For kindergartners (and for Kindergarten teachers), every little thing can become an incredibly exciting event. We've had lots of exciting events in the classroom lately.
This week we started integrating our adapted version of The Daily Five, which has caused a certain amount of excitement, especially since we are working to become better readers. That is something we are all very excited about!
Thanksgiving is next week (although a few of my friends shared today that they were very excited for Valentine's Day next week!). As if that in itself weren't exciting enough, my kinderfriends have discovered that we get 5 days in a row off from school!
Today, we counted to 100. When I announced that we were going all the way to 100 today, I had 17 cheering students!
And the most exciting thing by far: we will have 2 new students join our class starting in December. They came to visit today. Some of my kinderfriends already know them, and have voiced that they are excited because they "missed their best friend." While our new students were visiting, I had a few friends very willing to share (one friend exclaimed that they could take the Star Wars toy out of his backpack if they wanted to), and everyone was very eager to share the important aspects of our classroom ("We have Show and Tell every Friday!").
Oh, yes, very exciting things are happening in kindergarten! Let me leave you with a knock-knock joke I overheard today:
"Knock, knock!"
"Who's there?"
"Orange!"
"Orange who?"
"Orange aren't you glad it's your birthday?!"
:)
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Class Pets and Places on Earth
Have you met our class pets?
This is Milo. Milo has been with us since the beginning of the school year. Milo sits in the center of our classroom and watches everything we do. He likes to hide in his plant.
This is Mickey. Mickey was a new addition to our classroom on Election Day (November 2). When we introduce a new letter, I have a letter box filled with things that begin with the new letter. Every time I would bring the letter box out, I would inevitably hear, "Is it a frog?" We learned about the letter Ff on Nov. 2, and I decided it would be a nice treat for there to actually be a frog in the box. What a surprise! We then voted (since it was Election Day ;) on a name and came up with Mickey! He is a very active frog, and my KinderFriends especially like when he is burbling (has all his limbs spread out and stands on one leg).
And finally...places on Earth. Today we were talking about different places around the world, and I posed a question to my friends, a question that I have a hard time answering because I can't choose just one. Here's the question: If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? The answers running through my mind are Hawaii, California, Paris, Rome, Greece...the list goes on and on. Here are a few responses I got:
"To the beach"
"To the airport"
"Idlewild!"
"Kennywood"
Time to start acquiring that knowledge of the world!
This is Milo. Milo has been with us since the beginning of the school year. Milo sits in the center of our classroom and watches everything we do. He likes to hide in his plant.
This is Mickey. Mickey was a new addition to our classroom on Election Day (November 2). When we introduce a new letter, I have a letter box filled with things that begin with the new letter. Every time I would bring the letter box out, I would inevitably hear, "Is it a frog?" We learned about the letter Ff on Nov. 2, and I decided it would be a nice treat for there to actually be a frog in the box. What a surprise! We then voted (since it was Election Day ;) on a name and came up with Mickey! He is a very active frog, and my KinderFriends especially like when he is burbling (has all his limbs spread out and stands on one leg).
And finally...places on Earth. Today we were talking about different places around the world, and I posed a question to my friends, a question that I have a hard time answering because I can't choose just one. Here's the question: If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? The answers running through my mind are Hawaii, California, Paris, Rome, Greece...the list goes on and on. Here are a few responses I got:
"To the beach"
"To the airport"
"Idlewild!"
"Kennywood"
Time to start acquiring that knowledge of the world!
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Community Helpers and other things
The past few weeks we have been talking about Community Helpers. Check out the slideshow to see a few things we have done in the classroom.
At the beginning of this unit, we talked a little bit about our families, and we drew pictures of our family. I always love to see these pictures because they are always so different. I particularly was interested by this one:
Do you see the biggest person in the picture? According to our Kinderfriend, that is Mom. Hmm, I wonder who the most important person in his family is? :)
Our Bible story this past week was about David, and we talked about David and Goliath (check out 1 Samuel 17 if you want to read the whole story). Yesterday afternoon I overheard this conversation:
"Goliath is bad. God doesn't love Goliath!"
I had to interrupt for a minute and remind my Kinderfriends that Goliath made bad choices, but that doesn't mean God stopped loving Him. I also reminded this Kinderfriend that God still loves us when we make mistakes, and I'm sure glad He does!
"For I am conviced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39
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| This slideshow generated with Smilebox |
At the beginning of this unit, we talked a little bit about our families, and we drew pictures of our family. I always love to see these pictures because they are always so different. I particularly was interested by this one:
Do you see the biggest person in the picture? According to our Kinderfriend, that is Mom. Hmm, I wonder who the most important person in his family is? :)
Our Bible story this past week was about David, and we talked about David and Goliath (check out 1 Samuel 17 if you want to read the whole story). Yesterday afternoon I overheard this conversation:
"Goliath is bad. God doesn't love Goliath!"
I had to interrupt for a minute and remind my Kinderfriends that Goliath made bad choices, but that doesn't mean God stopped loving Him. I also reminded this Kinderfriend that God still loves us when we make mistakes, and I'm sure glad He does!
"For I am conviced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39
Friday, November 5, 2010
KinderConversations
The conversations in the kindergarten classroom are always interesting. These children are always willing to share, always full of questions, and, most of all, just like to talk. Here are a few of the many things I hear in the classroom daily.
My KinderFriends love to sing. We do quite a bit of singing in our classroom, but these little darlings will bust out in song whenever there is a lull in classroom activity. The past few weeks we've been singing this song a lot:
Sometimes they sing other songs we have been singing, sometimes they sing songs they hear on the radio (with all the wrong words), and sometimes they make up their own songs.
I've also been hearing a lot of knock-knock jokes recently. They go something like this:
"Knock, knock!"
"Who's there?"
"Orange!"
"Orange who?"
"Apple!"
at which point these wonderful comedians will laugh and laugh and laugh. These jokes come in a variety of different subjects as well.
Not only are my KinderFriends comedians, but they can also change time. One friend exclaimed yesterday that he was going to make morning go really fast so that he could go to Pizza Hut.
They also know when they need to stay on task. I have a few friends who will call out an answer instead of raising their hand, then quickly place their hand over their mouth and say, "I'm not supposed to call out!" Another friend was not focused on his work. When he realized that he needed to be working like everyone else, he was overheard saying, "I'm supposed to be working. This is not the time to play!"
And my KinderFriends are always following the example of their peers. I overheard this conversation earlier this week:
"How do you move your star to blue so much?"
"I just be good and I move to blue."
"Because Miss Beck tells you to?"
"Yeah."
"But how do you be so good?"
"I just try to be good as soon as I come in in the morning and I just move to blue."
"I’m gonna try to be like you and move to blue."
Sometimes there are moments when our KinderFriends can't believe what they see. After everyone else had put their papers away, one friend was still sitting at his desk with his paper on top, completely distracted by pictures on the wall. I asked him to look around to see what his other friends were doing (all of their papers were put away) so that he would know what he was supposed to do. He saw his friends sitting at their empty desks where a minute ago there had been papers, and with an astonished look on his face, he exclaimed, "How did they do that?"
These children truly make me smile!
My KinderFriends love to sing. We do quite a bit of singing in our classroom, but these little darlings will bust out in song whenever there is a lull in classroom activity. The past few weeks we've been singing this song a lot:
Sometimes they sing other songs we have been singing, sometimes they sing songs they hear on the radio (with all the wrong words), and sometimes they make up their own songs.
I've also been hearing a lot of knock-knock jokes recently. They go something like this:
"Knock, knock!"
"Who's there?"
"Orange!"
"Orange who?"
"Apple!"
at which point these wonderful comedians will laugh and laugh and laugh. These jokes come in a variety of different subjects as well.
Not only are my KinderFriends comedians, but they can also change time. One friend exclaimed yesterday that he was going to make morning go really fast so that he could go to Pizza Hut.
They also know when they need to stay on task. I have a few friends who will call out an answer instead of raising their hand, then quickly place their hand over their mouth and say, "I'm not supposed to call out!" Another friend was not focused on his work. When he realized that he needed to be working like everyone else, he was overheard saying, "I'm supposed to be working. This is not the time to play!"
And my KinderFriends are always following the example of their peers. I overheard this conversation earlier this week:
"How do you move your star to blue so much?"
"I just be good and I move to blue."
"Because Miss Beck tells you to?"
"Yeah."
"But how do you be so good?"
"I just try to be good as soon as I come in in the morning and I just move to blue."
"I’m gonna try to be like you and move to blue."
Sometimes there are moments when our KinderFriends can't believe what they see. After everyone else had put their papers away, one friend was still sitting at his desk with his paper on top, completely distracted by pictures on the wall. I asked him to look around to see what his other friends were doing (all of their papers were put away) so that he would know what he was supposed to do. He saw his friends sitting at their empty desks where a minute ago there had been papers, and with an astonished look on his face, he exclaimed, "How did they do that?"
These children truly make me smile!
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