We have had a crazy winter! So many snow days (we are hoping we will not have to make up the last two because the Governor declared a state of emergency!) that we will be in school for most of June. So, I am not sure we have had a full week of school this month until this week. Crazy, I tell you!
We made some cute penguins.
The kids learned a lot about penguins in January. After we made a penguin can, have, are chart, they each wrote a penguin fact book. We made some other cute penguin art similar to these.
We are still working on our penguin ABC book (part of our required writing for our state). I keep telling my teammates that penguins continue to exist even when it is passed January!
We had our Valentine's Day party on February 12 and then stayed late for eight hours of conferences. I met with most of my parents. And we left as the first snowflakes covered the roads. We ended up with over a foot of snow and five days away from the classroom.
These adorable hearts were made by my teammate's class. Each child chose a name from a hat to write something kind about.
We have only two more days of February. I am so ready for Spring!!
We did a cute and easy art activity yesterday for the book, The Day It Rained Hearts.
I precut the hearts from a colorful stack of tissue paper, mixed some glue and water, and provided the sponge paintbrushes. The kids chose the hearts, painted the whole paper with glue water, and added more glue water on top of the hearts (so they are really wet and will stick nicely). Then they painted some watercolors around the hearts.
Some of the hearts bled a little (which I think is a nice watery effect). All of the kids were really engaged and happy during this little art project: success!
My teammate found a cute idea (on Pinterest, of course). I retyped it and gave credit to Ben Harper, who wrote the song. I love this song. We sang it a few times this week. We will keep singing it (I think it works for Earth Day, too).
We will mount these on a sheet of colored paper to send home.
And this is how we made snowmen looking at the snow falling.
This year we have had plenty of snow but apparently more may be coming. Stay warm!
Every October, we visit the fire station. The firefighters dress up in their fire suits and explain what each item is for. We get to see the fire engines and learn about the hoses and equipment. We see where the fire fighters sleep, eat, and wash their clothes. We enjoy walking through the ambulance and jumping out. It is cold and breezy in the fire station garage. Lovely field trip. I believe I have been over thirty times now (for many years, I had the joy of going twice in one day with the am and pm classes).
We get ready for the trip by reading lots of fiction and non-fiction books. We talk about what we already know (our schema) and what will see during our visit. We practice stop, drop, and roll. We talk about what we would do if there was a fire in our house. We talk about how the firefighters look and never to hide from them.
All very exciting. I think the kids love the element of danger and excitement.
In our community, we often see the firefighters shopping at the grocery store, with their fire truck sitting in the parking lot.
Today the kids made some fire engines, complete with ladders, hoses, sirens, lights and wheels. The cute little firefighters and song are the icing on the cake, aren't they?
Also, several of the kids told me that gold is their favorite color!
We spend most of December reading different versions of the Gingerbread Man. We make some gingerbread art projects, too, of course. This one is one of my very favorites every year. The kids draw a gingerbread man (or girl) with oil pastels and then fill in the cookie and background with liquid watercolor paints. They always turn out so fabulous!
Then we made some stuffed gingerbread men. My assistant cut out the shapes from paper grocery bags. Then the kids decorated them, stapled around the edges, stuffed them, and lastly added the red glitter.
And we made gingerbread house cards. The gingerbread men are stamped on. The kids drew and decorated the houses. One of our writing standards are for kids to write cards so this fit that perfectly.
We made gingerbread houses for our holiday party! Very fun! My kids were engrossed in making them for about an hour! Success!
We also made poinsettias, evergreen trees, and more poinsettias. It was a very busy month (only 13 school days because of two snow days). The kids were very excited the whole month! Wishing you a fun and relaxing break! And a Happy New Year!
We made some cute jack-o-lanterns to decorate our room. I give the kids a sheet of black paper for the background, a small rectangle of brown for the stem, a little less than half a sheet of orange for the pumpkin and a quarter of a sheet of yellow to make the features of the face.
They write their name in white crayon, rub glue across the middle of the black paper and cut off the corners of the orange piece. Then they cut a slice, put it on the glue, cut the next slice, etc. Last, they create their own face and attach the stem.
We explored apples last week in Kindergarten. The kids all brought in apples to taste, we read apple books and talked about the parts of an apple, the parts of a tree, the life cycle of the apple, and the four seasons. We read both fiction and non-fiction (common core-woohoo!). My kids are just learning the difference.
We read Ten Apples Up On Top and made a class book. They each drew themselves and used a red, yellow, or green dotter to make the apples.
We made apple pictures. I skipped the apple prints. For some reason they never turn out for me and they get everything covered in paint (including me and the kids!). There are many more activities with apples but I never can get to everything! I am almost up to normal speed in math. We do a Drops in the Bucket paper or a math journal prompt, then we do one math tub center, then share. It takes us a little too long still but we are getting the hang of it.
Today was the 30th day of school! Amazing. In writing, we have been working in our morning journals for a few weeks. I am still having them all share- that will change soon. As they begin to write more it takes too long. I have some foam visors and I go around the room picking 6-7 people to share using the document camera/projector each day. Maybe next week. In reading, we are still practicing read to self all at the same time (although I am pulling very fast reading groups), then buddy reading all at the same time, then a whole group activity (one day might be a class book made in response to reading or today we made a Black Cat book all at the same time). It is kind of fun to do but I am almost ready to have them choose and work independently.
So here are some of the art projects we did.
We did some oil pastel resist with a liquid watercolor wash.
We made big paintings of apples on the apple tree with a fingerplay glued on to help them remember it.
They stamped their handprints for the leaves and used fingerprints for the apples.
