We started off the day in the gym for Creative Movement. We learned how to move our bodies to match emotions. We also had the opportunity to move in front of an audience as well as be good audience members. Our principal, Susan Anderson, brought in our school's officer to join in the fun! We ended our time in the gym practicing yoga. We were doing the elephant breath as I captured this photo. Hooray Mrs. Anderson and Officer Woodard for moving with us! On the way back to class our kiddos earned the last of the warm fuzzies so we got to have our second popcorn party. Today I showed them how to make the healthiest popcorn using an air popper. They devoured it! No butter or seasonings needed! We watched another Magic School Bus episode that focused on the concept, gravity. After first recess we had a visit from our big buddies from Mrs. O'Connor's 4th grade class. The big buddies brought their favorite books and read them to their little buddies. It is great to see the relationships that are forming between the kiddos! After lunch and lunch recess we created our October calendars that should come home today. The calendar is super important as it has the specials schedule as well as important dates to remember. Towards the end of the day Mrs. Anderson came to our room to recognize two of our kinder friends by giving them Be Certificates for always following our school's 3 B's: Be Respectful, Be Responsible, Be Safe. Great job kiddos. (Each month 2-3 students will be recognized for their efforts.) Have a great weekend. Please allow your children the opportunity to eat healthy foods and get some good rest! NO SCHOOL for kiddos on Monday!
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As a graduate student at the University of Montana I am working with my colleague, Melissa Cooper, to write a guide to incorporate movement into the kindergarten curriculum. Every Monday and Friday our two classes meet in the gym first thing in the morning for Creative Movement. It has been the highlight of our week. In addition to meeting in the gym, we are also incorporating movement into our everyday work in our classrooms. It has been a fabulous addition to the curriculum since kindergartners learn by moving and need time to move! Here are just a few pictures of our classes at work. I shared my collection of seashells with the kiddos today. We used my collection to make works of art. Not only were we using science based observational skills but we used our cool tweezers to help strengthen our hands, and our eyes as artists to create our masterpieces. The hardest part... our creations weren't permanent, so I captured the moment on camera. Check out their masterpieces! Oh how we have missed this sweet face! He was home for a week and a half recovering from being sick. We truly missed him. He came back on a great day of learning, fun, and excitement. We learned how to use our classroom tweezers that help strengthen our hand muscles. Strengthening the hand muscles is very important. It helps our little hands when using writing utensils. We hold the tweezers in the hand we write with, as if holding a pencil, and use only that hand to squeeze them. We used them today to represent numbers 1-5 using random classroom objects. We also worked with the letter M today. We learned about the zoo friend, Missy Mouse, we sang the M Song found on Youtube, generated a list of M words, and learned how to write the capital M. We began our thank you letter to the Peas Farm. We also had the opportunity during Learning Centers to explore table blocks and read some pretty great classroom books. It was a fabulous day in kindergarten... as always!!! What a great day for a trip to the farm. It was a bit chilly but it didn't rain on us... hooray! We had such a great time tasting all the organic fruits and vegetables they grow on the farm. Even kiddos that thought they didn't like something, tried it, and ended up asking for more! They tasted all kinds of yummies that the farmers call, "farm candy." We tried: kale, lettuce, zucchini, sweet peppers, corn, carrots, apples, pears, tomatoes, plums, onion, and cauliflower.
Here are a few pics of our trip. I have to apologize that not all kiddos are represented. We were split up into 3 small groups and we went our separate ways. These pics are of the group I got to hang out with this morning. My Favorite quote of the trip, "This is the best kale I have ever eaten!" Lewis and Clark is the only school in Missoula with an outdoor classroom. We call our outdoor classroom the Outdoor Discovery Core. It is a great place to explore and discover the world around us while being in a natural environment. Boy are we lucky! As you know, we bagan our year with a color unit to teach routines and procedures in our kindergarten classroom. We went out to the Outdoor Discovery Core, also known as the ODC, became Nature Spies, and went on a color hunt. We used specialy painted egg cartons to make a collection of small natural items that match all the colors of the rainbow. We were able to find all the colors! It was a great day outside! What a great turn out tonight for Lewis and Clark's Annual Ice Cream Social. Check out the slideshow of our families that were able to make it. (If you attended this event and I didn't get a photo of you I apologize. I hunted high and low, but as you know, it was a busy gathering). Check out all the messy faces that enjoyed their ice cream, donated by our beloved local ice cream shop, The Big Dipper! For rainbow day today we did a really cool experiment that explored what would happen when you added a magic potion to a glass pie pan full of Half and Half and drops of food coloring. The magic potion?... dish soap!
Yesterday we started off our brown day with a popcorn party. We have a jar that we add warm fuzzies to whenever we are caught making good choices. The jar was filled and we partied! The kiddos enjoyed a small bowl of popcorn and watched a "Magic School Bus" episode on Mr. Smarty Pants (our class smart board). Then we learned the art technique, Pointillism. We used Q-Tips and brown paint to practice the technique on one of the pages in the Color a Day book we are making. The kiddos loved this activity which really tested their stamina. They did great and they turned out fabulous! In the afternoon for Learning Centers they got messy with Chocolate Pudding! We laid out wax paper and plopped a dollop of chocolate pudding on top. We used the pudding to practice letter formation. Then of course, they got to eat it! They all had a blast throwing table manners out the window!!! Then we ended our time in the classroom with Choice Time... one of our favorite times of the day!
We are very fortunate to get to team up with our big buddies from Mrs. O'Connor's 4th grade class. We got together and the big buddies taught the little buddies how to login to our computer lab computers. Together they explored the learning website www.abcya.com
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by Mrs. WinterKindergarten is truly the BEST and that is why I want to share our world with you! Archives
September 2017
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