100th Day Activities

We did so many fun activities today that the kids were convinced that I had planned 100 things to do. 

I gave each student a "100 dollar bill" and we planned what we would buy with it.  The kids then wrote and drew about it for a class book.




"A Football"                                    "A Brown Husky"

 "A Turtle"                                                 "A Seal"

"Dolphins"

100 Bead Necklaces

100 Self Portraits

100 sticker hats

100 Words

Estimation Jar of 50, 100 & 150 items 

100th Day Fun

We had so much fun today during the 100th day of school! The kids could choose to come dressed up like they were 100, they looked adorable.  

This "old man" face is hilarious!

Mrs. Albrecht and I

Groundhog's Day

Our whole day was filled with groundhog themed activities! Our centers in the morning included drawing out what our burrow would be, learning all about groundhogs through books, watching a fun video about groundhogs, making our burrows with Legos and making groundhog shadow puppets. Our math in the afternoon was all about surveying and analyzing whether our class thought Phil would see his shadow or not, then watching the video from Phil's reveal.  Finally, we made a groundhog craft that showed the difference between spring and summer. 

 

 

Polar Bear Day

We had our polar bear day today, which is always so much fun!  Our morning started with polar bears themed stations.  

We had a polar bear snack station where each component stood for one of the polar bear's senses, the kids got to learn about how incredible polar bears sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing are.  

At the polar bear paw station, students learned how a polar bear's paws adapt to the cold weather.

We had a science blubber station where students felt the difference between placing their hand in ice water with a bare hand versus placing their hand covered in blubber (shortening) in the water.  We made a scientific drawing at the end. 

Our final two stations were a polar bear write the room and a polar bear dot art station.  

 

Ice Sculpture Day

We had our ice sculpture day today, which is a Brighton kindergarten tradition.  I learned some tricks from last year and modified our morning a little for this year.  Instead of doing a whole class ice sculpture activity, I made ice sculptures a station.  All the rest of our stations were ice themed and the kids had a blast!  I loved that instead of it being a 20 minute activity, we were able to do a whole hour of STEM ice activities. 

Ice Caves: We discussed what happens when salt is poured over ice, then the kids tested it out.  They poured salt and dropped liquid watercolors onto ice to make tunnels and caves!

Oil and Ice Painting: We learned that water and oil do not like each other! We painted paper with oil, then spread a ice cube made with paint on top.  The paint puddled on top of the oil and slid around as a result. 

Ice Sculpture: We learned that salt lowers the freezing point when poured on ice, that is what makes two pieces of ice stick together.  We had fun playing with brightly colored ice and stacking them up.

Square Cat

We started our first book on acceptance for the January character development topic of the month. Square Cat by Elizabeth Schoonmaker is about a cat that feels left out because she is a square instead of a circle.  Her friends decide to act compassionately and help square cat find positive things about being a square.  As a class we talked about how to make others feel included.  We then decided if we would want to be a square or circle cat and then made and analyzed a graph of our results.  Finally, we made our own square cat glyphs.  We will also analyze and graph the results of the glyphs. A glyph is when you pick certain colors or shapes for a project based on your response to a question from the book.  In this project the questions were...

Do you like cats?

Would you rather be a circle or square cat?

Do you like donuts?

Is your cat a girl or a boy?

Thanks to Chalk Talk for the idea!