Towers of Power

As a way to prepare our students for our STEAM challenge, we allowed them to explore with different building materials this week. They were allowed the opportunity to build tall towers out of legos, wooden blocks, foam blocks, alphabet blocks, linking cubes, and jenga blocks. We called this our tower challenge and encouraged them to see just how high their tower could go! Their towers were quite impressive! Check them out below along with a video of their hard work!

Our Kindergarten students then participated in a STEAM challenge (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) where they built tall towers. They were grouped in partners and given fifty dixie cups, one yard of tape, and a pair of scissors. Then, they were allowed to be creative and work together for twenty minutes to build the tallest tower. We all started this challenge at the same time and completed this challenge without any adult assistant. I was impressed with their hard work and determination! There was a lot of critical thinking and active problem solving going on as they worked together to build their towers. We have included some pictures and video from our challenge below. Leave us a comment and let us know what you think about our towers.

I am proud to announce that these amazing boys were our STEAM challenge winners! They will represent us in the district competition!

Shape Monster and Shape Hunt

During our math unit on shapes, our Kindergarten students enjoyed a poem about a Shape Monster.  They liked it so much that we decided to create our own shape monsters! They had the opportunity to invent their own shape monster using art supplies. Check out their unique shape monsters below!

Finally, our Kindergartners went around the school building and took pictures of circles, squares, triangles, and rectangles using the Ipad2s. They had a wonderful time and found many places that unique shapes were hidden. What kinds of shapes can you find at home? Leave us a comment and tell us what you think!

Properties: A Study of Similarities and Differences

This week we completed a  study of attributes or characteristics of an item. We practiced describing an item and finding the similarities and differences between items. You can view our ball description activity where we used describing words to talk about different types of balls. We made a tree map of their properties. Then, we participated in a mystery box game where the students had to reach into a box without looking and choose an item. Then, the children paired up and told how their item was similar/different from their friend's item. Finally,  I have included a picture of our attribute train activity where our students had to find a shape and tell how it was similar to the shape that the student had laid down before them. They could find it to be similar in color, size, thickness, shape, etc.

Grandparents' Day

In honor of Grandparents' Day, we created some special hand made art projects to share with our families. We made a special decoupage jar of hugs and kisses, a super cute poem with handprint art, and a tissue paper apple.  We also presented a sweet Grandparents' Day Musical Moment for our visitors where we sang some very special songs to our precious grandparents. Our slide show below includes the music that we sang to them today and pictures from our event. We are so very thankful to all of our grandparents who attended! We hope you had a wonderful time! If you were unable to attend, check out our pictures and videos from today. We missed you, and hope that you enjoy our show! Leave us a comment and let us know what you thought of our fun day together!

https://vimeo.com/139755663

Nouns

We have been studying nouns this week in Kindergarten. We have learned that a noun is a person, place, or thing. We participated in a movement game where we sorted ourselves into three categories around the room based on what picture we had pulled from a noun pile. Then, our students had the opportunity to go around the school and find items that were nouns. Finally, they we able to move their pictures into a Keynote presentation for you to enjoy here on the blog. Let us know what you think about our show by leaving a comment.  Enjoy our pictures from our movement game, as well.

Third Week Highlights

We have been studying about our community helpers. First, we began our project based learning unit with an engaging entry event where we used our classroom puppets to act out going to work, earning money, and using our money to buy something that we need. Then, we had an opportunity to meet some of our community helpers and learn about their jobs. Check out our pictures of our special guests below! Our students also created a Keynote presentation which shows them dressed up as the community helper that they hope to be in the future.

Hi Ho! Song and Entry Event

Purchasing our needs with our earned money

Meeting our Community Helpers:

Our School Nurse--Nurse Christie

Our Principal--Mr. Grey

Our Firefighter Friends

https://vimeo.com/139047643

Our Police Officer Friends

We made police belts so that we could be police officers too!

When we grow up we want to be...