Today we continued our unit on the Polar Express. We read the story Christmas Kitten and compared the gift that the boy got (the bell) as the first gift of Christmas in the Polar Express and the gift Sophie got (a kitten) in Christmas Kitten. Based on the story Christmas Kitten we guessed on what we thought Sophie would have picked as the first gift of Christmas. Then we wrote about what we would pick.
During read to self, students read the emergent reader Santa Has.. and filled in the blank line with the word ‘has’ and drew the picture of what the sentence said Santa had.
For math & art students completed a cut and paste puzzle that matched numbers with their number word. Students then colored the picture showing The Polar Express and the conductor.
We learned about graphs last week and how to analyze data. We wrote about what we wanted to be for Halloween and drew a picture on a pumpkin cut out. Then students took their pumpkin and put their pumpkin into one of three categories; fun, scary, or superhero. Then students fill out their own individual graphs and describe which category is greatest, and which group is fewer.
We read the story The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams and to help us tell the story we used musical instruments. For the shoes we used a woodblock, tambourine for the pants, maracas for the shirt, castanets for the gloves, and rhythm sticks for the hat. During free choice centers students got to retell the story on their own using the instruments.
During math students did a roll and draw to draw a scarecrow like the scarecrow in the story and learned the shapes that they drew. They added details to the picture after they drew the scarecrow.
Students also made paper plate jack-o-lanterns like the scarecrow face during art time and part of free choice center time.
The month of October is fire safety month so we have been learning what to do if there is ever a fire, as well things that we shouldn’t play with. We started on Monday with fire safety related literacy & math centers from Having Fun in Primary. There were also a few centers from Home School Creations.
We discussed how there are things that are not safe for kids to touch or play with, we then sorted pictures into two categories ‘safe to touch‘ and ‘not safe to touch‘. During free choice centers students got to sort the pictures on their own, working with a partner.
Finally today we read the story Stop Drop and Roll by Margery Cuyler and made a firetruck craft courtesy of Miss-Kindergarten.
This week is color week and we are having lots of fun with different colors! We read the story Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Bill Martin Jr & Eric Carle. We retold the story by creating paper bag puppets of the brown bear with the other animal characters in the story. You can get the paper bag puppets from Mrs. Ricca’s Kindergarten.
During math workshop there were activities that help students our to read color words, number words, and help students with their number recognition. Most of these activities come from the Moffatt Girls October No Prep packet.
Finally for our science experiment; students learned the word hypothesis and how to make a guess on what might happen as a result of an experiment. We took drops of a couple of colors in whole milk. Then we dipped Q-Tips in dish soap and then dipped the Q-Tips in the milk with the food coloring. The dish soap pushed the colors away and turned the colors tie die. The lesson plan can be found here.
This week we started our apples unit and began the unit by reading the story Ten Apples up on Top by Theo. LeSeig. Then students picked a number and made a cut and paste art project that illustrated how many apples they can count up on top of their head.
We read the story Christmas Cookies and discussed vocabulary such as the word tradition. We also made a list of our Christmas traditions.
Then we wrote Christmas math stories about making gingerbread cookies, then we made Christmas ornaments using tempura paint.
