Over 100 canned/boxed food items!

The first graders had a food drive during November and our class set a goal of collecting 100 items for the food pantry.  Each day we counted how many boxes and cans we had collected.  On Friday, we did the final count and we just a few short of 100. Fortunately, Ms. Connie came by and brought 2 bags of food for our class collection!  Thank you to all families who were able to contribute to the food drive.  The families in our community are very grateful for our support.

How to make shade

For the end of our first case study on the effects of the sun on the earth, the students became engineers.  They were given the task to create a shade over a pretend sandbox.  Each child first designed a shade on paper.  Then, teams of 2 were assembled and many materials were available to each team (parchment paper, wax paper, white and black construction paper, aluminum foil, masking tape, straws).  At the end, each shade was tested with a flashlight.  All teams were successful in providing shade!

Guest Expert

At the beginning of our weather expedition, we learned about different types of scientists.  Lucky for us, Mr. Eide is a scientist at OHSU and brought in some of the tools he uses for his work.  He even did an experiment with us!

Fall party!

Our fall party was a blast! Thank you to all the parents who helped organize, purchase items, and run the party.  The kids had so much fun! Most of the pictures I took were of the children having a great time, so here are a few that I can share on the internet! The activities included pumpkin bowling, Bingo, making a fall crown, painting a family tree, and snacks!

Spiders

For the last week of October, we learned a little about spiders.  We made a chart of the things we knew (or thought we knew) about spiders.  As we read books about spiders each day, we added to and changed the information on the chart to reflect our learning.  On the last school day of October, we made spider hats with 8 eyes and 8 legs!

Counting accurately

In math, the students have been practicing counting accurately and practicing different strategies to count accurately.  One way is to "count and scoot" where they physically move each object to a different spot as they count to indicate that the object has been counted.  Another strategy is to "count and touch" which is good for items that are printed on paper that can't be moved.  For small quantities, we can count and touch with our fingers, but for larger amounts, we practice counting and putting a mark on each object once it is counted.

Here are some pictures of some partner work around counting accurately.  Each team (pair of children) had numbers 6-10 and a paper full of pumpkins to cut out and place accurately above the numbers.  It was more challenging than they thought the task would be!

Spooky Tree Paintings

We looked at pictures of sunsets (both a photograph and an artist's painting) and created our own sunset paintings with watercolor paints.  Next, we painted black trees over the sunset image and used straws to blow the liquid watercolor paint to create spooky branches.  The end result was beautiful!

Pumpkins

In preparation for our first expedition, we practiced observing very closely.  We had mini pumpkins at our tables. We discussed what they looked like and how we could draw them with details, rather than just a circle with a line on top.  The next day, we used liquid watercolor paints to represent the pumpkins. Some of the pumpkins were slightly yellow or green, along with orange.  Here are a few pictures of our final products!

Apples, Apples, Apples!

This week we have been reading, observing, and tasting apples!  On Monday, we made many observations using our eyes and hands to determine how apples look and feel.  On Tuesday, we tasted different apple products, including apple cider, apple chips, and applesauce.  We made a chart of everyone's favorite apple product.  The most popular treat by far was the apple cider! It was so yummy!

Today, we will observe the insides of our apples and taste yellow, green, and red apples.  Once each person has picked his/her favorite, children will get to record the results on their own.  We will also discuss how apples sound as we bite into them and how they taste!

Constructing 3-D shapes

We had so much fun today in math!  Ask your child what 3-D shape he/she made with play dough and straws/sticks!  We worked so hard to make cubes and the class demonstrated amazing perseverance.  Unfortunately, the cubes did not stay together very well!  Many children also tried pyramids, with much more success.  Some children worked individually and some worked in pairs, but all were extremely focused on the task.  Here are some pictures of our math challenge today!

This activity helped children understand how several squares put together make a cube.  A cube has 6 square faces.  A pyramid has a square base and triangle faces.  We didn't quite get to counting all of the edges and vertices today (sides and corners in a 2-dimensional object)!

Exploring 2-D shapes

For two weeks, our class investigated 2-dimensional shapes in a variety of ways.  We used attribute blocks, real objects, paper shapes, pattern blocks, and geoboards to explore and create triangles, rectangles, squares, circles, and hexagons.  Geoboards are great for building shapes with a specific number of sides and corners.  Pattern blocks are great for seeing how two or more shapes can make a new, larger shape (which is the foundation for fractions).  Here are some examples of our work!

Retelling a story

One of the reading strategies we practice weekly is retelling a familiar story.  We have read some wonderful books to practice this strategy, including Chrysanthemum, The Dot, and Otis.  Small groups of children are given story event cards to put in order from beginning to end.  The children must work together, as each one is responsible for one card.  Here are two pictures of retelling in action!

Picture Day!

Wednesday, September 30 is Picture Day! Please return your picture packet filled out and payment (or submit payment online) by Wednesday.  Our class will get our pictures taken a little before 9:00 that day, hopefully before we have time to mess up hair and clothes!

Here is my kindergarten school picture!

What are they doing?

As I was walking around during Literacy Center time, I noticed two children putting letters on the matching board in a strange way. "Friends, what are you doing?" I asked. "We're making the mixed up alphabet" they said.  We read The Mixed-Up Alphabet by Steve Metzger last week and these two students were recreating the story with their literacy materials! How wonderful! It reminded me to slow down and ask about the purpose or plan behind what children are working on. They usually have very clever ideas! It may look like play, but there is deep thinking going on!

If you look carefully, you can see the letters in the book are all mixed up because in the story the letters decided they wanted to be in a different order. The red plastic letters are in the same order as the book.