Merry, Merry!

Hi Everyone!
I have shared many pictures today from this week's fun!...The Gingerbread Man Hunt, Polar Express Day and our party yesterday.  It's been a great week.  Enjoy the rest of this marvelous season!  Merry Christmas and a very happy, healthy new year!!

The rest of the pictures from our party can be seen by clicking on the Photos button above or click here!!  They are adorable!!!

All Aboard!!!

Wearing jammies to school is the best!  We celebrated the classic book The Polar Express on Wednesday.  

We started our day with some surveys related to the movie.  The three surveys were:
Do you like marshmallows in your hot chocolate?
Have you ever ridden on a train?
Did you ever see the movie The Polar Express?

Once 10 friends were surveyed, the kids graphed the results.

Roll and Cover game

Tickets, please!

What did Twinkle bring back from the North Pole?

It's a bell!!

Cheers!

Run, run as fast as you can.......

On December 15th, a package arrived from the office marked 
"To the Kindergartners, From the Gingerbread Man! Catch me if you can!"
This started a hunt around the school in search of him (A very excited, noisy hunt I must say).  He left some clues and we followed the sweet cinnamon-smelling trail.The kids were overjoyed and extremely enthusiastic...you'll see that in the pictures below! 

Mrs. Miller arriving with the package!!!

Hmmmm....I wonder what is inside?

It's gingerbread cookies and a note!!!

We are coming to get you G Man!

Looking fierce heading to the media center!!

Could he be hiding in a book?

He left this note behind with Mrs. Blaustein..

“I've read lots of books,
But I'm gone, can't you see?
I'm a gingerbread man and you can't catch me!
Look for me by a friendly face who answers phones in a busy place.”

Our second stop was at the office.  It sure is a busy 
place with lots of friendly faces!

No Gingerbread Man in the office either but he left this note:

“The secretaries have a friendly face, 
And answer phones in a busy place. 
Find me by the leader of our school.”

Who’s our leader?  Why Mr. Martin, of course! That's not Mr. Martin though!  That's Mrs. D!  Mr. Martin was off chasing him.
 Here's the note he left behind:

“This is the principal's office.
He's nice, you know.
He told me not to run anymore,
But to walk, wherever I go.
Go find me where lunches are made.”

Here is where lunches are made but it doesn’t look like 
the Gingerbread Man is here anymore!  He did leave behind a mess, though.  
Mrs. Kunka and Mrs. Madar were cleaning it up when we came in!

The kids listened very carefully while the note we found was read:

“This is the lunchroom.
These friends like us a bunch,
And always make sure we have a good lunch.
I'm getting a bit tired as you can see,
Room 12 is where I'll be!”

THAT'S OUR ROOM!

HERE HE IS!!

We LOVE our gingerbread man!!

EPILOGUE....

To eat or not to eat????!!!  See below....

Going....

Going....

Gone!!

So ends the tale of our Gingerbread Man!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We have been working on a special book just in time for Thanksgiving!  It's entitled We are Tree-Mendously Thankful!  The book will be making it's way home but for friends far and near, you can view it here!  I love the children's sweet little voices as they read.  Enjoy!

The Alphabet Chant!!!

We accomplished a great feat last week....drum roll please....the kids now know the entire Alphabet Chant!!!  They are so excited!  I am so excited!  And, you will be so excited to see it!  Mrs. Blaustein visited us last week and videotaped it for us.  Your child is bringing home some magic sound sprinkles today.  He/she will be casting the spell on YOU and then performing the chant!  Please join in on the fun!

Happy 50th Day!!

Today is our 50th day of school!  We had so much fun dressing up like we were straight off the set of The Happy Days!  We worked with our first grade friends all morning on some math concepts all with the number 50 in mind, then went to the sock hop, then to the drive-in and finally to the diner for a special lunch.  Click on the Photos tab to see more pictures from our day!

Happy Halloween!

We had such a great time last Friday dressing up at school.  Our party was awesome and a special thanks goes out to the parents who helped plan it.  Click on the Photos tab to take a peek at more of the pictures from our fun day.

Introducing Our Sharecrow......

The kindergartners created a "sharecrow" on Tuesday to provide food for the birds and other wildlife during the chilly winter months.  His name is Hilton and he resides in the front of the school.  They created cereal necklaces and added other snacks to the sharecrow (seeds, cranberries, pumpkins, raisins and corn).  We'll keep restocking him in the upcoming months.  You are also welcome to create a cereal necklace or bracelet at home for our sharecrow.   Click on the Photos tab at the top to see more pictures....

Hilton, our sharecrow!

Down on Boyert's Farm!!

Hi y'all!
We had so much fun at the farm last week.  Click on the "Photos" tab at the top of the page to see all of the pictures from our trip.

Apple Fun!

We had fun learning about apples last week as we prepared for our upcoming trip to the farm.  The class loved the story about the little red house with no doors and windows and a star on the inside! Can you guess what that may be?  We also did some tasting to determine which variety of apple we like best.

There's the star!!!

Here's the little red house with no doors and windows and a star on the inside!

Our three apples to taste!

This is the start of our grapha

How did it change?

Here is the finished graph.  Which apple had the most votes?  The least?

The First Two "Dailies"

We have been very busy learning the Daily 5 structure.  So far, the children have learned the “3 Ways to Read a Book” which are:

1. Read the Pictures
2. Read the Words
3. Retell the Story

We also learned the first “daily” which is “Read to Self.”  After a great lesson on STAMINA (What a big word but I bet your child can tell you what it means!!) using the book Dex—The Heart of a Hero, we started “Read to Self.”  The kindergartners use their individual book boxes during this time.  The class is already up to 11 minutes of stamina!  That’s awesome!  Our next “daily” introduction is taking place right now—“Listen to Reading.” The kids use individual listening centers or the Leap Frog Tag Readers during this time.  Enjoy the pictures to show you what it looks like here in kindergarten!

Also, Zero dropped off another treat for us to celebrate our 20th day of kindergarten.  This one the kids REALLY liked!  Zero couldn't trick them...they figured out how to turn that piece of licorice into a zero really quickly! 

My desk is a favorite spot during "Read to Self!"

This is our I chart.  The "I" stand for independent!

This is Mrs. Blaustein showing the kids how to use Raz Kids which is another tool we use for "Read to Self."

"Listen to Reading"

"Listen to Reading" with the Tag Readers

There's our zeroes!