Super Scientists

We recently completed a study of wood. During this unit, we were introduced to five different kinds of wood--pine, redwood, and basswood, which are made from nature, and plywood and particle board, which are made by man. We observed these wood samples and then explored ways that we could change them. We participated in several experiments with wood including a challenge to sink the pine and plywood and an opportunity to combine and separate sawdust and shavings and water. We also learned how to make plywood and practiced changing wood using sandpaper. We recorded our wood explorations in the show below. We hope you like it! Leave us a comment and let us know what you think! Thanks!

http://vimeo.com/118974450

One Hundred Days of School

This past week we celebrated the 100th Day of School! Can you believe that we have been in school for 100 days? Throughout the day we took pictures and made this show to give you a chance to see what fun and exciting things we did to celebrate the 100th day of school. We also created a movie where we told you what we have learned so far in 100 days of Kindergarten, and we sang our 100 Days of School song. Finally, we culminated our project based learning unit on the 100th Day of School by holding a fashion show. Our students dressed up in a t-shirt covered with 100 items. Then, they came to school and we showed them off by walking the red carpet in our creations. Here is a recording of this fun event. We hope you like it! Leave us a message and let us know what you think about our shows! Enjoy!

Here is a show from our exciting 100th Day of School:

http://vimeo.com/118965298

What did you learn in 100 days of Kindergarten?

One Hundred Days of School Song

See Fashion Show Here:

 https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_CGJElEYcj8QnVfeERyb0R6OWs/view?usp=sharing

Bear Day

This week we studied bears during our science unit. We learned nonfiction facts about bears such as where they live, what they like to eat, and what they look like. Then, we studied fiction stories such as Corduroy, Going on a Bear Hunt, and A Pocket for Corduroy. After listening to these stories, we were inspired to write our own adventure story for our bear. Below you can watch the recordings that we made of our stories and see pictures from our fun "Bear Day". During "Bear Day," we brought our bears to school and allowed them to learn alongside us for a whole school day. We also enjoyed a special "paw print in the snow" snack. Leave us a comment and let us know what you think about our special day!

Bear Day Pictures: https://animoto.com/play/jzPZ59aNb7YtBm7ls0O4zA

Bear Day Adventure Writings: http://vimeo.com/117692092

Merry Christmas!

Last week our Kindergartners took time to spread love and joy to our school community by creating handmade candy cane huggers and delivering them to our faculty and staff. We told each one of them how much we appreciated them and what they meant to us. Here is a show from our special day of spreading kindness to others. 

This week we have been studying Christmas and creating many different Christmas crafts in celebration of this holiday season. Some of our exciting projects included pinecone Christmas trees, cereal Christmas trees, Rudolph made using our feet and hands, and reindeer sandwiches. 

We also surprised Miss Todd with this movie where we told her what she should ask Santa to bring her for Christmas. This is super cute! I hope you enjoy it!

Finally, we culminated our study of Christmas this week by participating in Gingerbread House Day and by celebrating with a Christmas party!

I hope you all enjoyed our Gingerbread House Day and our Christmas party! Here is a show and some pictures from these events! Special thanks to our room moms for all of the hard work that they put into our party! The kids had a wonderful time! I hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! See you in January!

Amazing Artists

We have been so very blessed this semester to have been given the gift of art lessons from our PTA here at Watson! So far our Kindergartners have had the privilege of participating in four art classes with Mrs. Fox. Here are some pictures and a description of what we have learned during each lesson.

Our first lesson was about the beauty of abstract art and the study of lines. We learned about the different types of lines that you can create such as horizontal lines, parallel lines, vertical lines, wavy lines, dotted lines, etc. Then, we used Sharpies to make our own line creations on white paper. The next step in this lesson involved adding color to our pictures. We used crayons to fill in our lines, leaving white spaces for paint to fill in later. Finally, we put the finishing touches on our art by doing a crayon resist wash with paint over the top of our drawings. Here are some pictures from our exciting lesson and our finished products.

For our second lesson, we studied organic and traditional shapes. We talked about how traditional shapes include things like circles, squares, triangles, and rectangles. Organic shapes include items found in nature such as leaves, clouds, birds, etc. After our discussion, we had the chance to create a picture using these two types of shapes. We cut paper and shaped it into a unique picture all our own. Here are some pictures from this process and our finished products. 

Our third lesson included a study of the color wheel where we learned about primary and secondary colors. We also learned how you can make new colors when you mix these colors together. We used a coffee filter and cut it into a beautiful snowflake that was just as unique as we are! Then, we used food coloring to add color to our snowflakes. First, we sprayed them with water and dropped food coloring on them. Then, we folded them and blotted them in order to mix our colors and form new colors like the ones on the color wheel. Finally, we allowed them to dry and backed them on black paper. Here are some exciting pictures from our lesson and of our finished colorful snowflakes. 

Finally, for our fourth and final art lesson of the semester, we learned about the beauty of self portraits and how paying special attention to facial features and adding detail to your drawing can make your pictures more life like. We also learned about the art of adding texture to your drawings and how texture can make your drawings more interesting. Here are some pictures from this session and our final products. 

I have been very impressed with everything that my students have learned in our art classes. They have had a wonderful time and have really expanded their creativity through these art sessions. Thank you to our PTA for providing these experiences for our Kindergartners! You are greatly appreciated!