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!

Practice Interviews for a President

In celebration of President's Day, last Monday, I taught my students a little bit about some of our country's previous presidents. On Friday, we talked about what it would be like to interview a president. I asked the students to pick a president and write a question as well as draw a picture of the interview. Below are a few of the responses that I received. I will include interpretations with the pictures.

Interview #1

I: What do you like about being president?

P: I like being important.

I: Why are you important?

P: Because Presidents are important

Interview #2

I: What do you like about being president?

P: I like to be President.

I: Where do you work?

P: The White House.

Interview #3

I: What do you like about being president?

P: That I get to be in charge.

I: What is your favorite color?

P: Pink.

Interview #4

I: What do you like about being president?

P: Yes. I will stop wars.

I: I love presidents.

P: I love love love presidents.

Interview #5

I: What do you like about being president?

P: Being in charge.

I: What is it like?

P: Very nice.

Enjoy!

Read Aloud

It was during my sophomore year in college, in Children's Literature class that I fell back in love with some of the most wonderfully written books of all time. This class re-iterated the importance of reading aloud in our future classrooms.

I took this with me when I student taught last year. My students were on the edge of their seats for The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. It was a tale of adventure, and it took us three months to read... but as we finished it on my last day in Tennessee, I remember gasps of excitement at the way that the story ended. It was well worth the time spent!

Well when I took the Kindergarten job that I currently have, my thoughts on the importance of read alouds did not change. However, the length of them did. I read many picture books to enhance the lessons that I am teaching. But after three weeks, I decided to take a leap. Why couldn't my students comprehend a chapter at a time over a few weeks of reading? Why couldn't we share in the excitement of our own adventure and the thrill of trying to guess what could possibly happen next? So I asked my students if they would like me to read a book in little chunks like that. They voted with a hearty YES!
So we read:

I know that this book is something that most students don't read until the third or fourth grade, so there are lots of big words... but who can big words hurt? They are learning so much! And they are so excited to follow William as he discovers a knight in his toy castle that comes to life (Shh, my kids haven't gotten to this part yet). 

Here is the big wow in all of this. It comes with a little background knowledge:

Yesterday was the 100th day of school. In Kindergarten this is a huge celebration! We counted 100 items using our ten frames, we ate a mixed snack of 100 edible items from each student, and we even dressed up like we were 100 years old. It was a big day! And one of my students was absent. He was sad about it, for sure! But today I found out that he was really worried about missing was the read aloud yesterday. I got choked up for a moment when he raised his hand this morning and asked, "Mrs. MacLeod, did I miss the book?" It took me a minute to figure out what he meant... but then I just smiled. This is why read alouds are so important! My five-year-olds have already figured this out!

God Chose a King

One of the best parts of teaching at a Christian school is being able to talk about God and share different stories from the Bible.

One of the best parts about teaching Kindergarten is that my students haven’t heard all of the stories in the Bible yet, so there are still some new ones for them to soak up.

I took both of these for granted until yesterday when I was able to recount the story of why God chose David to be Israel’s second king. As the Old Testament storyline and theology of God’s Master Plan to save the world all came back to me, I grew quite excited. I shared with the students how Israel wanted a king that looked like a king, so He gave them Saul. Then Saul became bad, and God had to give them a king that would love them. It was the coolest thing as it dawned on some of my boy’s faces that I was talking about David- “A Man After God’s Own Heart”.

I am so excited to teach these boys and girls, and I pray that the Lord will lead and guide me as I teach these students stories from God’s Word. What an exciting opportunity!