50th Day of School

On Friday, November 29 we celebrated our 50th day of school with a 50s Day! We dressed up 50s style. We read 50 words/letters. We wrote 50 words/letters. We counted 50 items in the classroom. We made 50 tally marks. We made a 50s pattern. We had a 50s sock hop. We danced to 50s music. We danced with hula hoops. We had rootbeer floats. We had a wonderful day celebrating 50 days of school!

Colors

We had a lot of fun with our special color days. We sang songs about colors, we read books about colors, and we made color books. We mixed colors. We practiced writing and reading color words. We dressed in a special color each day. After learning about all of the colors, we ended with a favorite color day. We made a graph of our favorite colors that day. Purple was the winner.

Big Green Monster Day was one of our favorite color days. We read the story "Go Away Big Green Monster". We reread it using sentences strips and then we retold it using flannel board kit. Then we made our own Big Green Monster headbands.

Nursery Rhyme Party 10-29-10

We dressed at as Nursery Rhyme characters on Friday afternoon. We had a parade to show off our costumes. We went to the preschool rooms, the office, the Galaxy rooms and finished upstairs in 4th grade. After the parade, we each recited our nursery rhyme. Then the party began. We had a cookie snack. We made Hey Diddle, Diddle books. We made star wands for "Twinkle Twinkle LIttle Star". We made thumb print and dot painting spiders for "Itsy Bitsy Spider." We had a "Little Miss Muffet" obstacle course. We played the egg and spoon race game for "Humpty Dumpty." We had a cotton ball drop for "Baa Baa Black Sheep". We had many parent volunteers and helpers too! Thank You! We had a fun party!

Oct. 26, 2010

Today was Red Day! We read the book, "Red is Best". We made our own red books that we can read ourselves. We read the story "Sophie got Angry...really, really Angry." Then we brainstormed ways that we can calm ourselves down if we are angry. We made pictures. On one side we wrote the word "Mad" in red and then drew something that made us mad. ON the back, we wrote in blue or green the words "Not Mad" and we drew something that calms us down. We had our hearing tested with the nurse. Our new letter was Gg. We had indoor recess. In art, we finished painting our sunflowers. In Writer's Workshop, we read a book called "When I Get Bigger." Then we wrote about what we want to do when we get a little bit bigger. We learned how to spell the word "see".

Oct. 25, 2010

We started our colors and shapes unit today. We read the book called "My Crayons Talk". Then we drew a picture showing what our crayons would say. We learned about the square today. We made a puppet and went on a square hunt. We also made patterns and pictures with squares. We went to gym today. Our new letter was Uu. We wrote about our long weekend in Writer's workshop. We read "Mouse Flies a Kite" in shared reading. We started to read our first chapter book. We read chapter one, The Real Hole, in the book "Two Times The Fun" by Beverly Cleary.

Fall Art Stations-Dot Painting Fall Trees

We used dot painters to create fall trees.

Fall Art Stations-Sponge Painting

We used square sponges and fall paint colors to create fall trees.

Fall Art Stations-Leaf Rubbings

We used crayons and leaf rubbing stencils to create fall leaf creations.

Fall Art Stations-Watercolor & Crayon Fall Trees

We used crayons to draw a fall tree. Later, we added the color for the leaves using watercolor paints. Our fall trees are beautiful!

Oct. 15, 2010

Today we had music and library. We read a fall nonfiction book. We drew a fall tree using crayons(we used these drawings later in our fall stations). We had read to self time. The pouches came home today with 3 new letters Hh, Ee and Bb. We had fall stations this afternoon. They included sponge painting fall trees, dot painting, watercolor painting and leaf rubbings. We had a fun day!

Oct. 14, 2010

We celebrated Jay's 6th birthday. We had real firefighter suits out during playtime. We read 2 books about fire safety. One was "Firehouse" the other was "Firebears". One was filled with facts, a nonfiction book, the other was a story, a fiction book. We wrote and illustrated a giant thank you card to the fire fighters. We drew a picture of our favorite part of the fire station. Most picked Mrs. Milow getting wet. We talked about the letter Bb today. Bowen and Blake start with Bb. In art, we drew and painted sunflowers. We used math cards to play flip and write the numeral. We made fall trees by tearing and cutting construction paper in fall colors.

Fire Station Field Trip Oct. 13, 2010

We had a great time at the fire station. We went in the ladder fire truck and the rescue fire truck. We got to see lots of other fire trucks too. We got to squirt the big fire hose. Mrs. Milow got a little wet. We learned about checking our smoke detectors. We also talked about making a safe meeting spot at home where we would meet our family if there were a fire at our house. We talked about crawling out of the house if there is smoke. We were told never to hide if the smoke detector goes off. We are supposed to get out and stay out! We should not look for favorite toys or go back in for favorite toys. We learned that we should be doing fire drills at home too. We watched Firefighter Wayne get all dressed up in his fire suit. He crawled around us so that we could see what a firefighter might look like at our house. We had a fun day at the Rockford Fire Station!

Tues, Oct. 12

We went to the computer lab to finish our testing. We did the Math 2 test. Scores for the computer tests will be available soon. We had music today. We practiced "Read to Self" today. It was so fun to see all the kids reading around the room. In Writer'sWorkshop, we reviewed our jobs during writing time. Two kids wrote with Mrs. Milow today. In Math, we introduced telling time. We practiced moving the hands around the clock. We talked about the minute and the hour hand. We practiced telling time to the hour. We even learned how to write the time. We read a book called "Firehouse". We talked about the field trip tomorrow.

Monday, Oct. 11

We went to the computer lab to take the Math 1 test. We used the story "Flower Garden" for the 3 ways to read a book lesson. The 3 ways are 1. Read the Words 2. Read the Pictures 3. Retell the Story. After reading the story "Flower Garden" 3 ways, we drew pictures to tell the most important part of the story. We talked about the letter Hh. We finished our Gingerbread Man stories in writers workshop and started new stories. We did stations in gym. We finished our number packet. We played roll and write. We talked about Christopher Columbus. He sailed the ocean blue in 1492.

Gingerbread Man Week

We had such an exciting week looking for the gingerbread man. We read the story "Gingerbread Man" on Monday. On Tuesday, we made our gigantic gingerbread man and brought him to the kitchen. We met the kitchen staff, saw the big ovens and mixers. We also got to look inside of the enormous refrigerator and freezer. On Wednesday, we went back to the kitchen to pick up our gingerbread man....but he ran away. He left us a note to check the office. We went to the office to find him. We saw Ms. Petersmeyer's office, Ms. Nelson's office, the copy machine, and the teacher's mailboxes, but we didn't see the gingerbread man. After meeting the office staff, we found a clue to look in the library. We found books, kids, library helpers, but no gingerbread man. We found a clue to look in the nurse's office tomorrow. On Thursday, we looked in the nurse's office and then we had to go to Galaxy Kids Club. We walked upstairs to check out the 1st and 2nd grade hallway. We also checked out the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade hallway. We had to wait until Friday to go to the speech room and we finally found him in Mr. Eliason's music room. During the week, we read different versions of the gingerbread man story including one about a Gingerbread Girl. We made headbands. We made a map of the places we went. Finally, we got to eat him!

Oct. 5

Today we used a recipe to make our gigantic gingerbread man. We also made little ones. We got to help "read" the recipe. Each student got to come up and help add an ingredient or help stir. We also added the "magic" part of the recipe at the end. We hope he does not run away! We visited the lunch room where he will be baked after school. A recipe will be coming home soon for you to make gingerbread men at home. We read another version of the Gingerbread man book. We talked about how they were the same and how they were different. We had music today. We practice making a steady beat. We had computer today. We practiced how to use the computer. We also practiced how to answer questions to help us get ready for the reading and math tests that we will be taking soon. We went into the gym to learn about the fundraiser that P.I.E. is sponsoring starting today. Information about this should be coming home soon.

Sunflower Day

We had so much fun on sunflower day. We started the day sharing our sunflowers and our sunflower stories. We noticed the differences in our sunflowers...some were big, some were small, some had yellow petals, some were brown, some were different colors...there were many different sizes and colors. Everyone had a sunflower to observe because some people brought extra to share. We also spent some time looking inside the sunflower. We also tried to get the seeds out. That was a fun activity. Many kids brought baggies of seeds home to plant for next year. We read a nonfiction book about sunflowers and how they grow. We were the illustrators for a book about sunflowers. After drawing the pictures for each page, we read our story using picture clues. We painted a picture of a sunflower using a real sunflower as our inspiration. We labeled the parts of our sunflowers on our paintings. We also added real sunflowers to the middle of our sunflower heads. We made sunflowers as tall as we are during. Each student glued leaves on the stem to match how old he/she is right now. We are going to hang up our paintings and tall sunflowers in the hallway. I have lots of pictures I hope to post soon. It was a great day!

Oct. 4, 2010

We did our favorite movement song-The Freeze during morning meeting. We talked about a new letter...the letter Oo. We talked about it being an important vowel. We sang the vowel song. We read a story called the "Flower Garden". It was about a little girl (with Dad's help) making a special surprise flower garden for her mom. We talked about surprises we have done before. We read the story "The Gingerbread Man". We retold the story using picture clues. In writer's workshop, we made cards for Mrs. McLearen, our helper in kindergarten who has been gone for a week. In gym, we played Buzz Off. We practiced writing the numbers 5 & 6. We also played a dice game called "Dot the Dog". We went outside on a leaf hunt to end our day.

Sept. 24

Today we read the nursery Rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle". After reading it and acting it out, we found the rhyming words. We also used the rhyme to talk about beginning sounds in some of the words. We read the story "If You Give a Moose a Muffin." After reading it, we retold the story in our own words sometimes using picture clues to help us remember. We drew self portraits for our kindergarten scrapbook. We will do this again in January and in May. We helped to paint a gigantic bus that will hang in our hallway. We each made a face to look out the window. We shared a bus rule that will hang above our bus to remind everyone of all of the bus rules we learned this year. In math, we practiced counting backwards and number writing. We used a number line, a game piece and a dice as our math tools. We ended the day with library.

Sept. 22, 2010

Today we read the story "Hands Are Not For Hitting". We then brainstormed lots of things we can do with our hands that are fun. We had lots of ideas including baking, coloring, building, going on monkey bars, sharing, reading, riding bike...After we shared our ideas, we each made a poster with our ideas written on the poster and one of our hands traced and decorated on the front. These hand posters will be displayed on our lockers. We introduced the letter Pp today. We learned it in sign language, we did a Pp hunt, we practiced writing Pps and we read a Pp story called Pigs Pack a Picnic. In gym, we played Blob tag and soccer. We practiced counting by ones, by fives and by tens. We traced numbers while counting by ones. We circled the numbers in red as we counted by fives and we traced in green as we counted by tens. We added bus rule 7 and 8 to our bus safety book. Rule 7 is "I will not throw things on the bus." Rule 8 is "I will cross safely in front of the bus." We had another great day!

Sept. 21, 2010

Today we read the story "If You Take a Mouse to School". Then each studnet drew a picture of what the mouse would do if he came to our classroom. We talked about the letter Ff today. In math, we practiced writing numbers 1 to 20. Then we used that game board to play "Race to 20". The students brought their game boards home to play at home. We learned bus rule number 5 and 6. Rule 5 is talking quietly on the bus and rule 6 is do not put hands or head out of the bus window. We played outside at the end of the day.

Sept. 20, 2010

Today our class was surprised to have a new student join our class. Ask your child who joined our class. Today we read the book "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie". It is a favorite that most kids are familar with. After reading it, we retold the story together. Then the kids drew something that happened in the story. We shared our ideas with our elbow partners. We read the story "Little Bears" together as our shared reading. We used picture clues to figure out unknown words. Our new letter was Ss. We went on a Ss hunt. In math, we played "Roll the Number 2". We rolled 2 dice, counted the dots and then practiced writing the number. We talked about bus rules 3 and 4. They are keep the aisle clear and stay seated. In gym, the kids played "blob tag". They said it was really fun. Playtime, indoor recess, lunch and rest time are brought up daily as fun parts of our day!

Math partner games

Math Games We play lots of math games to reinforce math skills. Sometimes we play with partners and sometimes we play the game independently. This game is called "Race to Trace". This game helps with number writing and counting.

We like playtime too!

We love recess!

Sept. 17, 2010

Today we learned about the letter Mm. The kids also got their first "homework" to do this weekend. Your child should have a zipper pouch in his/her folder. Please follow the directions inside. Have fun! Today we had music and library. We read a story called "Seals on the Bus" We sang a song called "Animals on the Bus". We made our own animals on the bus art project. We played a math game called "roll the number". The directions were to roll the dice, count the dots, and write the number. Aiden brought 2 tree frogs and a small lizard in a cage for us to check out.

Sept. 16, 2010

Ms. Petersmeyer and Ms. Nelson came into our room to talk about school rules, spreading kindness and Rocket Pride. Part of Rocket Pride is taking care of our school and keeping it clean. They also read a story about filling up people's buckets. Ask your child if he/she filled up someone's bucket today. We practiced counting back from 10 in math. We also practiced writing our numbers from 10 to 0. We practiced making the letter Tt. We listened to a story called "My Friends". Then we drew a picture of our favorite part and we drew a picture of something it reminded us of in our own lives. We had a great day!

Sept. 15, 2010

Today we had an assembly in the gym focused on kindness. We sang songs and laughed as we learned about being kind. We are going to be spreading kindness in our school. We worked on patterns in math. We went on a Tt hunt! We worked on our bus safety book.

Sept. 14, 2010

Today we had music in the storybook room with Mr. Eliason. We practiced bus safety with Mrs Myers. We practiced evacuating the bus out of the back door. We used our crayons to measure things even ourselves and our friends. We introduced the letter Aa. We went on an Aa hunt around our classroom. We had a very fun day!

Day 3 of School

We had another fun day in kindergarten. We read "I Love School". We made posters after reading the story. We drew self portraits and added the words "I Love School" to our posters along with our names. We wrote the capital letter ABCs. We went to art with Mrs. Weber. The kindergarten students said their favorite part of the day was...lunch, outside, monkey bars, playground, art and everything! We also took our first group picture on the playground which I hope to have posted soon.

First Day of School-September 7, 2010

We had a wonderful first day of school! We had fun learning about our kindergarten day. We sang songs, read books, colored, played inside and outside. We went to music with Mr. Eliason. We read a book called "Ms. Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten." Then we made our own book called "Mrs. Milow's Class Gets Ready for Kindergarten." At the end of the day I asked all of the kids what they liked about kindergarten and this is what they said...
*Miss Bindergarten book
*Making patterns with chains in math
*playing on the playground
*drawing
*using connecting blocks to make patterns
*everything
*using our tool boxes (crayons, pencils)
*meeting new friends
*playing