Funny Kindergarten Quotes

One of the many reasons I love working with kindergarten students is the great things they say, for example . .

• "A really long, long time ago when I was 4 I did that!" (She is 5 now)
• I was telling a story about one of my boys and one response was: "Mrs. Couture your boys are hilarious!"

Welcome Back

We had a great first day back from Thanksgiving break! During morning meeting we shared events from our week off, we caught our calendar up in number corner (10 days to catch up on is a lot in one day), participated in math work places during math time, started talking and writing about our families holiday traditions during social studies and played together during free choice time. It was nice to be back together!

Words Come Alive

Today was our second session of Words Come Alive with Lida, Flynn Teaching Artist and our friends from Isle LaMotte. This time the kindergarten and first grade from Isle LaMotte joined us for Social Studies. Mrs. Frank (their teacher) read us a book called Families are Different and then lead us in a project of using buttons to represent the members of our own families. After lunch and recess we all came back together to dance! When our dance time was over we all participated in free choice in our classroom. It was a busy, fun day in the Folsom kindergarten room :)

Today starts our first vacation from school since we began in September. Enjoy!

A Story With Ms. Cohn

Ms. Cohn, our speech/language pathologist, visited our classroom today to share a story. It was about a woman who made beautiful quilts to give to people who needed them. she taught a greedy king how to be happy by giving instead of receiving. He was rewarded with a feeling of happiness and with one of her quilts! Ms. Cohn brought quilt pieces with her as well as a globe to show the many places the king visited giving gifts. We had a great time!

Family Book Bin

We opened a new bin of books today all about families! Here are  a few examples of books in our new bin:

• You and Me Together: Moms, Dads, and Kids Around the World by Barbara Kerley  - This book depicts a great collection of photographs ad words portraying different activities parents and children enjoy together around the world. There are pictures from India, Germany, China, Australia and more!
• Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman - A favorite at our house! The poor bird falls out of the nest and then begins a search for his mother, asking a dog a cow and more: "are you my mother?"
• My Family is Forever by Nancy Carlson - This book explores how some families are formed by adoption.
• Will There be a Lap For Me? by Dorothy Corey - In this book Kyle is worried about the new baby that is coming! First he loses his special spot (mom's lap) when her belly grows and then he is worried mom will be too busy for him.

The Keeping Quilt

We read The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco today. It is a story about a quilt passed along from mother to daughter for almost a century. We used the story to deepen our understanding of family, traditions within a family as well as customs. It was also a great way to talk about quilts before we started our pattern  quilt in math.

Circle Pass

We danced with a scarf today during our Words Come Alive time.

Words Come Alive

A quote from one of our students during our Flynn Words Come Alive seesion: "I looked around and saw all the dance moves and I wanted to do them all!"

Technology With Mrs. Hayes

Every Thursday is Tech Time! So far this year we have explored logging on, pattern block problem solving and different applications on a program called kidspiration. All activities are planned to support classroom topics and activities.

Our Amazing Kindergarten!

Foodplay Assembly

We attended a Foodplay presentation today, which is a play designed to turn kids on to healthy habits. Topics covered included eating "go" foods instead of "whoa" foods, getting plenty of exercise, and learning about what is actually in "whoa" foods. Ask your child for more details. There is also information and resources on their website: www.foodplay.com. The play was funny and informative!

Special Guests

We were lucky enough to have two special guests this morning! We are planning to use these two beautiful babies as we discuss the past, present & future and document growth over time. Yesterday we looked at our own baby pictures and guessed who was who. We have changed so much over time already it was hard to tell!

November Number Corner

We started our November calendar today with calendar markers called "One Dot, Many Dots!" The markers are a simple growing pattern that adds 1 dot per day to a growing collection of dots. There are a variety of patterns to notice during this month, which is a new way for us to talk about patterns. Instead of a sequence continuing over and over (ABABAB) we will begin to see patterns as sequences of shapes or numbers that grow in a predictable way.  Each day we will add a marker and discuss what we notice. We will then record comments on a chart that asks us how many dots, what color they are ,and what comparisons we are able to make based on this information. Participating in these number corner activities will provide us with the opportunity to practice the following skills & concepts:

• compare sets of objects and determine whether they have the same, fewer, or more objects
• use and understand the words one/many, one/some/all, more/less, most/least, equal to/more than/less than
• describe numbers using 5 as a benchmark
• describe and extend simple growing and repeating patterns
• count and read numerals to 31
• identify ordinal positions through the 31st