Happy Halloween!

We celebrated Halloween today by having two parades! The class got to parade around the school so all the classes could see each other's costumes.  Then we visited Aegis, a senior living community, and paraded around their center and sang them some songs.  

More Scroll Writing!

I promised the class that whenever their scroll became taller then they were, I would post their picture onto the blog.  Some students decided to move on from scrolls back to regular books, so don't worry if you don't see your child pictured.  They are all working so hard!! I am amazed with their writing!

Dingle Dangle Scarecrow

​Kindergarten had an awesome time during Dingle Dangle Scarecrow day put on by Mrs. Elvrum.  They sang Halloween songs and were visited by two "scarecrows" who took time away from their busy day at the farm!  The kindergarteners got to interview the scarecrows and ask them all kinds of questions about their lives, where they came from and what they do for fun. Thanks to Mrs. Elvrum and our 4th grade scarecrows! 

Pledge of Allegiance

We are learning the Pledge of Allegiance song to get ready for our performance at the Veteran's Day assembly! We say it, sing it and perform it in sign language.  The class did a great job picking it up so quickly.

http://www.nellieedge.com/pdf/pledgeAllegianceASL.pdf

Family Groups Pumpkin Carving

We had our Halloween pumpkin carving activity for family groups yesterday.  Family groups are so fun because it gives the older students the opportunity to be a leader for the younger students.  We carved pumpkins in the classroom, then carried our pumpkins up to the gym.  Once our pumpkins are set up, we sing Halloween stories in the dark.  It's so fun to see all the different pumpkins all lit up.

Science Investigation-Sinking Wood

We did our first part of our sinking wood experiments today. I am SO lucky to have two parent helpers on Wednesday afternoons for science, it makes everything so much smoother.  Today I introduced the concept of different types of wood.  We went around the room and chose 3 different types and I explained how they were different.  Then the class got to experiment to see how many paperclips it takes to sink a piece of wood.  Later on, we will experiment with how many paperclips it takes to sink each individual type of wood and talk about heavy vs. light wood. 

After doing the experiment, we did scientific drawings of our materials and us doing the experiment.  

If they got finished early, they were able to go around the room and find objects that were made out of wood.  They totally surprised me with the little things they were finding and the amount of detail and work they put into their lists!

Halloween List Making

One of my favorite writing centers is halloween costume list making. We cut out pictures from magazines and label them with their costume names.  Then the students go through and pick their favorites and write them on a list.  

Four Seasons of Trees

We did our four seasons of trees art project a couple days ago, they turned out so cute.  It's one of my favorite art projects of the year because the trees look so cool put together at the end.  We get to use lots of fun techniques like sponge paint, metallics, q-tip dots, and tissue paper. 

Writing With Scrolls

We've reached the second half of our first unit in Lucy Calkin's writing program.  It's a really exciting time because the kids start moving from labeling using one or two letters to writing many sounds in words and even sentences.  The way we transition them into this next phase is to move from journals to scrolls.  The concept of a scroll is very exciting to them because we make it a challenge to see how long they can make it!  In order to tape on a new piece of paper they have to fill the whole page and write at least one word or sentence. This is my favorite part of the writing program so far, everything starts to really click and it's so amazing to see.

 Here are a couple scrolls that have gotten taller than they are!  

Syllable Book

We've done a few sorts whole class from the book Words Their Way that cover rhyming and syllables.  The kids receive a sheet of pictures that they color, cut, and sort into groups or pairs based on what the sort is working on.    

We will start doing our leveled sorts next week based off a spelling assessment that I gave the class.  The spelling sorts can work on a variety of skills including beginning, middle, or end sounds, short vowel sounds vs. long vowel sounds, bossy e words, and word families.  

Here is our last whole class sort, which worked on syllables. 

Skinny Books

The other kindergarten teacher and I learned about skinny books during a conference we went to run by Nellie Edge.  She has tons of amazing ideas that we incorporate into our literacy time.  Today we worked on skinny books.  We used the sentence "I see the _____ ." Then they filled in the blank with Halloween themed stamps.  I love doing these because they use our heart words and introduce the concept of a sentence.  

Source: http://www.nellieedge.com

Caine's Arcade

Our STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, math) teacher, Ms. Angie, had all the 2nd-5th graders create games out of cardboard boxes.  This was all inspired by Caine's Arcade, which you can learn more about here.  I loved how the projects were all student created and I can tell how hard they worked.  Our kindergartens and 1st graders got to visit the 'arcade' and play all the games that the students had created.  It was so fun! Thanks Angie!