Fall Leaf Fun

This week in math, we discussed the words above, below, on, and under.  We played a game with some foam shapes and the kids had to listen to the directions so they knew where to put their shape.

We also did an apple tree art project and put apples above, below, on, and under the tree.

We read the book, "Fresh Fall Leaves," and discussed all of the fun things you can do in the leaves.  We also talked about the importance of illustrations to text and made our own class version of "Fresh Fall Leaves."  I made a large version of the book and assigned 3-4 kids to illustrate a page of the story.  It was a really good activity to practice cooperating and working together.

They were all really proud of their class book and I hung it up on the back wall of our classroom.  Have your child show you which page they helped with!

 

 

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We did a really fun art project this week.  We painted leaves using shaving cream and paint.

The kids got to swirl the two things around together into some pretty designs.

Then they pressed their leaf shape into the mixture, we helped them lift it out and then used a squeegee to scrape the extra paint off.

The result was amazing!  The paint left a marbled effect on the leaves and now they are hanging up in our room and making it look festive!

We had an assembly this week where we learned about acting and theater.  The kids enjoyed the puppets that came to help.

We also met a new friend named Mr. Munch.  The kids already love him!  He comes to help us learn our letter sounds.  He eats things that start with a certain letter and the kids LOVE feeding him!

We have also been practicing our letter formation with an app called "Letter School."  I project it on the screen for everyone to see and we all help write the letters with our magic fingers.  The app was only $2.99.  It comes with all of the uppercase and lowercase letters and numbers.  If you have a device that can use apps, I highly recommend it!

In math, we also worked more on one-to-one counting.  I made some counting bags and the kids really enjoyed counting the objects inside and recording how many there were.

They were so careful to move each thing over as they counted!

In computers this week, we played a fun game from the site ABCYa.com.  It is a wonderful FREE site with lots of great letter and word practice.  Check it out at home!

Oliver was our Star Student and showed us his special blankie from when he was a baby.  He also told us how he got to come to America from Cambodia!  We are so glad you are in our class Oliver!

All About Apples!

We had a great first week of fall.  We spent our week learning more about apples and using apples as a theme for our learning.  Monday we finished learning how to write all of our numbers 1-10.  We read a book called "Ten Apples Up on Top" and then put 10 apples up on top of our heads!  The kids thought I was crazy when I told them what they were going to do...until I showed them it was all going to be on paper.  :)  First, they drew their own heads using colors and details that made sense and then they glued 10 apples on top and labeled them with numbers.

We put them up in the hallway, so check them out and find your child's artwork if you are in the school!

We also learned how to spell the word "apple" with a fun song.  The students enjoyed taking turns holding our apples up front!

One of the types of writing we will be practicing this year is informational writing.  The kids got to write 6 words about apples.  They all got a special writer's rubber band to help them stretch out the words.  The room was full of 25 little voices slowly saying words to listen for sounds.  Music to this teacher's ears!  :)

We played a fun apple alphabet game where we passed an apple around and sang a little song.  When the song stopped, if you had the apple, then you got to pick up an apple off the floor and say the letter it had written on it and the sound it makes.

We also practiced counting 1-10 by making fingerprint apples!

The kids are really enjoying math time.  We have been playing fun games and the kids love working with their friends around the room.

We also learned that reading goes top to bottom, left to right.  We practiced how to go to the next line after coming to the end of a line, (return sweep).  And we worked on our one-to-one pointing.  We used googly eyes on popsicle sticks and it was so much fun to read while singing along with our letter song!

This week we talked about letters versus words.  We each got to be one letter of the alphabet and stood all by ourselves.  We learned that when we are all alone, we are a letter.  Then we got to connect with some of our friends to make a word!

Olivia was our star student this week.  She got to tell us about her special doll and doll clothes that her late grammy made for her.

And Mr. Austin turned 6!  Happy birthday and thanks for the suckers!  :)

Working Hard and Having Fun at the Fun Run!

Another week down!  :)  The kids have been having a good time at school this week.  We are practicing counting and played some fun math games to help us with that concept.

We have also been making some class books.  That means each person in our class is responsible for writing and illustrating one page.  Then I take the pages and bind them into a book for us to read.  We made our own version of Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom.  The kids each drew a coconut tree, glued one letter of the alphabet on the tree, and then added a real band-aid to help "fix" their letter.  Then they had to write the letter and the place it got hurt.  They did a great job with it!

Madisen wrote, "L hurt its side."  They loved using the band-aids!

We also made a class version of the book, "The Shape of Things."  They each picked out a shape and added something to the shape to turn it into something new.  Oliver's page said, "A circle is just a circle until you add stripes, then it is a ball."

John wrote, "A square is just a square until you add a roof, then it is a house."

Cameron was our Star Student this week and told us all about his special stuffed animal bear.

And Olivia and Parker turned 6 and shared some yummy birthday treats with us!  Happy birthday to you!

Friday night was the school Family Fun Run.  It was a really exciting event and it was great to see so many people from our class there!  If you were there and I didn't get your picture, I apologize!  Here we are doing the Hokey Pokey with a bunch of mascots.

Go Titan!

John, Parker, and Burke ready to stretch before the race.

Avery, Aiden, and Madison getting ready to run!

On your mark, get set,...

Go!  Good job running everyone!

It is really fun to see our friends outside of school!

I even had to race.  Miss Cook and I in our gunny sacks, ready to go!

There was also some yummy food to enjoy.  Burke liked his blue cotton candy!

And John had some pizza for dinner! 

Thanks to everyone who came out to support our school!  I also  I appreciate everyone who has been coming in the classroom to help out!  If you are unable to volunteer in our room and would like to do a project for me at home, just let me know!  I have lots of stuff you could do.  :)

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Lots of Fun in Our Room!

This week we did a lot of fun activities with the book, "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom."  It is a fun story about lowercase letters that all run up a coconut tree.  The tree gets too heavy and they all fall out and hurt themselves.  After getting bandaged up from their capital letters, they try again.

After reading the story, I told the kids there was an alphabet that ran away from our class and hid all over the school.  We quietly hunted down all of the letters using clues to help us know where to look.  They were so good at silently pointing when they found some of the missing letters.  After we finished finding the whole alphabet, we went back to our classroom and looked for a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree.  That led us to a cabinet where a treat was waiting inside!

There were graham crackers, green apples, and Whoppers waiting for us!  We made our own Chicka Chicka Boom Boom trees!  (We were going to have letters going up our trees with Alphabet cereal too, but they don't make it anymore)!  :(

We watched an animated version of the story while we ate our yummy trees.  You can view the video with your child here:

Since we focused on learning our shapes this week, we made our own Chicka Chicka Boom Boom trees using shapes.  Squares for the trunk, rectangles and triangles for leaves, and circles for the coconuts.  

The letters of our names ran up the coconut tree this time!  The kids had to count how many letters were in their names to see if there was going to be enough room in the tree for their name.  Luckily, nobody's coconut tree tipped over!  :)

We have now reviewed all four of the basic shapes: circle, square, rectangle, and triangle.  The difference between a square and rectangle can be the most tricky for the kids.  Each day, we had a mystery bag.  I pulled things out of the mystery bag and we had to guess what was the same about all of the objects.  They enjoyed this game and it helped them start to see shapes in their environment.

One of their favorite centers was this huge shape sorting activity.  They worked together sorting shapes of all different sizes and colors.  Here are some fun videos we did in class that helped us learn about each shape and practice forming each shape.  While we were off track, I went to a technology class and received an iPad and Apple TV for our classroom!  Being able to show songs and online stories has been such a fun addition to our learning!

We had some special friends this week!

Parker was our Star Student.  He had fun telling us about his special blanket that keeps him warm.

Happy 5th birthday to Oliver!  Thanks for the yummy cupcakes!

And happy 6th birthday to Cameron!  He shared some Skittles with our class and everyone loved them!