Interesting Insects

This week we have been studying about insects. We learned that an insect has three body parts: a head, a thorax, and an abdomen. They also have two antennas, two wings, and six legs. Ask us to sing our song about insects. It is sure to put a smile on your face and help you to never forget these facts about insects! During our lessons this week, we read a lot of fascinating books about insects. We were especially impressed with Eric Carle's collection of insect stories. One of our favorites was The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  We enjoyed this story so much we decided to act it out for you. You can watch it right here! Leave us a comment and let us know what you think about our show!

https://vimeo.com/159574837

After hearing this story, we also learned about the life cycle of a butterfly by reading some nonfiction stories about butterflies. In order to help us remember the different stages of a butterfly's life, we used pasta to make these butterfly life cycle plates. Aren't they neat!

Finally, we took some time to make our own insect creations. You can see them in the show below! Don't forget to leave us a comment and let us know what you think of our cool creations!

https://animoto.com/play/gvCv2QT70pZbu1H1iWUvTQ

Positional Words, Subtraction Stories, Amazing Advertisements, and St. Patrick's Day!

What a busy week back from Spring Break we have had! This week during our reading lessons we have been studying about positional words (prepositional phrases). Through exciting and sometimes silly games and songs we have been learning about top/middle/bottom, over/under/on, and left/right. Check out our show below and see all the fun things that we have been up to this week. Be aware...you just might find yourself humming along!

https://vimeo.com/159876465

(Featured songs or games include: a rousing rendition of Top, Middle, and the Bottom, a "Roll a Dice" game with Over/Under/On, and a chance to kick along to the "Cupid Shuffle" while learning left/right.) We also enjoyed doing the Hokey Pokey, while learning about left and right. Here we are in action:

After learning all about positional words, we had the opportunity to create our own video using some of these words on the Chatterpix app. We were able to take our own picture and choose a sticker to place on our picture. Then, the app allowed us to record ourselves telling where we had put the sticker. Our show turned out really funny! You should check it out!

In math, we continued our study of the Singapore Math model drawing process. This week we focused on subtraction strategies. We learned that subtraction means that you are removing something from a group and then counting to see how many are left over, after they have been removed. Once we practiced the subtraction model drawing process, we impressed Miss Todd by creating our own subtraction problems. Here are some of our problems that we created and solved ourselves:

In reading, we were introduced to media which includes advertisements from magazines and newspapers. We talked about how an item that is media is something that you can get information from. We also learned how ads use different strategies in their media to persuade you to buy their product. These strategies include the use of a variety of colors, fonts, and engaging pictures. After learning about media, we had the chance to create our own ads and persuade our classmates to buy our products. Here are some of our amazing ads: (Watch out! They may make you hungry!)

Finally, we enjoyed celebrating St. Patrick's Day with our friends this week! We dressed in green and had the chance to sort and graph Skittles in honor of this fun holiday. Here are some sweet pictures of our fun day! Enjoy! Leave us a comment and let us know what you thought about our exciting week in Kindergarten.

Dr. Suess Week

This week we celebrated Dr. Suess's Birthday and the wonderful literature that he has contributed to our world! Some of the highlights from our week included dressing up for Dr. Suess Day and creating hats to match the Cat in the Hat. Here are some pictures from our fun day:

https://animoto.com/play/WkeQQWBGB7XP64vBRp96uw

We also had a very special visitor this week! Our very own Dr. Brown came to Kindergarten to celebrate Dr. Suess Day! He shared, Mr. Brown Can Moo Can You with us. Check out how talented he is:

Each day this week we explored Dr. Suess's books throughout our lessons. Here are some of the fun books we studied and the activities we did with them:

During our study of the Cat in the Hat, we created a book where we reviewed our color words by illustrating the different colors of the Cat in the Hat's hats. He even had a silly hat filled with many colors! Do you know which hat was his favorite? The red one! I wonder why?

Then, we studied the Lorax where we talked about the importance of taking care of our Earth. We then took time to go outside and clean up any trash that we saw on our playground. We want to help keep our Earth clean so that we can enjoy it for many years to come!

Another great book that we enjoyed was, I Can Read with My Eyes Shut. After enjoying this story, we made our own Dr. Suess character. Here are some of our unique creations: 

In Math this week, we explored One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish. We then used this book to sort and graph goldfish and write our own addition problems. 

We also reviewed sequencing numbers to ten by reading Ten Apples Up on Top and then created our own self portrait with ten apples on top of our head.

In Science, we read Put Me in the Zoo and then used this story to label the parts of an animal.

We also enjoyed, Horton Hears a Who! Then, we reviewed using our science tool, the hand lens, and used it to match a large picture to the smaller one that looked just like it.

Finally, we read Bartholomew and the Oobleck and had the opportunity to create and explore real live oobleck. Would you want to play with oobleck? Check out our video and see what you think!

https://vimeo.com/157796696