Contribute Award

Today in a Town Hall Meeting one Discovery student from each classroom was given an award for being outstanding at contributing to the classroom and the school.

The student that was honored from our room was Waylon!

Practice Makes... So Much Better!

After more than a week of using roller skates, the children are doing well!  And today Mr. Lindbloom said that ALL Kindies were willing to leave that mat and skate on the floor.  Be BRAVE!  Yay!

Kindies Improve Roller Skating Skills!

Conferences

Tonight is our last night of conferences for this fall.  Please know that you can always contact me about things as they come up!  Our next round of conferences starts in February.  Reminder slips will be sent home at that time.

I will try and get a classroom post up tomorrow!  :)

How Full is your Bucket

We have been reading books from the first day of school that talk about who we want to be as people and how we want to treat each other.  There are a number of book series' I use, including "The Best Me I Can Be" and "No Bullying Allowed."

Another book I use is called"How Full is Your Bucket: for Kids."  It is a children's book adapted from a book for adults.  The message is so clear and children understand it so easily... that how we treat each other either fills buckets or drains them.  When someone's bucket is drained, they are more likely to make bad choices.  It is everyone's resposibility in the room to help keep each other's buckets full!

We made a bucket and decorated it with pictures of things the children could do that would 'fill buckets'.

The next day I had to make another bucket because they did not want to stop adding their ideas!  Very cool!

Feel free to use the terminology with your children at home.  "What are you doing to your sister's bucket?"  "How did your brother's bucket get so empty?"  "How could you help with Mom's bucket?"

Friday

As usual, Friday is a big day.  Today was no exception!

1.  This morning we discovered the pumpkin plant had

a third leaf AND 

visible roots!

2.  Peighton (who has been out due to having her tonsils taken out) came in and shared her hospital experiences with the class.  They were so excited to see her!

3.  Lauren's mom came in and read "How Many is a Million" which is about math AND penguins!  She even had matching treats and special star lights for the ending.  We got to turn off all the lights and see stars on the ceiling!

Fish snack just like the penguins.

Guess you can't really see the stars, but you can use your imagination!

4.  Of course there was more roller skating as well!

You should have lots to talk about today about what happened at school!!!!

Kid Blog

Our first student blog post has been published.  You may check it out at:

Thanksgiving Thoughts

p.s.  There are now a total of 4 children published up on the Kid Blog.  I am getting faster at this and hopefully can get many more up next week!  If you want to share with extended family, you will have to email the link to them.  Only those with the link can see the blog.

Let's Roll!

The class is doing a great job of being brave and trying to learn how to roller skate.  A few of them have it down already, and the rest are having fun trying!

Listening and Learning about Equipment

Practice on the Mat First if you Like

Be Brave!

If at first you don't succeed...

try, try again!

Kindie's Roll!

the video!

A,B,C Ya!

Shar works with the Kindergarteners (half at a time) on computers once each week.  (The other half works with me on reading/math skills.)  They have just finished exploring a sight that is usually popular.  I wanted to share this link with you at home so you can access it as well.

ABCya

This is from their introduction:

ABCya.com is the leader in free educational kids computer games and activities for elementary students to learn on the web. All children's educational computer activities were created or approved by certified school teachers. All educational games are free and are modeled from primary grade lessons and enhanced to provide an interactive way for children to learn.

Grade level lessons incorporate areas such as math and language arts while introducing basic computer skills. Many of the kindergarten and first grade activities are equipped with sound to enhance understanding. Fun children's Holiday activities are available in grade level sections!

Reading Stamina

One important activity we do each day is "Read to Self."  We know that the ability to sit with books is an important part of getting into good habits and practicing more reading strategies.  We call that reading stamina.  When school first started the class' stamina was at 1 minute!  Most days, the K-class can now sit and read with their reading tubs for 10+ minutes!  That makes our Read to Self time very successful!

Pumpkin Wrap Up!

We have finally finished with our pumpkin activities.  We have used pumpkins to draw, measure, weigh, sort, predict, describe, and more!  And today we used the pumpkins to EAT!

Getting the seeds out

The white pumpkin was white inside.

Getting rid of the pulp

This pumpkin was too hard to cut!!!

The seeds were cleaned...

then dried...

then baked...

then eaten!!!

Yum!!!

This is the pumpkin we used to try and grow a new pumpkin.  The outside of the pumpkin was rotting, but we did get ONE sprout to put into a cup and we will keep watching what happens to the sprout!