We are almost finished with our penguin unit!  To celebrate all the facts we've learned, we are writing nonfiction stories.  Your child can now be the "teacher" and show you what they know about penguins!

On Tuesday, we got together with our second grade buddies from Mrs. Zellmer's class for a project.  We cut snowflake hearts out of giant coffee filters.  Then, we squirted them with colored water and used eye droppers to add paint for a "tie dye" effect.  It was either extremely fun (kindergartner opinion) or craziness (teacher opinion :) . At the end of the day, we strung the hearts in the hallway by the office.  Check them out when you come for conferences!

One of the most rewarding parts of being a kindergarten teacher is watching the children begin to recognize and read words.  This is the time of year when it all starts to "click"!  Everyday after our reading lesson, we "practice" reading.  We are trying to build our reading muscles, and last week we read for 12 minutes!  The children also have the opportunity to read to their "reading buddy", and talk about their stories.  This week our lessons will focus on picture walking through a story to predict what it will be about, and thinking of words we might see in the text.

We played a fun 10 frame partner game during math class today.   The children took turns placing chips on the mat...one placed while the other covered his/her eyes.  When the "placer" finished, the "counter" opened his/her eyes and quickly counted how many chips were on the mat.  (The goal is to be able to quickly look and not count!)

snowflakes

Here's something fun to try at home!
http://snowflakes.barkleyus.com/

We learned some fancy words today!  During our penguin lesson, we listened to a story and watched a short video on baby penguins.  We learned that adult penguins "regurgitate" their food to feed  their young!  We also did a "blubber" experiment to help us understand how penguins stay warm.

Our math lesson introduced the "greater than" symbol (in the form of an alligator mouth :).  We also compared numbers during math centers and used "math talk" to name the higher and lower number.0

Here are some pictures from reading centers today.  One group was "rainbow writing" our sight words, while the other group was fishing and writing CVC words.  (We are getting SO good at hearing those tricky middle sounds!)

We also read a story about penguins.  (Boy, did we choose the right theme to go with this COLD weather!)  Then we made super-cute penguins to hang in our room, did a "fair share" activity to practice odd and even numbers, and completed a survey.  The kids had to ask their friends the question "Do you like fish?", and record the data they collected on the survey graph.  We also watched a cool video at adventuretofitness.com (since we couldn't go outside for recess again!). We went on an arctic adventure to save the Florida fruit trees from Mr. Laze.  It was a WORKOUT!! (Especially for me...the kids wanted to do another one-yikes!)

Here's a sneak peek at our theme for next weekhttp://seaworldparks.com/en/seaworld-sandiego/Animals/Webcams/Penguin-Cam

Welcome to our class bog! I love reading blogs, and decided it was time to start one of my own. (plus I'm REALLY bad at sending home newsletters :)  I'm hoping this will be a fun way to keep you up to date on our classroom happenings and share pictures of our learning activities. Please check back often for new updates!