Hawaii, France, and Korea

We have had a lot of fun in the beginning of the week learning about three different areas of our world!  We started our Around the World unit by learning about Hawaii.  Sadie's mother shared information about the different islands, language, and animal life.  The K-Kids loved learning that there is an island that you can only go to if you are invited - the Forbidden Island!  They also learned a way Hawaiians greet each other - saying Aloha and a special face-to-face nuzzle.  Sadie's mom brought a delicious coconut dessert that it is typical of luaus, and the K-Kids made leis as they listened to Hawaiian music.

Making the leis

On Tuesday, the K-Kids traveled to France.  Macy's mother dressed the part of wearing stylish French clothing and explained that the fashion comes from old sailor outfits that Coco Chanel made famous!  Her striped shirt, little scarf, and beret were quite a hit!  Macy' mother showed a book about France that highlighted the size of France (the size of Texas) and the beautiful Eiffel Tower.  The K-Kids were impressed that there are always painters working on the tower and every few years the color of the Eiffel Tower changes!  The K-Kids practiced their French language skills and enjoyed eating "French" bread, brie cheese and croissants.  Yummy!!

The K-Kids then traveled to Korea where they learned about Korean drumming.  They watched a video highlighting some of the most famous drummers and were fascinated by the loud sounds!  Youngnim's mother brought in many different types of Korean percussion, and Youngnim demonstrated her skills on the drum.  Then all of the K-Kids had an opportunity to try out the instruments.  It was noisy but so fun to watch the K-Kids explore the different instruments and their sounds!

Click here to see a short video of Youngnim showing her drumming skills!

How did the Liberty Bell get that big crack?!

The K-Kids made creative guesses about how the Liberty Bell got that big crack. Take a look at our "newscast" to get the scoop!

Earth Day

On Friday we celebrated Earth Day by visiting the first grade classroom and participating in an activity with the 1st graders.  Mrs. Sheehan showed us the earth on the big projector screen and read us a book about how we can keep our world clean.  She also showed us the compost worms that she has in her classroom!!  The worms eat snack leftovers and produces a "dirt" that the first graders then give to the fourth graders for their annual plant sale.  The K-Kids loved the idea of having worms in their classroom next year!

With out first grade buddies we colored Lorax books and got to hang out in the first grade classroom.  It was a great way to celebrate Earth Day!

Around the World cont.

The week was a bit strange due to my sudden bout of the flu, but we were still able to move forward with our Around the World Unit and Fine Art Friday.  The K-Kids learned about passports and created their own passports so they may "travel" next week as parents come into the classroom to present different countries and U.S. states.  They also tracked Flat Stanley's travels on the classroom maps and looked at many photos from his newest adventures in Arizona, California, and Hong Kong.  They especially loved the pictures of Flat Stanley next to a huge cactus and the Pacific Ocean, and they loved the pictures of Flat Stanley on a ferry in Hong Kong.  We are looking forward to even more travel stories from Flat Stanley next week!

Dot, dot, Seurat was heard in the classroom on Friday.  The K-Kids learned about a different type of art technique called pointillism and the artist who made this style famous, Georges Seurat.  They studied his famous pieces and learned that instead of mixing colors to create a new color, he would put two different colored dots next to each other to trick the eye into seeing the new color.  They chose different teacher-created pictures and dotted colored dots into each picture to create a final masterpiece! In the middle of the pointillism activity, one of the students looked up at me and said, "Wow, that dot, dot, Seurat guy must have had a lot of patience.  This is going to take forever!"  I suppose patience and perseverance were also learned during this art lesson. :)

During Writer's Workshop the K-Kids are experimenting with adding voices to their writing.  They listened to many stories where the characters spoke throughout and discovered that the story was much more interesting when characters were speaking and interacting with each other.  They were introduced to quotation marks, and although I do not expect the children to use the quotation marks perfectly every time, it is wonderful to see them experiment with quotation marks and setting up a conversation between characters.

We also kicked off our "telling time" unit this week in math.  The K-Kids were exposed to digital and analog clocks and experimented with telling time to the hour and half hour using an analog clock.  They created clocks and will use these clocks next week for more time telling activities.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend, and I will see everyone on Monday - healthy and happy!

Where in the world is Flat Stanley?

Lake Geneva

Seoul

We began our Around the World Unit by receiving some letters and pictures from Flat Stanley!  He was very lucky and able to visit Lake Geneva, London, Istanbul and Seoul all in one week!  He told us all about the fun water park in Lake Geneva, the great shopping at Harrods in London, the beautiful mosques and architecture in Istanbul, and the palaces of Seoul.  We also saw pictures of people, mountains, trams, candy, and even an airline stewardess in these different places!  The K-Kids are anxiously waiting for Flat Stanley to travel to other places and share his adventures (hint, hint - please encourage your friends and family to return their Flat Stanleys! :).

Istanbul

To open the Around the World unit, I decided the K-Kids should also know about their own home country - the United States of America.  We looked at the map of the USA and talked about cardinal directions.  We read a book about the different symbols of the United States and looked closely at the American flag and the bald eagle.  The K-Kids created their own American flags and made sure to alternate red and white stripes to create 13 stripes and 50 stars to represent the 50 states.  We also made cute bald eagles using construction paper and learned facts about the bald eagle.

We kicked our Fabulous Fine Art Fridays this week!  I absolutely love this unit.  The K-Kids study a different artist every Friday in the spring.  They learn about his/her life and his/her work and then recreate the style.  This week we learned about Joan Miro.  He used primary colors, bold shapes and lines, and drew the famous Miro star in many of his pieces.  The K-Kids practiced the different traits and then created their first Miro masterpiece!  I am excited to share these masterpieces with you at our Kindergarten Art Show on May 31st (more details to come!).

Have a great weekend!

Ocean Party!

The K-Kids were wonderful at Jr. Palio!  I hope you enjoyed watching your little one showing off his/her gym skills in our new gymnasium!

What an exciting last week of school before Spring Break!  The K-Kids finished up their ocean unit by hosting an Ocean Party!  They wrote invitations to our JK friends and waited patiently for the party to arrive.  At the party, the K-Kids were the "teachers" to the JK friends.  They explained different ocean animals in the science center, read them stories about the ocean in the library and helped the JK friends create leis, paper jellyfish, and a fish for the fish mural.  It was wonderful to see the K-Kids be the "big kid" and really take a leadership role in the party.  We were also so excited to receive the very nice thank you letters from the JK after the party!

Writer's Workshop focused on illustrations.  The K-Kids learned about drawing pictures to scale and adding details to the drawings.  We read stories that showcased pictures drawn to scale and also read stories that had awesome illustrations showing movement.  The K-Kids demonstrated their new awareness to illustrations in their own stories.  Many of the K-Kids got to share their stories in front of the class in the share chair.
Our math lessons this week were focused around fair share and fractions.  The K-Kids practiced dividing a group of items between two sides or even three, four, or five!  They began to  make the connection of beginning division and the idea of half.  Moving from fair share, the K-Kids began to investigate fractions using 1/2 by drawing items and splitting into two equal parts.

When we return from Spring Break, we will be ready to begin our Flat Stanley and Around the World Unit!  Keep the Flat Stanley photos and write-ups coming, and we will soon be tracking his movement around the world on a large map.  We will also be inviting parents in to our classroom to speak about their home countries or places they have traveled!  If you would like to give a short presentation, please let me know!  The more parents we have involved, the better the unit becomes.

Safe travels and happy week to all!

Hop into Spring!

 

We took a short break from our ocean unit to celebrate SPRING this week!  We joined up with the first graders and listened to Mrs. Sheehan read us a silly spring story on the first day of spring.  She was so impressed with our pretzel legs, respectful lips, and inquisitive personalities! :)  Mrs. Sheehan also had the great idea to go on a spring walk to look for signs of spring.  We walked with our first grade buddies and found many flowering trees, new tree buds, green grass, and spring flowers growing around our school.  We finished the fun afternoon by having an extra play time with the first graders at the park.  It was a lovely time to spend with our soon-to-be first grade teacher!

 

In math this week, we worked on telling math story problems.  The K-Kids told comparison math stories and drew pictures to represent the math problem.  Some of the children were even challenged with trickier math stories that had too much information.  They learned to eliminate the information they did not need and use only the information they needed to solve the problem.  All of the K-Kids practiced setting up math sentences.  Subtraction math sentences can be tricky because you have to really know which number comes first!

We finished our non-fiction ocean books in Writer's Workshop.  Over the last month, the K-Kids have been creating pages to include in their books.  They have explored different types of non-fiction writing - diagrams of ocean creatures' bodies, ocean facts, taking surveys and analyzing the results, and writing factual photo captions.  We went to the Computer Lab and learned to use a program called Pixie.  Using Pixie, the K-Kids created a cover for their non-fiction book.  They learned to choose colors and paint and draw and to find the ocean stickers to include in their pictures.  I was so impressed with not only their computer skills but also their respectful behavior in the computer lab.  I hope you enjoyed the bound ocean books that went home on Friday!

We also had a great time at Kohl Children' Museum.  The K-Kids explored the different rooms and areas in groups and really enjoyed practicing different types of jobs.  They were scientists in the chick room, cashiers at Dominicks, sandwich makers at Potbellys, veterinarians at the vet office, and musicians.  We also had a lot of fun in the water room exploring with gears, scooping and dumping and even playing with some fun "water guns"!  Once again, I was so proud of their behavior, and we even received compliments from other museum goers.