Science: Plant Unit

The class is all a buzz about our plant unit. Each day they come to school and check out the growth of their lima beans and grass. They journal about it and draw pictures of the plant growth.

 

 This is a lot of fun for them and the usage of the new vocabulary is wonderful!

School Spirit Winners!!!!

Who has spirit?

We have SPIRIT!

Our class had the most number of students wearing their school spirit shirts in Kindergarten and we received a popcorn party! Woo hoo! We enjoyed some delicious popcorn.

I want to thank all of the parents who purchased shirts this week. Your money is helping our PTO put on great activities for our students!

Math: Number Matching

A small group of students worked as a team to match numerals with dot cards. They were very quick and worked VERY hard! Way to go!

Science: Planting

Today in Science the class had a great time planting lima beans and grass seeds. Each student had two clear cups with soil. They planted a lima bean in one cup and some grass seed in the other.

We are going to chart and draw/label pictures in our Science Notebooks as we watch the plants grow. 

Planting seeds.

Here are photographs to help us document the growth of the lima beans and grass seeds.

We will monitor the plants daily and see which grows faster. The kids are really excited about this fun activity!

Math: Part-part Whole Mat

During Math, we are using different strategies to help solve story problems. This week we have been focusing on the part-part whole mat. Students find parts of the problems to plug into the mat. This then helps them visually see the story problem answer. 

We have use the actual paper mats and unifix cubes to manipulate story problems, but I noticed that when students saw a part-part whole mat on paper, they did not connect the two as being the same. So I decided we would use some white boards to help practice solving problems over and over and over.

Our goal is to get a base foundation in understanding the math behind the problem rather than just solve the algorithm. We practiced with simple problems: "There were 3 birds in a tree. 2 more birds flew to the tree. How many birds are in the tree now?" The kids could do this just fine. They saw that the 3 birds, plus 2 more birds equaled 5 birds altogether.

However, when we had a missing part, the kids struggled when asked to solve. The problems below show student work in solving the following problem: "There were SOME (missing part) butterflies at the garden. 5 more butterflies flew to the garden. Now there are 8 butterflies in all. How many butterflies were in the garden to begin with?" 

Students could not just put 5 and 8  on the two parts. They had to figure out that there was a missing part. We discussed the information the problem told us, decided how to solve it, and checked our work.

I am really impressed with this group of kids and their math abilities!

Science: Plant Nature Walk

This week we are learning about plants in Science. We are also discussing the differences and similarities of living & non-living things.

We went for a quick Nature Walk around the school to draw, label, and write about the different types of plants we could see. It was a perfect day to explore the outdoors.

Here are a couple pictures from our walk. I have such a great class!!!

The class liked sitting on the benches outside of our school to view the plants. We actually saws  few birds and insects that the kids drew since they are living things.

Dr. Seuss Reader

Thank you to January for coming to our classroom to read a very funny Dr. Seuss book. The kids thought that I Can Read With My Eyes Shut, is a hilarious book. Your expression and pacing was wonderful! Fully engaged and loving it!

Dr. Seuss: Horton Hatches an Egg

We read another Dr. Seuss book, Horton Hatches and Egg. The kids really liked the books and we made our own eggs with make-believe creatures hatching. The kids are so creative and enjoyed this activity.

Dr. Seuss: There's a Wocket in My Pocket

We read the book, There's a Wocket in my Pocket by Dr. Seuss. Then the kids got to make their own creature in a pocket and describe it.