Happy Thanksgiving!

I can’t believe it is Thanksgiving break already! This year has been going so

fast! As I am reflecting on all that your student has accomplished so far, I am

amazed at their growth as readers, writers and people. They make each day

special and fun. I am so looking forward to spending time with my family and

friends over break, but will be excited for Monday morning to come back and see

my favorite 5 and 6 year olds again.

Parents, thank you for all that you do to support and encourage your child

outside of the classroom.  I am so thankful for you and all that you do for me as

as well as your child.  In my first year as a teacher, I could not ask for a better

group of parents and students. I am so blessed and thankful.

Enjoy your time with family, friends and LOTS OF FOOD!

See you next week!

 

Totem Poles and Masks

To finish off our Native American Unit we made masks and a class totem pole! For the masks, we looked at a lot of pictures of real Native American masks and how they were created symmetrically.  We colored them the same on both sides and then of course added LOTS of glitter and feathers!

              

Now for the totem poles…..

The kids got into groups and they each had an animal they needed to create from construction paper onto their box.  They had to look at a picture of the animal on a totem pole and re-create it onto their box! They did SUCH A NICE JOB! I am not sure I could have re-created the faces as well as they did.

Here we are hard at work

 

 

This is the beaver!

Next, we added detail to our animals by adding paint.

 

                         

While we waited for our totem poles to dry, the kids planned a story and a dance to represent their animal or “family.”  We talked about the symbolism in the totem pole and how each totem pole told a story about the family.

Here we are planning and practicing

 

FINALLY….after a long day of creating and practicing, we had a celebration ceremony. Each “family” came up to contribute their piece of the totem pole and told us a story about their animal and showed us their dance.

Beavers

Whales

Eagles

Thunderbirds

Bears

And du-du-du-duuuu!!!!!!!! OUR CLASS TOTEM POLE!

Here is our Native American “scene” full of canoes, teepees, pueblos and buffalo hides.

Turkeys and Native Americans

This week and next we are talking about Native Americans. So far we have learned what kind of clothing the Native Americans wore and what the Native Americans lived in. Yesterday we made a Native American headdress with paper feathers and a vest.  We put patterns, symbols and designs on our headdresses and vests. Today we got to wear them to our Thanksgiving feast in the lunchroom!

Making our patterns to put on our vests

Enjoying our awesome meal!

We also made our own Turkeys! They turned out so cute

These turkeys are currently hanging from our ceiling…They give the room a lot of Thanksgiving cheer!

Next week we will be talking about totem poles and taking an entire day to make our own totem poles.

Reminders: No School Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of next week for Thanksgiving vacation!

50th Day of School Celebration—1950’s style!

We had a blast today celebrating the 50th day of school. We played a sorting game of things from the 1950’s and things from 2011. They loved seeing what everything looked like back then! After our sorting game, we chew bubble gum and tried to blow bubbles. We made a graph and then made a picture of ourselves trying to blow a bubble!

We played the game Race to 50. We got into partners and took turns rolling the dice. Whatever we rolled is how many boxes we got to color in. It was a race to see who could get 50 boxes colored in first!

 

 

I showed the kids a video of the kind of  dancing they did in the 50’s. They were very impressed with the swing moves and all the flipping that went on!

 

Then WE got to dance! We had a sock hop with all the kindergarten classes. We did the Twist, the Hokey Pokey and of course the Chicken Dance!

 

We finished the day off by having Abbi Wajda come in and teach us the hand jive! The kids caught on quickly and they did it with a partner.

And of course we had to have soda floats

 

 

The kids looked great today!