Since returning from winter break we have been incredibly busy both inside and outside of our learning community classroom!
We have been working with Mr. G. in the lab understanding and experimenting with the Laws of Physics; Force and Motion. It is incredible what one can learn about physics from straws, marshmallows, rubber bands and groupings of objects by 10s. Lab time with Mr. G. is an incredible experience of interactive learning and sharing!
We had our very first Brown Bag Book Club with our reading buddies from Mrs. McElvain's first grade. We talked about the various Tacky the Penguin books we read, made connections, laughed together as we sang Tacky's song and of course shared a bag of popcorn. If you were there you would have marveled at the book discussions taking place in different parts of the room. These young students had come together to discuss after "actively reading" two different Tacky the Penguin books by Helen Lester. It was a very impressive book club gathering. We ended our book club with a reader's theatre performance by several of our Kindergarten Stars. The play they performed was Snowmen at Night. Their performance definitely earned them a Meadowbrook Golden Globe! Kudos to all who participated in the performance! Job well done!
We have been reading a lot of nonfiction books about Penguins in class. We have learned so many fascinating facts about these "odd birds." As we gather our information we are beginning to record our information and creating our own book about Penguins. We are writing information, labeling diagrams, creating a glossary of terms and a table of contents. We have incorporated this special activity into our daily writer's workshop. We are planning to "publish" our book in mid February.
Did you know we are Math Wizards! Addition, subtraction, greater than and less than, tallies, and ten frames all successfully dominate our daily math centers. In addition to all that great fun and challenges we have learned to play the math games "Garbage" and Odd-Even Treehouse. Math in our room has taken on a whole new LOOK and ATTITUDE! You can not beat the excitement felt and the challenges undertaken.
It was especially snowy and bitterly cold one day last week so we decided as a class to write about what would happen if we made a snowman inside our classroom. We wrote and then we shared our stories. It was very interesting how we all differed in building our snowman and perserving our precious creation. We had such a great time with this activity Mrs. K. brought snow in to each table and each team built a snow person with hat, arms, eyes, scarf, etc. It is true, you never know what you will find inside a kindergarten learning community!
We had our first Lunch and Learn of the year last Friday. Our theme was Black and White Day. We created our own newspaper, painted with marshmallows, and created a shadow collage. Best of all we had lunch together and then enjoyed a dessert called Penguin Pies! Thank you Dairy Queen!
Here are some snapshots of the last several weeks! Enjoy!
(Once the movie appears, double click in the center of the movie to start the slideshow!)