Sunday, February 26, 2012

Celebrating Presidents!

This week was a busy week learning all about presidents and the job they do as well as two very important presidents we celebrate in the month of February: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  On Monday we did a shared writing and brainstormed what we thought the President did. I was amazed at how right on they were! After we brainstormed our ideas, we watched this video:
http://bkflix.grolier.com/b/node-32751/bk0099pr
Then, we came back to our shared writing and wrote down FACTS (we learned that facts are something that is true) about what the job of the President is.
Here is our finished product!
I think I know President
After this, the kids got to decide what THEY would do if they were the President of the United States. They drew a picture of themselves and wrote their own sentence. They are so good!
President Writing   president writing 2
On Tuesday we focused on George Washington and his life and came up with facts about him.  We made our own George Washington faces and wrote down three facts so people can know more about him Smile
George Washington close 2 George washington close 3 George Washinton close
Some of our facts:
1. He rode his horse to school
2. He married Martha
3. He was the first President
4. He led an army
George Washingtons
On Wednesday we celebrated our flag by saying the Pledge of Allegiance, looking at a map of the country it represents (The United States) and talking about the design of the flag.  We made our own flags to help us remember what is on the flag. 50 stars and 13 stripes!
flags
On Thursday we learned about Abe Lincoln and attempted to make our own  life size Abe’s! However, with the early out we were crunched for time and it was completed way too quickly! I am sure you saw them in your child’s Friday Folders Winking smile We talked about Abe Lincoln’s hat and the important documents he kept in there. The students had a chance to write about what they would keep in Abe Lincoln’s hat! Some of their ideas included: money, gold candy, a puppy and flowers!
We had a busy, fun week learning about the Presidents and how important they were/are to us.
This week: DINOSAURS! I am SO excited!!

Guest Speaker: Mr. Sievert!

We were so honored to have Mr. Sievert come in to talk to our class about his trip to China with his wife, Mrs. Sievert. Since we have been celebrating the Chinese New Year this month for Reading Month, it was a perfect way to wrap up everything we had done and learn. 

The kids loved hearing the stories Mr. Sievert had to tell as well as seeing pictures and watching videos of their trip to China.

Here Mr. Sievert is telling the kids his name in Chinese:

mr. sievert 5

He also showed us some REAL newspapers and REAL money from his time in China.

Mr. Sievert newspaper  money

money 2

Mr. Sievert showed us a map of where they had traveled and he showed us a video of The Great Wall of China so we could see what it really looked like!

Mr. Sievert 3

We were so thankful Mr. Sievert could share his real experience with us to help us make connections to everything we have been learning this past month! Thank you Mr. Sievert!!! You were a hit!

Mr. Sievert

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Valentines Party

Our Valentine Party was so much fun!! The kids played games, decorated a picture fram with candy hearts and decorated cupcakes with pink and white frosting and lots of sprinkles!! Thank you to all those who helped out and made the party such a success!

Enjoy this slideshow of pictures from our fun afternoon!

https://plus.google.com/photos/104994370290847779824/albums/5709554943220939633?authkey=CPmMqsDUrZOJgAE

Sunday, February 12, 2012

100th Day of School

Last week we celebrated our 100th day of school! It has gone by so fast! During our writing time I challenged the kids to find 100 words around the room and write them. Some of them wrote them all!! They did such a nice job and were very focused trying to get those words written. We also wrote our numbers 1-100 and did many counting activities practicing counting to 100 different ways. Here are some pictures of the kids “writing the room.”

100s day

100s day 2

100s day 3

This week we will be celebrating Valentine’s Day and studying dental health!

Remember: NO SCHOOL on FRIDAY because of a teacher work day. Smile

Monday, February 6, 2012

Wacky Wednesday

Our letter of the week is W!!! In honor of our letter friend this week, we will be

dressing WACKY On Wednesday!!!

I have not told the kids yet. I will tell them tomorrow (Tuesday). Feel free to let them dress themselves, mismatch, wear different shoes, have crazy hair….BE WACKY!!

This will help us remember the sound /w/ makes as well as have some FUN in the middle of the week!

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Pajama Day

Here we are in our pajamas celebrating our victory for most milk caps collected in the elementary!! Woohoo Kindergarten!!!!

pajama blog

Chinese New Year

Last week we learned about the Chinese New Year. We read many great books that taught us about the Chinese New Year and why it is celebrated. We talked about the Chinese Zodiac and learned that each year is represented by a special animal! This was the year of the dragon. In celebration of all of this, we made lanterns with Chinese symbols on them and we made our very own dragon! Wow—what a process! The kids did a great job and our dragon turned out SO GOOD! Here are some pictures of our dragon making process:

This is what each group started with—a big, blank piece of white paper! They already had their ideas rolling around in their head so they got started right away!

 working hard      dragon making 2

dragon making 3      dragon making 4

Adding detail:

dragon making 5      dragon making 6

dragon making 7       dragon making 8

After our dragon body was made, we ALL worked together to create the dragon head. It’s the best dragon head I’ve ever seen! Smile

The front

                                                    dragon head

The side

  back of dragon head

The back

        back of dragon head 2

After all of our hard work, we are ready for the parade!

ready for the parade!

                                    ready for the parade 2

Here we go!!!

here we go!  here we go 2

If you missed the link on the school website, you can view the entire dragon parade here:

Here are some pictures of our lanterns and lucky money.  On Friday, we celebrated by listening to the story, Sam and the Lucky Money. Then each of the kids got an envelope with lucky money of their own. They got to choose to come to “the store” and buy some candy with their lucky money or save it and take it home!

lanterns   symbols

lanters

lucky money  spending our lucky money

It was a fun week in kindergarten learning about a different culture and pretending to celebrate like they do!

This week we will be focusing on the 100th day of school and Valentine’s Day activities!

Happy Super Bowl Sunday! Smile

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Milk Lids and Penguins

Here are a few pictures of our milk lid counting extravaganza! We had a blast celebrating in our p.j.’s today—pictures will be up soon!

Countig milk caps  milk caps 2

milk caps 3  milk caps 5

It was a great math lesson! We got to practice counting by 2’s, 5’s, 10’s and 100’s!!

Last week we studied penguins and learned about where they live, what they do and the different kinds. We also did a fun math lesson on addition with Penguins and the fish they eat.

          Penguin Addition                Penguin Addition 2

Penguin Addition all

Coming soon: a post about our Chinese New Year Celebration!

Enjoy your weekend!