Sunday, September 30, 2012

Skyping with Flat Stanley & Renee Rice in Bahamas

Our class had a great time Skyping with Mrs. Renee and Flat Stanley on Friday morning. They were on their way to Rose Island to collect seashells for our class and to visit the school there. They took the school books and the letters we sent them.
 
 

M&M Math...mmm good!

We are having a ball learning about all the words that begin with the letter Mm! The kids had so much fun sorting, counting and graphing their M&M's. When all of that was done they had to divide the M&M's up equally before enjoying their snack.
 






 

Learning all about TREES

We are having a lot of fun learning all about TREES. We started our year long tree project on Thursday. We will decorate each tree as the season changes and take a picture in front of the tree as the tree changes for each season.
 

Welcome our new friend, Henry!

We want to welcome our new friend, Henry. He joined us for the first time on Friday. We are so glad to have Henry with us! He is a sweet young man and very handsome.  We now have 19 sweet babies in our kindergarten class. :)
 
 

King and Queen of the Jungle

Our first 4 Kings and Queens of the Jungle. They loved sitting in the King and Queen chair and wearing the special safari hats. We are adding their All About Me sheets to our special class book called All About Me. It is fun learning what the kids like and do not like. Every friend will get a chance this year to be the
King or Queen of the Jungle.








 

Mm is for Mustaches and Muscles

The kids had so  much fun wearing their fake mustaches and then showing off their muscles for our Mm pictures.


 

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Flat Stanley is on the Move


This year I decided to incorporate Flat Stanley again into our social studies units!! Let's bring some fun back into our classroom!!!! Flat Stanley is a book by Jeff Brown. He is flat because a bulletin board fell on him. He takes a trip to California to visit his friend. The cheap way to send him, by mail in an envelope. Many teachers across the world use Flat Stanley to teach children map skills and information about places all over the world.  We will be sending our doll Flat Stanley all over the world. He has actually traveled to the Olympics in Australia several years ago. We will also be looking for famous people to have their picture made with our Flat Stanley.  His first trip is with Renee Rice from R&R travel and Cheyenne's mom! They left today flying to the Bahamas! She sent us pictures of Flat Stanley at the Atlanta Airport and arriving in the Bahamas. He will get a little wet tomorrow as he enjoys the waterslide in Atlantis! We will hear from them tomorrow when the class Skypes with Flat Stanley and Renee on my iPad. We are really excited about that. As an introduction to Flat Stanley I read several chapters of the famous book by Jeff Brown. Today we introduced the world map and discussed the pictures of Flat Stanley at the airport. We also drew pictures and sent a books to the school that Renee will visit while down there. Look for updates and pictures of Flat Stanley's adventures in the Bahamas. His next stop a cruise to Mexico!!! Stanley is one spoiled fellow! :) 
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Monday, September 17, 2012

Our First Pep Rally of the School Year

Every year we enjoy a special pep rally with our football players, cheerleaders and the band. The kids had a great time with their new shakers and their cool tattoos.  Enjoy our pictures.










Question of the Day...

This is our first Question of the Day. The kids LOVE answering the question of the day. Right now we are doing a 2 column "T" chart.  The students use their pictures and place it on the correct side according to the question.  Some other questions we've answered..."Do you have buttons on your clothes?" "Are you a boy or girl?" "Have you ever been lost?" "Do you like to spin around and around?" "Would you rather read a book or watch TV?"  "Would you rather play inside or outside?" We learn a lot about each other and how to read a graph.  We are learning how to "eye ball" our chart and make a good guess or prediction about which will be more or less. But we know we have to count to be sure about our findings.  We then discuss the results and how the 2 numbers compare to each other.  We've learned that the alligator mouth eats the greater number. Many skills are reviewed daily with Question of the Day. 

WE ARE BUCKET FILLERS!

On Thursday we FINALLY earned our 5th fish in our class bucket to receive our class reward.  That means that for 5 days the students all stayed on super star. We have added an additional way to earn our class fish.  As part of our Whole Brain Learning we keep a scoreboard of smiley faces and frowny faces.  Our goal is to have MORE smiley faces and not frowny faces.  We earn a fish each day as long as we have more smiley faces.  Our first class reward was watching Ladybug, our hamster, roll around in her exercise ball. The kids had a great time watching her while they worked on station activities and their journals. 






Happy Birthday Dylan!





Dylan turned 7 on Thursday, September 12th. 
     Happy Birthday Dylan! 
ROLL TIDE! LOVE THAT SHIRT!
One of Dylan's gifts from his family was attending his first college football game. He and his mom went to the Bama game. 

Happy Birthday Mia!

The birthday girl! She got a special visit from her mom for lunch. :) Loved her cupcake birthday dress. 


Monday, September 10, 2012

Scanning like CRAZY!

Lily Calvert is the team leader of this group. She does an excellent job asking Noah to help her hold the QR tray so she can scan the yellow code.  She remembered to place the QR tray back in the tub out of the way and then gets the book JUST RIGHT to share with her team members. 

Arilyn Pool is working hard as team leader at Station 5, the writing/handwriting station. 

QR Codes and Daily 5

Smart Devices, QR codes and our Reading Daily 5


Don't you just love the glassless reading glasses? They are listening to our new Boogie Book "I've Got the Whole Alphabet in my Mouth." 

This is a QR tray. Only one for Station 1, the computer station

Station 2 has 2 green codes to scan. The second one is a  song by Dr. Jean, "Name on Your Paper."
Station 2 is our ABC station.

Station 3 and 4 required an iPad.  Station 3 is our Reading Comprehension station.  The first green QR tells them to get out the retell tray and the animals from the Little School Bus. The second green QR is the story The Little School Bus. The students put the animals on the bus in order of the story.

Station 4, Reading Just for Fun station. At this station the kids listened to our new Boogie Book "I've Got the Whole Alphabet in My Mouth." They they watched a video of David Goes to School while following along in their book. 

Station 5 is our Writing/Handwriting station.  At this station the first QR told the students to find the bag with their name puzzle and complete the puzzle 3 times. The yellow QR told them to find the paper with their name on it and using dry erase markers practice tracing their name. 

Caleb is working hard on his name.

Way to go Kirby!

Arilyn did a great job scanning the codes and getting her team ready to work. THEY LOVE the team leader badges. 

The red QR code is scanned if and only if the green and yellow activities are complete. The red codes are reading a magazine or a book at their station. Dylan is doing a great job reading a new book.

Blaze is LOVING station 1, computers. 
During our Reading Daily 5 we implemented QR codes in each station. Each station contains a QR tray with a green, yellow and red QR. The 5 different team leaders take control of the smart devices, scan the codes, listen carefully to the teacher's instructions and then helps his/her team understand how to complete the activity. We will implement QR codes into our Math Daily 5 this week as well. The students LOVE the QR codes.