Merry Christmas!

 

    Murphy and Tommy wish you a "paws-itively" merry Christmas!

Christmas Party

Camo for Cans

Mrs. Heiting, our counselor, always comes up with fun ways to promote giving!  This time her idea was "Camo for Cans."  We were encouraged to bring a can of food which would be donated to the food bank and to wear camo.  Here we are in all our camo:

Here are our cans!  We were pleased with the amount we collected!

Field Trip to the Children's Museum

Today, we went on a field trip to the Children's Museum, saw the train station, the Christmas trees, and Gingerbread houses.  I'm positive the kids had as much fun had they ridden the bus around Midland!  This was the first time many had ridden on a bus!  Watch the photo story below and see all the fun we had!

Tis the Season

When walking down our kindergarten hall, you'll be greeted by lots of colorful kindergarten work.  Pictures of elves, Santas, Christmas trees, Rudolph, and Gingerbread Men made from a variety of construction paper shapes are arranged in a quilt-like pattern on one wall.  The children observed and listened then cut, arranged, and glued the shapes on paper.  Below are Christmas trees the children made by tracing, cutting, and decorating.  On each tree is a sentence written by a child.  I typed the sentence, cut it apart, and had the child arrange and glue it on the tree.  After Christmas, the trees will be made into a class book.     
 

Below is the work beside Mrs. Brandt's door.  The children in her class colored, cut out, and ordered candy canes from the smallest to the largest.   On the other side of the classroom door is a fireplace displaying letters that the children wrote to Santa.  It's fun to watch the 4 classes of kindergarten kids walk by the fireplace and "warm" their hands!      


Next to the fireplace are the Gingerbread men.  The children painted the men then added trim using glitter.  Further down the hall, outside Mrs. Harmon's room, is a display of more Gingerbread men and sentences arranged on Christmas trees.  These trees were also traced, cut out and decorated but with markers.   The Gingerbread men were in a puzzle format, colored, cut out, then arranged before gluing onto paper.  


The last display is outside Mrs. Fisher's room.  The children made a candy cane shape with a red, green, and white pattern.  The candy canes are bright and show up well against the black paper they are arranged on.  The candy canes surround Santa's head upon which is written a letter asking for a variety of items.  The children had to color, cut out, and put together Santa's face and his hat before writing their letter.        

Our hallway walls display a variety of colorful, interesting, and creative holiday work.  You are sure to see many items that will put you in the holiday spirit!!

Party Hair

O.K.  I've already mentioned how much I love these kids!  Some of my goals for these kids includes learning to enjoy life and having a good time while doing so, getting along with others (be nice), loving to read, and then all the other regular academic stuff!   I try to make learning fun so that the kids are learning without always realizing it.  Other loves of mine includes my dogs, you probably already know that!  I include 2 of my dogs in a lot of the classroom activity.  I  received a fun video through Facebook and since it showed Golden Retrievers, I sent the video to my e-mail account at school so I could show the kids.  I'm posting it below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pla3ZJHb-rA 
The song is performed by the group Troutfishing in America which is a fun group performing music for people who take their fun seriously!  To learn more about the group, click here:  http://www.troutmusic.com/           
The video gave me the idea of having the kids draw their head after the hair had a party in it and below is the result!  Hope you have as much fun watching as we had creating! 

 

A Blessed Thanksgiving

 

May you have a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration with your family and fully realize the blessings we have in our country!

Vision and Hearing Screening

All of the kindergarten kids received a hearing and vision screening today.  If the screeners noticed anything out of the ordinary, parents were notified and encouraged to take their child for further assessment.  It was fun for the kids to see the others raise their hands to indicate a sound heard.  The kids knew what they themselves were doing, they just hadn't thought of what they looked like doing the motions!  Here's a friend listening to sounds....he has great ears!!

This one raises his right arm indicating his right ear hears the beep.  Another example of great hearing!

Our school nurse, Mrs. Cordero, helped with the vision part.  This friend covers his right eye so that his left one can be tested and indicates which way the E is facing.  The E has been around a long, long time.  I remember doing it when I was little!!          

This sweetie steps up, covers her right eye, and prepares to show which way the E faces.

We are finished!  Our ears and eyes are doing the jobs they're supposed to!  Now it's time to relax!!  What a bunch of sillies!!

Artists

Below are some watercolor turkeys, pumpkins, farm landscapes, and a construction paper scarecrow created by our resident artists.  Please be sure to come to our hallway every few weeks in order to see the marvelous display of outstanding, creative artwork.  I love to display their work, it adds so much to our hallway.  Not  only do the kids paint, draw, and create, but also write about what they made!  There's been a lot of growth in the area of confidence in the quality of work.  The kids have been encouraged to compliment their friends on their work, too.  We spend time talking about an atmosphere of encouragement and building each other up; put downs and disparaging remarks are not allowed.  I'm sure many of you all remember hearing your mother say  "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all"  and these kindergartners hear it from me, too!   I'm pleased with all the kind compliments I hear going around!!  I hope you enjoy looking at a few examples of art:

Sailing the Mayflower

We've been talking about the Pilgrims, coming to new, unknown land on the Mayflower, and their life in early America.   We read some books which described the journey to America, being sick and crowded on the Mayflower, then shared our ideas about the trip.  We compared sailing on the Mayflower to travel on a modern day cruise-type ship and how both were powered.  The kids came up with some questions and we decided to make and sail our own "Mayflowers" (styrofoam, straws, paper) on the "Atlantic Ocean" (Murphy and Tommy's pool!).  

The kids created their ships out of styrofoam (the ship), straws (the mast), and sails (paper).  They took turns "sailing" on the Atlantic Ocean.  The ships were powered by wind, strong, gusty winds which capsized the ships and gentle breezes which moved the ships along.

The height of the mast varied from ship to ship and the kids observed how each ship sailed as a result.  The ships with taller masts tipped over easily and were sent back to the shipyard for adjustment.....the child pulled off the mast, cut some off, and had me hot glue it to the ship!  They also observed the size of the sail.  The ships with bigger sails caught the "wind" and moved better than the ships with smaller sails.  They were able to figure out why the Mayflower had so many sails!          

The kids also noticed what happened when the ship had no sail....it didn't move well!

 
Leaning way over so her wind can move her ship along.


Discovering that without a sail, his ship doesn't move very far. The kids enjoyed experimenting to see how ships use the power of wind.  We had no sailors overboard in this activity!

Math Night

 
Tonight was math night and what a fun night for our Greathouse families!  Math night was designed to show parents a variety of math activities the children have in the pre-k through the 6th grade classrooms.  The teachers provided activities, games, books, and examples of problems the students have on a daily basis.  Below is our school counselor, Mrs. Heiting, posing with a kindergartner.  She is promoting the college-bound idea the district supports and the two are standing in front of the college pennant/team mascot display outside the office.  At this point, this one is still undecided as to where he'll attend college! 

Each grade level had a graph which asked each person's participation.  Below is a picture of the kindergarten graph.  This graph asked "What is Your Favorite Color?"  Each person wrote his/her name on a sticky note and put it in the appropriate column.  These sisters pose for a picture after adding their sticky notes.

Below are several of the graphs different grade levels had:



Here's  a kindergarten kid posing by the kindergarten graph.  He loves having his picture taken!

Now they are using a clock to make different times.  When he moves the big hand (minute hand), he can see how the little hand (hour hand) moves.

Playing a file folder addition game.  After he adds 2 numerals, he has to put each frog on the lily pad showing that number.  He was so proud to get all the problems correct....what a smarty!



Each grade level also had a estimation jar.  The jars were filled with different treats and everyone had a chance to put their estimate of the number of items on a piece of paper along with their name.  The "winner" of each jar will be announced the next morning during the daily announcements.   Here are sisters giving their best estimate.....good luck, girls!      


Below are the prizes to be won by 2 lucky kids!  Who will it be?!!

Autumn Leaves are Falling Down

I brought back several items from my Ohio trip, items I thought the kids might not see around here.  Here are the items....buckeye nuts:


rocks from a limestone quarry:


cattails:


field corn:


and a variety of leaves from Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas in which the kids posed.....I don't think too many allergies were stirred up! 
 

Happy Haunting!

 
Tommy and Murphy wish all their friends a fun and safe Halloween!!

Wordless Wednesday