Who's Going to Gr8 Sk8?

Our amazing administration, Mrs. Ray and Mrs. Kimmel, were wheeling with excitement for tonight's skate party! I'm going! Are you?

 

Santa and Christmas Time!

We had a lot of fun meeting with Santa today! He listened to us share our present request. He even gave us EACH our very own brand new book! Ho ho ho!!!

 

Ugly Sweater Day was a hit with the teachers! Our wonderful Kindergarten team got in the spirit.

 

Pajama Day was fun. It was a cozy day and we enjoyed Polar Express and Hot Cocoa!

 

Here's my family's favorite (and traditional) Christmas cookies called Kringlas. Takes me back to my childhood when my Grandma Lourens would always have a plate of these saved JUST FOR ME!

S.T.E.M. Science Project

Recently I received an email from the district about a STEM competition/fair coming soon. Having some experience with STEM from my experience in other states/districts, I decided to sign our class up!

 

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Math. This is becoming a bigger and bigger initiative as the years go by.

 

Our class worked in collaborate groups to test any metal content in common cereals (an idea from the STEM Fair's list of experiments). Following the scientific process, we ground up the cereals, placed them in plastic bags, and hovered strong magnets over the cereal powder.

 

In the end, none of the cereals reacted to the magnets. We concluded that our magnets were not strong enough and the cereal was not ground up enough for the experiment to really work. However, we still designed and created displays of our data and findings to be showcased at the STEM Fair.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Students and family were invited to meet me there and check out all of the exhibits!

 

 

NOTE: I was very disappointed when I arrived at the fair. NOT ONE (of our 8) project boards were on display! This was very discouraging for my students. Although we had no significant findings, we still went through the scientific process at 5-6 years of age, designed our boards, and learned the significance to testing a hypothesis and concluding an experiment. We put in the time and effort and yet NOTHING was put up to show our participation except for our district's and school's informational tri-boards. I was not expecting a ribbon or placement in the competition - at the least, put up one of my class' displays (even in the corner) to inspire my kindergarteners (and other young kiddos). STEM has no age limit or creative limitations!

Muy Bien!

We are so lucky that our amazing principal, Mrs. Ray, speaks fluent Spanish and is willing to come and give us a few mini-lessons in that language. Today, she introduced us to colors!

 

 

In order to decorate the tree, we had to same the felt circle's color in English AND Spanish!

 

 

We were given manipulatives (pipe cleaners) to help us review the colors.

 

By the end of class, we had a visual chart to refer to and a decorated felt Christmas tree!

 

Thank you, Mrs. Ray, for visiting our classroom and extending our learning!

Winter Holidays

We cover quite a few of December holidays before break. Some of the holidays we studied were St. Nicholas Day, St. Lucia Day, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Boxing Day. Learning is fun!

 

 

We made little stockings to hang in our classroom in hopes that St. Nicholas would stop by our room. He did!!

 

This is just one of the fun Christmas crafts we made.

Mo Willem's Pigeon

Our class just completed a week-long author study of Mo Willems, the creative mind behind the fun Pigeon stories and other books/series. We compared four different Pigeon stories, learned how to draw our very own Pigeon, and then write an opinion piece on our favorite story from the week!

 

 

Our stories this week:

 Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus; The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog;

The Pigeon Wants a Puppy, and The Duckling Gets a Cookie

 

 

 

Author studies are so much fun!