Parent Information Night

Thank you to all the parents who were able to attend Parent Information Night.  I hope I gave you a little overview of what we doing during our day and answered any questions that you might have had.  If you were not able to attend, the information was sent home in your child's folder.  If you have not signed up for a conference either stop by in the morning to sign up or I will be sending home the sign up sheet tomorrow for you to pick a time.  I need to meet with all parents the first marking period because kindergarten children do not receive report cards until the second marking period!

The Pumpkin Patch

I saw these pumpkins on Pinterest and just knew I had to try them this year.

So we decided if they wanted their pumpkin to be tall and skinny or short and fat.  Then we painted a 9x12 paper with our brush strokes going vertically.  Once they were dry, we cut the rectangles into ovals, cut our mouths, teeth, eyes, and stem.  This is what we came up with...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just LOVE them!  They did such a fantastic job on these!  So we added them to the pumpkin patch.

 

 

 

 I just love how they all are different and have great personalities!  I think they came out just as good, if not better than the Pinterest pumpkins!

 

Then we finished up our foot print crows. 

We added the feathers, eyes and beaks.

 

 The pumkin patch is set!

 

 

 

Our First Show!

Here are some shots I got during the first singing performance.  It was a packed house and the parent paparazzi was out in full force!  Thank you to all the parents who were able to come and support their child on stage!

Apples, Apples, Apples

 

 

We did a few apple activities duing September.  We read a couple of biographies about Johnny Appleseed.  We also learned that a biography is a book about someone's life. 

I found a new Johnny Appleseed activity on a kindergarten blog and knew I wanted to try it. We did a directed drawing of Johnny Appleseed.  We traced over these with "sharpies" after we talked about being REALLY careful when we use them because if we get it on our clothes, it will NEVER come out!

 

 

 

Then we "bubble cut" around Johnny and glued him to the foreground of our apple tree pictures.  These were another following directions art project, children cut the trunks, treetops, sun and grass out of rectangles and a square.

 

We also made our apple core art project and glued the Eat an Apple poem to the bottom.

 

Everyone either brought in an apple or chose an apple to use as theirs. We observed and charted the properties of the apples.  Then we made a big graph of the apple colors.

 

After graphing we discussed which column had the most and the least.  Then we began our Apple Investigation.  We weighed and measured our apples, recorded some of it's properties and labeled the parts of the apple.

 Working on our Investigation Recording Sheet.  Labeling the parts of the apple.

 Weighing apples with a balance scale.

 Measuring height with the unifix cubes.

 Counting weights as we add them to the balance scale.

 Kate gets it balanced.

 Alexandra and Liam show off their work!

 

Using the board to label the parts of the apple.

 

We taste tested red, green and yellow apples.  First we made our predictions of which color we liked the best. 

Then we tasted the apples and remade our chart.  We compared the results from the 2 charts.

 

Our last apple activity was making applesauce.  We had 3 moms come in and help to peel and chop the apples.  Then we cooked them in an electric skillet, added a little sugar and water.  We added a little cinnamon when we got ready to eat it.  As with any food fed to children we got some mixed and surprise reactions.

 Hey, she likes it!

 

hmmm, not so much!  but she did give it a try...that's all I ask!

September Highlights

September was packed full of fun and learning.

 We completed all of our Brown Bear Characters.  A few of each were added to the board.  These were done with patterns.  We practiced our cutting and gluing, following directions and reviewed colors and shapes.

We celebrated Aedan's birthday, our first birthday of the school year, with these super hero cupcakes.  The cupcakes from Morton's tasted as good as they looked!

Zero the Hero suprised us again with a treat on the 20th day of school.  Pinapple slices alway get mixed reviews so we learned about taking a bite, just to try it!

 

 

We also explored the work of Eric Carle.  We made our first following directions art project.  These are done without patterns.  The childen are just given squares for this project and we learn how to turn them into circles.  Then we glued them on from the back end of the caterpillars.  We alternated and overlapped the light and dark green circles and then added our red circle for the head.  We do a lot of these projects.  There is a lot of following directions and practice with directionality, sizes and shapes.

Firefighter Rob also stopped by to show us how he looks all dressed up in his uniform and to talk to us about Fire Safety.  The firefighters come and show the children their uniforms and gear to get them comfortable seeing them all covered up and to ease any fears if the children should ever have to see the firefighters during an emergency. 

Then they choose a volunteer to try out the gear!  Claire gladly gave it a try!

 

 

 Aedan and Joseph get to help Firefighter Rob carry his gear to the next classroom.