Our Thing 1's

This month we are celebrating one of my favorite author's: Dr. Seuss. We have read many of his wonderful books. We read Green Eggs & Ham, then we made our own green eggs and ham. My students greatly enjoyed the rhyme in this story.

Next we read If I Ran A Zoo. Then the students drew their own charts to show me the beginning, middle and the end of this story.

Last week we interacted with The Cat in the Hat. Next, my student detectives practiced inferring how each of the characters felt in this story. This produced quite excellent results! Then last Thursday and Friday, we made our very own Thing 1's.
This idea was taken from a Dr. Seuss unit that we got from Deanna Jump's blog:
http://mrsjumpsclass.blogspot.com/

I just love how they turned out. Don't you agree?!

Sometimes I get nervous planning cookie cutter projects for school activities, but as you can see, no two are alike. Kindergartners like to put a lot of personality into their work. This has fast become one of my favorite things about them!

Please Sort My Laundry

We started to study the weather yesterday, and today we did something quite fun.
The students helped me to sort my laundry into seasons. I told them my laundry had just been piling and piling up. They were such a huge help to sort this laundry for me. Everytime I pulled something of my husbands out of the laundry basket, they said "EW!" It was so funny! We had a good time with this. What a fun way for them to meet the seasons.

Parents: Be aware if you ask your Kindergartener to sort the laundry this weekend, it may end up a little bit differently than you would expect.

Have a great weekend!
Suz

If You Decide to Go to the Moon

Today in our classroom, we spent some time reading a book by Faith McNulty: If You Decide to Go to the Moon. We listened to the audio from when Apollo 8 landed on the moon. My students got really excited about this because this is the mission that read some verses from Genesis on Christmas Eve in 1968. Then my students worked on making photographs of themselves walking around on the moon.

Their photographs are so wonderful! And many of them included themselves in astronaut suits. After we were done working on our photographs, a few students praised God for making the moon for our earth and making our entire solar system. It was so wonderful to hear them praise the Lord and give the Creator God glory!

If I Went to the Moon...

This week we are exploring outer space and today we read about going to the moon.
We read the book The Berenstain Bears ON THE MOON:

We worked on our own pages for a book entitled: If I Went to the Moon by the Little Astronauts in Mrs. MacLeod's class. My students love making whole class books. I've started using them as rewards. A star student at the end of each day gets to enjoy reading one of these books at home for an evening. This is going to be our third book. I must give credit where credit is due... 

Thank you Dee Dee Wills: http://www.mrswillskindergarten.com/search/label/Space

Check out some of the writing and illustrations that my students did on this book:

If I went to the moon I would explore the moon
with my sister.

If I went to the moon I would go with my
grandma's dog.

If I went to the moon I would clean the moon.

If I went to the moon I would meet an alien.

If I went to the moon I would play and jump.

If I went to the moon I would take my mom,
and I would take my pencil and my note.

If I went to the moon I would take my
brother and my dog.

If I went to the moon I would jump.

If I went to the moon I would go up in space
with my dog.

My students have lots of creative ideas as to what they would do on the moon and who they would take with them. This book is going to be quite enjoyable!

Around the Room

Ideas for my blog strike me daily. I compose in the car on my way home from work, while I'm teaching, when I wake up at 6am... but in all of these times I don't get the opportunity to actually blog, I just have great ideas. I started keeping an "Idea" notebook in my purse, but I rarely write in it because my ideas come while I'm visiting with parents, in the middle of a conversation with a new acquaintance, or even in the middle of worship at church. Those are not the most opportune times to pull an "Idea" notebook out of my purse and jot down an idea before it jets out of my brain. So this is what you get. The moments when I finally break out of my schedule and to-do list and take a moment to blog about the latest developments in my classroom.

Development #1- We Read to 100!

I found this idea in an old file, and I decided to bring it back to life by creating a bulletin board for my students to keep track of the books they were reading during center-time. I challenged them to fill the boxes in with their initials to show that they could read 100 books in a week. WE DID IT! I was so proud of them. Last Thursday when we accomplished our goal, a countless number of my students made their way to my desk to announce that we had read 100 books. They were so proud!

This is the chart with all of their initials. This was a great
opportunity for me to teach them their initials.

They also took the final five minutes of center-time and made a cover from one of the books that they read. Compare them to the real cover and see how you think my little illustrators did.

The Hungry Little Duck

 



Mr. Lincoln's Whiskers







Baby Wild Animals



I have some fabulous Readers and Illustrators!

Development #2- My students are quite proud of their mice that they colored and assembled after reading:
 If you Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff.

Once again... I want to share so many more things, but time does not permit today. Enjoy the work that I have posted!

If I had $100

100th Day Celebrations!

>We counted 100 items using our ten-frames.

>We dressed up like we were 100 years old.

>We read lots of books about the 100th day of school.

>We even made a snack by mixing 100 edible items that each student brought to school that day.

>Last but not least, we wrote and illustrated our very own book entitled: If I had $100 by the Little Shoppers in Mrs. MacLeod's class.

(This idea was taken from Deanna Jump: http://mrsjumpsclass.blogspot.com/2012/01/100th-day-of-school-fun.html)

Here are few pages from our book:

If I had $100 I would buy earrings, dress, high
heels, crown and necklace

If I had $100 I would buy a house and a sofa too.

If I had $100 I would buy Legos and i-Touch
and I would buy a house.

If I had $100 I would buy a car with my mom
and dad and sister.

If I had $100 I would buy a cell phone
and a crystal.

If I had $100 I would buy a gum-ball
machine with my 100 dollars.

If I had $100 I would buy a car and a house.

If I had $100 I would buy a roller-skate.

Please bear with my as I figure out spacing. Putting images into a blog can be more difficult than it looks. Now I admire anyone who has a beautiful blog. 

Sneak Peek into Tomorrow: We are making Chicken Soup with Rice as a healthy meal in celebration of learning about Health and Nutrition this week. I am so excited for this!