Veterans Day

     We wanted to teach our kindergartners about Veterans Day in an appropriate, thoughtful way. We found Veterans Day by Jacqueline S. Cotton at Scholastic.

     We also found this simple, thankful song on youtube, "Thank You Soldiers"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUKL_QU2C4g&list=PL2B3C1F286FA74FED&index=2

     Then, we painted on red and blue papers with a heart drawn in the middle with red, white, and blue paint.  When dry, we cut them out for display.

     We added a poem adapted from the one on first-grade-friends@blogspot.com.

     We also used this simple read and find practice sheet for sight words.  Feel free to copy and use this as well.

     Our Pledge of Allegiance lesson & close reading booklet would be a wonderful match for learning about Veterans Day.  The lesson is available at our Teachers Pay Teachers store either individually or included with 19 other lessons for informational text in our lesson book, 

An Entire Year of Kindergarten Activities based on Informational Text

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Right-To-The-Core-Kindergarten

Yours truly,

     Molly

Thanksgiving Learning and Fun

After reading about the pilgrim families and their many chores, we chose to make our own Friendship Fruit Salad and our own butter for our bread.  We planned what we'd need and each child brought some fruit to share.

A beautiful and delicious cooperative dish!

 

Shaking, shaking, shaking that cream in a jar...finally it thickens to butter!

Decorated turkey feathers dress up our bird & classroom!

Written notes of, "I am thankful for ..." hung on our tree display.

Beautiful watercolor leaves!

Kindergarten Pilgrims and Wompanoag Indians share in the feast.  Check out our shape-patterned headgear!

Cookie Math

     Laura and I are working on a new book with lessons for contextual problems & equations in Kindergarten.  

     We took the "pretend cookies" out last week to work on composing numbers and fair sharing problems.  We'll try some subtraction problems soon as well.

Students record different ways they were able to make 6 cookies for their friends.

Recording ways to make 6.

     We found several books to go along with cookie math problems:

Yours truly,

     

Molly C

Pumpkin Math

     We had such a great time Halloween - and such wonderful learning! 

Telling math stories about pumpkins, ghosts & bats in a field.  Fourth graders helped!

Estimating, then checking the circumference of a pumpkin.  Then, deciding if our estimate was too long, too short or just right!  Fourth graders helped here too!

Color in the beginning of pumpkin patterns and decipher the rest!  Parent helping here - with a little one sleeping right through the fun!

Roll 2 dice, add the amounts together and color that number!

Pumpkin Jumble!  Roll a die, then follow the rules for getting a pattern block.  Try to build the whole pumpkin puzzle!

 Many of these activities are based on Box It & Bag It Mathematics pumpkin math activities.

Yours truly,     Molly

  

Fall Collections

     We asked families to help our students find some "signs of fall" as part of their homework last weekend.  Along with a note requesting the activity, we sent a baggie for the collection.  Almost all students brought in seed pods, tree nuts, leaves, grass seed heads, dried flower heads, etc.  Because some did not participate from home, we combined all the collections into one.  My class looked at the collection together at our circle area.  Children shared ideas about what types of things we saw.  We drew circles on the large paper and I wrote a label for the type of items that could go in that circle.  For example, I wrote flower seed heads in one circle and reddish orange leaves in another.  Laura's class observed and sorted their collection materials in a sensory table with a small group during centers.

"Everyone say - fall!"

Then, we read the book "Leaf Man" by Lois Ehlert.  The children loved finding various animals and leaf men on the pages.  We were motivated to make leaf men of our own!

 

     Later, I put together baggies of various more durable parts of the fall collection in sorted by type and in quantities of 6 to 12 (the number set my kiddos are currently working on) items.  For math, children chose a baggie and explored, counted & recorded the contents on a work sheet.  They did this twice and compared the quantities.  

     Those beautiful fall colors motivated us to sing about the color words and introduce red, yellow, orange, brown, and green.  We used this read and color sheet to practice some with the new words.  You can download it for free below.  These activities and many more are available in our "Fall Fun Kindergarten Math & Literacy Lesson Bundle" at tpt.  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fall-Math-Literacy-Lessons-for-Kindergarten-1487487

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Free-Fall-Coloring-Sheet-1518051
Click link for free download.

     Hope your fall is coming along well!!!

     Yours truly,

               Molly C

Alphabet Writing with Partners

What a PERFECT writing activity!  Today we paired kindergartners up with first graders and had them write the alphabet on a long strip of paper - kindergartner writes the uppercase letters and first grader writes the lowercase, alternating colors. An alphabet strip on the desk helps them keep track of where they are.  It's great to see them helping each other!

Apples

     Last week our school district had parent/teacher conferences.  We had class on Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday with some days off for conferences.  We put up our Alphabet Museum Display for parents to view - next week we'll use it for some kindergarten learning and reflection too.
     I decided to use some of the Apple Science ideas from Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits during our three teaching days last week.  Each child had an apple booklet to collect facts in (I only used one piece of construction paper and observations, facts, 5 senses observations, and one apple pocket to collect seeds).  My students were very successful using the booklet and loved taking their completed booklet home.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Apple-Science-Interactive-Activities-1444752

     The observations we accomplished and the descriptions children came up with were fantastic!

kindergarten scientists!

     We also used one of the thinking prompt pictures from our Fall Fun Math & Literacy Lessons packet to write with.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fall-Fun-Lessons-for-Kindergarten-Math-Literacy-1487487

This was a fun poem to read during the week

     As a closing activity for our apple study last week, I invited children to work as artists to make apple art.  I did a quick google image search of apples in art and checked to see if the screen was all appropriate for my kindergarten students.  Then, I projected the pictures and we talked about the various ways artists made pictures of apples.  Children then were able to choose crayons, colored pencils, markers or watercolors to make a piece of apple art.  I had some frame stickers to help the work become a sort of apple museum. Our museum turned out beautifully!

Apple Art

     Yours truly,
                                               Molly