each other. Now our journey through Kindergarten is halfway over!!

This time of year is my very favorite because there are SO many great books that we can read for the holidays. One that we read, Christmas Magic was really fun. We read about the little girl and her holiday traditions and then we took class time to talk about our own holiday traditions. I really enjoyed sharing and learning the special things that we each do around Christmastime. I learned that many of us have Christmas trees up, some of us have advent calendars, some of us watch Christmas movies, and some of us go visit relatives. I loved hearing all of the stories and really letting the children learn what a "tradition" was and how now matter what you do, it is your family tradition and it is very special. We also learned how people all over the world celebrate Christmas. Would you believe that in Australia Santa surfs up to picnics?!

We learned about the holiday of Kwanzaa and how it involves lots of famly and community. What a great way for us to talk about values and what is important to us and to our families. We learned that people who celebrate Kwanzaa also light a type of candleabra called a Kinara. The children immediately were able to connect and compare this to the Menorah and it helped us to see how holidays can be the same and different all at once!

We also learned about Las Posadas and Mary and Joseph's journey looking for a place to stay so that they could have their baby. To celebrate this holiday, we made our own drama where we dressed up and reenacted this story. In Mexico, children go from house to house for 8 nights where they are turned away. We didn't have 8 nights, so we went from classroom to classroom on the last day of school. They each turned us away, but we were welcomed finally at our Winter Holidays Celebration, our ninth stop!

Our Winter Holidays Celebration was absolutely wonderful! I have to give a huge thank you to all of the parents who made this possible! We were able to experience a little bit from each of the holidays we had been learning so much about. We started out by hearing the story, Jingle Bells and learning about how we all celebrate. Then children got to go to different centers for each holiday. At the Hanukkah centers children were able to play the driedel game and taste latkes and applesauce. At the Kwanzaa center children made mkeke mats and tasted different kinds of fruit. At the Christmas Center children got to make their very own jingle bells and decorate a reindeer cupcake. And finally at the Las Posadas center the children got to make a poinsetta craft and also their very own mini pinata, which is an important symbol of this holiday.

I hope everyone has a very wonderful break and a great time celebrating whatever holiday you celebrate with your friends and family.

Looking forward to seeing the kids in 2011 :)

Happy Holidays... Part 1

We spent last week learning about Hanukkah. We learned about the history of Hannukah and how the Jewish people weren't allowed to worship God so they had a big war. The Maccabees fought for 3 years, but they won and were able to worship in their temple again. Then, the miracle happened! They had enough oil to light the menorah for 1 night, but it stayed lit for 8 while they could make more oil.

The children loved learning about this and I was really impressed when they reminded me that this sounded like the pilgrims. They explained that the pilgrims also wanted to be able to worship as they chose.

After we learned the history of Hanukkah, we learned about some Hanukkah traditions. We learned that people who celebrate this holiday love to eat latkes and applesauce. Hopefully we will be able to try these at our Holiday Celebration this year.

We also learned about a little game called spin the dreidel. This game showed up in almost every story that we read, so we had to play ourselves! We played with our table groups and each ended up getting a very generous portion of candy!

This unit was not only fun, but it taught us a lot about what people around the world do at this time of year. While we may not celebrate it, it is still important to know about all of the different things out there in our great, big world!

In the next few weeks, we will be learning about several other holidays that are celebrated this time of year. We will learn about Christmas, Los Posados, and Kwanzaa.

We are making a Winter Holidays tree where we make an ornament from each holiday- it looks great! So far we have our Stars of David finished and we are working on Christmas Candy Canes this week. I can't wait to see it when it is finished!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Last week we spent a lot of time in class learning about the first Thanksgiving. We learned about the pilgrims voyage across the ocean to a new world where they had freedom to worship God as they chose to.

We used graphic organizers to put together important information about Thanksgiving today and about the first Thanksgiving. After we learned about both of these celebrations, we made our very first double bubble organizer comparing and contrasting the two. We found that both Thanksgivings had similarities and differences. We learned that the first Thanksgiving was 3 days long, while ours is only 1. We learned that while the pilgrims did have pumpkin, they did not have the sugar or ovens to make pumpkin pies, which no one can imagine not having at Thanksgiving today! We also learned that both Thanksgivings were a time to celebrate what we all have to be thankful for and to share a meal and all you have. The pilgrims did this with the Native Americans who helped them learn to plant and harvest and today we do it with our friends and families.

In honor of the first Thanksgiving feast between the pilgrims and the Indians, we had a little fest of our own. Our wonderful room parents planned a fun morning for the Kindergarten classes, which included games, crafts, food, and fun! This was a great way for us to celebrate the holiday and all that we have to be thankful for!

We had lots of really fun activities at our feast!

There was a center where the children each decorated a feather and wrote what they were thankful for. Then they had to turkey trot over to put it on the big turkey.

We made pine cone turkeys!

We made noodle necklaces!

We decorated cookies for desert!

We listened to Thanksgiving stories!

We made popcorn maize!

And we decorated bags to put all of our goodies in!

And then we shared some traditional Thanksgiving foods! What a spread! We had ham, turkey, stuffing, rolls, and even pumpkin pie with whip cream on top! It was so delicious. The children sat down with their groups and enjoyed a Thanksgiving meal. Like the pilgrims and indians, they were with some old friends and some new ones alike.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Sherpas!

Our Leaves

Today we worked on a book called "My Leaf". To get started, each child had to find a leaf outside. We walked around our block looking for all of the fallen leaves that we could find. Each child got to choose their very own leaf to bring inside for their book. They got to look for the color, shape, and size that they liked.

Once everyone had a leaf, we headed back into our classroom to get started on our books.

Each child drew what their leaf looked like and then wrote the color word that described their leaf.

Then we split into table groups and worked at four different stations.

At one station, the children had drop their leaf and count as high as they could before it hit the ground.

At another station, the students measured how long their leaf was using linking cubes.

At another station the children covered their pennies with leaves and counted how many it took.

Everyone's favorite station was the one where they got to put their leaf into a bucket full of water and count how many pennies it took to make it sink.



The children had a great time doing all of these different things with their very own leaf. They also practiced many different skills.

Math

Students counted and practiced writing numbers.

Students practiced color recognition.

Students practiced using nonstandard units of measurement.

Writing

Students wrote the color word that described their leaf.

Students recorded their answers.

Science

We looked for fall leaves, learning about the season as well.

Students used observation skills to determine sinking and floating.

Students used observation skills to draw and describe their leaves.

Social Studies

Students had to work together at their stations.

Students had to share materials.

Fall Phonics Fun

Today we took advantage of the beautiful 70 degree weather to go outside and do some phonics!Something about being outside of our regular classroom makes learning SO much more fun.

We headed over to the courtyard at the church across the street to play "Word Hop". The children were given words and had to hop from letter to letter on the sidewalk to make them.

They had a ball!

This activity was a great way for us to practice letter recognition as we had to find the letters written on the sidewalk. It was also a great activity for students who are tactile/kinesthetic learners and like to move with their bodies when they are learning or reviewing material.

After we played a few rounds, I let the children go with the sidewalk chalk...

I was also happy to see so many of them practicing writing letters and making words that we have learned in class. Writing is always more fun when you get to do it with chalk or markers, instead of paper and pencil!

Fall Scavenger Hunt

Today we went on a fall scavenger hunt. We got zipped up in our jackets (it has gotten so cold all of a sudden!) and headed out around town to find fall things. Each child had a scavenger hunt sheet where they were coloring in the spaces of the things that they found. We were looking for several different kinds of leaves, a squirrel, an acorn, a sweater, a jacket, clouds, a pumpkin!

Fall leaves were not hard for us to find at all! We found a lot on the ground and even some on the trees still changing! We found leaves that were already turned and some that were still in the process of turning. This reminded us of the story we read yesterday, Autumn's First Leaf where the leaves were jealous when their friend started changing, were even more jealous when he changed all the way, and then were all happy again when they had all eventually changed.

The squirrel and the acorn were a little harder to find. We had to sneak up very quietly to the park and look very closely to see the squirrels scurrying in the trees. When we looked very carefully we even got to see a nest that the squirrels have built there.

We weren't able to find a real pumpkin, but we found several pumpkin decorations downtown in different storefront windows. One of the children's favorite was the HUGE pumpkin painted in the town square for downtown trick or treat and the pumpkin fest. One child remarked "I have never seen a pumpkin that big!!!" It was really neat that we were able to catch that on our way back to school.

Our fall scavenger hunt was a success! We found everything on our list and even found a few extra things! This was a fun way for the children to relate the different seasons to their own experiences. Children were able to see and feel the things that we have been talking about in class like the leaves changing and the temperature cooling. What a great way to learn right in our own backyard!!!

Halloween Fun

Last week we spent time learning about and celebrating Halloween. The children always enjoy this time of year. We read lots of really silly Halloween stories and had a great time making pictures of what we wanted to dress up as for Halloween. I loved hearing all of their great ideas!

On Friday, it was favorite book character day at our school. The children were able to bring in one dollar to wear a costume of their favorite book character. I loved getting to see their ideas. We had two Ironmans (iron men!?), a lion, a scarecrow, Snow White, Dora The Explorer, and a train engineer!

Friday morning we made a special snack! Monster Mash! I told the children the story of the witch that showed up at my house with this wonderful recipe and then we added all of the yummy ingredients!

Here is the recipe in case you want to make some at home!

Witches Teeth (Candy Corn)
Ghost Toes (Marshmallows)
Ghost Eyes (Chocolate Chips)
Witch Fingers (Bugles)
Skeleton Bones (Pretzels)
Skulls (Popcorn)
Bat Eyes (Red Hots)
Spider Webs (Chex Cereal)

Friday afternoon we had a party complete with cupcakes, goodie bags, chips, and candy! The children had a ball!

I hope everyone had a very safe and fun Halloween :)


Favorite Halloween Stories :
The Little Old Lady Who Isn't Afraid of Anything
Arthur's Halloween
Clifford: The Costume Contest
The Hall-o-weiner
Who Will Haunt My House on Halloween
There's a Monster In My Attic
Froggy's Halloween
The Biggest Pumpkin Ever

Pumpkin Math

On Thursday, we got a little festive! This week we had learned about pumpkins. We learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin and read a great book called Pumpkin Jack. In the story, a boy's Jack O Lantern is left outside after Halloween and then new pumpkins grow the next year from his seeds that were covered with the fall leaves, winter snow, and ended up planted by accident.

We read lots of books about pumpkins and talked about how they grow and what we do with them. On Wednesday we cut out pictures of the different stages in the pumpkin life cycle and put them in order from seed all the way to pumpkin pie.

Friday I brought in a pumpkin and we had a little science/social studies/math lesson.

To incorporate science, we used our senses. We smelled the pumpkin and then I asked the kids to each come up and pull out some of its insides...




They all decided that it felt mushy and gooey! What a fun thing to test out!

Then we started getting out all of the seeds. I am going to bake them for the kids so we can taste them and then I am trying to persuade Mr. Tucker to plant a few in his garden so we will have pumpkins for our class next year, just like Pumpkin Jack!

Now to incorporate math, we did a little estimation. I asked the kids to estimate how many seeds we were able to pull out of our pumpkin.

We had a lot of guesses. Most of them were above 100, which was a good guess and great thinking because we have not even covered numbers that high yet! They all knew that there were MANY more than 10, which is what we have been working on. To count, I started by having each child come and count 10 seeds into the bag. This reinforced the concepts of one to one correspondence that we have been working on in Math. The goal was to count them all in and then see how our estimates measured up. However, in addition to our 10 hand fulls began to get put in so we didn't quite get to figure it out. I do know that there were at least 120 in the bag after each child put their 10 in and then there were QUITE a few left over!!

Finally to incorporate social studies, we made our pumpkin into a jack o' lantern. With Halloween coming up we will begin next week to look at the traditions associated with that holiday. We decided on using shapes to make our pumpkin's face. We used triangles for eyes, a circle for a nose, and a trapezoid for the mouth.

Who knew math, science, and social studies could be so fun?!

Going Batty!

This week in Kindergarten, we have been learning about bats. We learned many interesting facts about bats. We learned that bats help us out by eating up lots of insects like mosquitoes that bother use! We also learned that bats do NOT turn into vampires! Shew! Thank goodness!!!

While we were learning about bats we learned about the life cycle of a bat and also some characteristics of bats. Did you know that on their wings bats actually have 3 fingers and a thumb?!

On Thursday we read the silly story There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat. It really has not much to do with bats, but it is always a fun favorite! After reading, we did some comprehension activities on the smart board. The children were asked to recall the things that the old lady swallowed and the things that she didn't-- what a great way to practice these important skills.

Today we read Stellaluna. We talked about the difference between fiction and non-fiction. What is cool about Stellaluna is that it is a fiction story that actually has real life bat fact in it. Afterwards, we did a smart board activity where we answered some questions about the story and put events in the story in order. We completed our lesson with a venn diagram comparing bats and birds. We learned that bats have fur while birds have feathers, bats are nocturnal, birds and bats eat bugs, and birds and bats can fly. I was so impressed that the children got every single one correct!

In centers this week the children listened to the story Bat's Big Game which is a great story about a little bat who wants to play on the winning soccer team so he keeps switching sides between the animals and the birds! It is a great lesson for us in how to tell the difference between bats and birds and is also really cute and funny!

Check out these great bat books:

Stellaluna
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed A Bat
Zipping Zapping Zooming Bats
The Magic School Bus in The Bat Cave
Amazing Bats

Homemade Applesauce!

This week we were learning about the letter A so we learned all about apples. We learned about the different kinds of apples, what an apple tree looks like in each season, where apples come from, and made a graph of what color apple is our class's favorite to snack on.

For fun and for five senses, we made applesauce on Friday. We began by putting together the recipe. We talked about why it was important to do things in the correct order to make it come out the right way. This was a great lesson in sequencing and the kids did a fantastic job!

After we got our recipe we got started! First, we cut, peeled, and cored the apples.
Then we added Water, Cinnamon, and Sugar.

We had to let it cook for 3 hours. It was a long wait and we were not very patient, but our room smelled delicious!!!

After the apples cooked, we had to mash them up!

Once we got the apples all mashed, we had to let it cool and then

We got to eat the applesauce!

It was delicious! What a sweet treat! Not only that, but it was really fun to make it together!