After a long day of Monster Musical Chairs, Writer's Workshop, a read aloud of Bad Dog Marley, letter Ii work, Learning Centers, Choice Time, and 3 recesses (morning, lunch, and afternoon) we ended our time together with a go food treat! Surprisingly, it wasn't the kiddos that taught the rest of the group to make orange faces... it was Mrs. Winter!
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We were blessed with the opportunity to experience a little morning yoga to get our blood pumping and our brains thinking. Ms. Bley is a CSCT teacher at Lewis and Clark who is also a certified Yoga instructor. She brought her big kids in to help lead us in Yoga with Ms. Cooper's class. It sure did feel good!
We found a great video on youtube that really describes the four main 2-D shapes and their attributes. During Learning Centers we had the opportunity to explore our math manipulatives called attribute blocks. These blocks of 2-D shapes are different sizes and colors. The kiddos made designs, noticing the attributes of these shapes. Here is the video from youtube. It is actually super cute, short, and to the point. Just be prepared to go about your day singing this song. I found myself doing the dishes singing this song! In our IB unit of inquiry we have added to our focus of healthy eating, healthy activity. We brainstormed ideas of ways we can be active to work our bodies and brains. We started in our movement circle by each sharing an activity they have done in the past couple days. They said the activity and made a movement that represented that activity. After each share, the rest of the kiddos repeated that movement. We had some great ideas from walking the dog, running hard at soccer, playing on the trampoline, swimming, to rolling down a hill. Then we turned on some good music and moved around the open spaces in the classroom, making moves that we felt represented different healthy activities. Here is a picture of our friend swimming. Notice how he is "holding his breath" as he swims underwater. Pretty creative! Here are two of my friends moving through the spaces doing movement cartwheels. Healthy activities come in all different shapes and sizes. It is recommended that all children get AT LEAST one hour of exercise per day to keep their bodies and brains healthy. Fit kids are happy kids!
Today we had a great day exploring 2-dimensional shapes and their attributes. We opened up our inquiry of shapes by looking at a painting by the Dutch painter, Ton Schulten. Ton creates many paintings using bold, rich color and different geometric shapes. We had an interesting discussion about what we noticed about this painting. Many kiddos noticed what looks like houses on stilts. Our discussion went deep into how other communities have houses on stilts in case of flooding. WHEW... it got deep here in kindergarten. I ended up moving them into the direction of noticing the lines and shapes in this painting. We made a connection to this painting with learning the 2-D shapes: rectangle, triangle, circle, and square. We discussed the attributes of each shape and how they are similar and different from each other. We then took turns using large elastic bands and our bodies to make these shapes. Lastly, we got out our student whiteboards and drew the shapes, ending with a work of art of our own, incorporating only those four shapes we learned about today! Check out some pictures of our work! After having a fabulous morning of Creative Movement in the gym I introduced our Vocabulary Journals. Our Vocab Journals are a tool we use to document some of the new words we learn in kindergarten. Today's word was "movement". In our journals we write the vocabulary word on the line and then in the box they draw a detailed picture that shows the meaning of the word. We had some great pictures that truly illustrated the meaning of the word, "movement". A special thanks goes out to all of our families who made Mrs. Bertot's last day super special. She was surprised when we came back to the classroom after lunch and it had been set for a goodbye party. It is hard to believe that her time with us has come to an end. She is super excited to get on with her next adventure... student teaching in China. What a great experience. She will definitely be missed!
MCPS uses the national Common Core standards for teaching Language Arts. This is the first year we are using these standards in kindergarten. Something that has been added to our writing curriculum is writing an opinion piece. We wrote our first opinion piece of writing about what type of food is the best and why. There were no paramenters for this piece of writing in regards to type of food. It didn't have to be a "GO" food but I was happy to hear kiddos expressing their ideas of why certain "GO" foods are the best food!
What did this look like for our kindergarten writers? During Learning Centers I first posed the question and they had time to think about it. Then they shared with the group their thinking. After that, they drew a detailed picture of their thinking. Last, they stretched out the words and wrote the sounds they hear in the words they wanted to write. As they were in the process of sounding out the words I conferred with each of them and had them tell me what they were writing. Here is a list of their answers: L.S.- ...fish. It tastes good. It is a protein. W.P.- ...Chocolate Milk. It's a drink. It is yummy. I love it. W.L.- ... Chocolate Milk because it tastes yummy. C.S.- ... Ice Cream. It tastes cold and the top is a semicircle. When you stare at the toppings it looks like all the shapes groups. P.S.- ...Meat because I am a carnivore. Because I like it. My favorite is steak. E.P.- ...Strawberries. They are healthy for you. They taste like a "WHOA" food but are a "GO" food. T.Z.- ...Carrots. When you bite into them they look stringy but they aren't. They are orange and I like the color orange. E.A.- ...Yellow Peppers. They are a vegetable and I like yellow peppers. G.S.- ...Spaghetti. The meatballs are steak but are in little balls. I like the tomato sauce because it is good mixed with the noodles and Parmesan. S.P.- ...Toast and Jelly. The fruit is in the jelly. K.M.- ...Toasted PB&J. It has a protein. The jelly is smashed fruit, and the bread is whole grain. E.L.- ...Strawberry because it's sweet and it has seeds. I.B.- ...Chicken and Noodles because I go to the mall and eat them everyday. P.B.- ...Pears because my Nam feeds them to me when I visit. She has a garden and feeds me vegetables. C.H.- ...Carrots. Every time we wash them we eat them and they are sweet and they are juicy. And Pear because they are yummy and are healthy for you. If you put them together they taste good. N.B.- ...Mangoes because they are sweet and they are a fruit. N.A.- ...Cauliflower. I like it when it's orange because I like cheese. D.D.- ...Quesadillas. They have lots of cheese and it's juicy and the crust is super good. The cheese makes it good. B.I.- ...Cherries. Cherries are so sweet that I love them so much. Z.B.- ...Strawberries because it's yummy and it's a fruit. They can grow. K.V.- ...Grapes because they are sweet and they have a lot of protein. What a beautiful day for a trip to the farm. Our friendly farmer, Farmer Rob, showed us around Benson's Farm and taught us all about the parts of the plnats that grow on the farm. At the end of the trip we picked out pumpkins of our own. The pumpkins will come home on Wednesday! |
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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