Kindergarten Visits the Giant Map

We had a great four day week getting back into the swing of things after six days off for Thanksgiving. The kids were so excited to share what they did over the Thanksgiving Break. Today we enjoyed our visit to the traveling National Geographic North America Giant Map. A special thanks to our PTA for helping fund part of the project with a grant.

Our map in the classroom looked big until we saw the giant
map in the MPR.  We learned about maps and located our
relatives across the country on our classroom map.

After reading Me On The Map, we created our own maps. 

Each student made a map of their house or the classroom.

After our morning of map activities we got to visit the giant map.
Kindergartners could not believe how big the map was!  We all
took off our shoes so we would not damage the map.

First, we found New Hampshire.  It looked so small!

We found our families who live on the West Coast...

...and we found our families who live on the East Coast.

Tristan found where he used to live in Hawaii.

We swam in the Atlantic Ocean.

We discovered the North Pole. You can imagine how
excited they were to find the North Pole in December?!

We found rivers....

....and lakes!

We also practiced using the compass to move North,
South, East and West.  We had a blast.
Thank You PTA!

Happy Thanksgiving

Our class has really enjoyed learning about Thanksgiving.  We've been busy writing about what we are thankful for, learning about the Pilgrims and Native Americans and playing Thanksgiving math games.  We have also read many fiction and nonfiction books about Thanksgiving and discussed the difference between fiction and nonfiction writing. Today our class took the stage at the student showcase to lead our school in the Pledge of Allegiance and a poem we learned, The Turkey is a Funny Bird.  They did a fantastic job! We are close to getting the go ahead to make videos in the classroom again (thanks for returning the new video permission forms)...we can't wait to show you all that we are working on in our classroom.

Enjoy the time off! Happy Thanksgiving!

Lots and lots of feathers were a popular choice
for decorating our turkeys!

We worked together to make our turkeys.

The excitement was building all week.

Ready to paint!

We worked hard on our cards for our families...

Kindergartners can't wait to share their cards with you!

This bunch did a wonderful job at the student showcase today!

Busy Kindergarten Days

It was wonderful meeting with everyone during conferences. We have been unbelievably busy is kindergarten...time flies when you are having fun! Here's a peek into our last few weeks....

We've been working with Mrs. Alibrandi who is filling
in for our tech integrator, Mrs. Locke.  She has helped us
to create our own I See Book using the app Book Creator.
Each kindergartner created their own page by taking a picture
and typing their own sentence.

We have loved playing new math games during math centers.
Here we needed to count the number of dots on dominos and
put them on the corresponding number cards.

Anthony and Tyler work together at a math station.

An important part of our writing time is closing our lessons
with the author share chair.  Kindergartners have loved sharing
their writing with their peers.

Sharing their work is an important park of the writing process.
Everyone who would like to share gets a turn!

Thanks to Chief Mumford of the Hopkinton Fire Department
for teaching us all about fire safety.The rest of his crew
was called to an emergency so we had him all to ourselves.

Our class was able to explore the different parts of the fire truck.

We know how to keep ourselves safe if there is ever a fire!

Our librarians came to our class to introduce this
year's NH Lady Bug Book nominees. As always, they
performed a book from the list in costumes.  Here they are reading
Flight School by Lita Judge.   Check out a full list of the books up
 for the award here. Lady Bug books Once our class has read all
of the books, we will vote for our favorites in December.

All of our hard work with the Artist in Residence paid off when
we got to to see the beautiful mural we made together unveiled.
All HMS students were very proud of the mosaics that they helped to create.

We all enjoyed incorporating a lot of math into carving
our class pumpkin. Here students place their vote for what
type of face our class pumpkin should have by writing their name
in the graph.

We estimated our pumpkin's weight and circumference
before carving it.  It was lots of fun!

Our class has taken advantage of the beautiful weather.
Here we are collecting acorns for an upcoming Sink
 or Float experiment.

This bunch loves to explore and we are so lucky
to have the space to do just that!

Kindergarten Writers and Scientists

This week we turned into writers!! I LOVE the writing process in kindergarten.  Our writing at this point of the year is made up of the high frequency words that we are learning and inventive spelling.  In kindergarten, we write words the way that they sound...which is perfectly okay! We practice stretching out the words to hear as many sounds as we can in each word.  At the beginning of the year, teachers rotate around the classroom and help students to stretch out the words that they need to sound out.  Soon, their confidence as writers will grow and they will begin to stretch and sound words out on their own.  This week we wrote every morning and you can already see a difference!  We discussed the difference between words and letters, why we need to use spaces between words and using an ending mark like a period. This week each kindergartner began writing their own "I See" book.  Check out these examples of kindergarten writing in October...

I see ghosts.

I see Batman.

I see pumpkins.

We are so lucky that Mrs. Maynard is kind enough to come and read to us in kindergarten.  For many students it was fun to see a familiar face from the town library.  For other students it was a great introduction to meet our town librarian, Mrs. Maynard. Mrs. Maynard will be back to read again next month.  Usually in January we take a trip to the town library to get our very own library card...always one of the highlights of kindergarten.

Mrs. Maynard reads in kindergarten.

We had a beautiful afternoon to go outside and observe some of the signs of Fall.  Our class really enjoyed exploring in the woods which makes me think they will love snowshoeing this winter!  Each kindergartner kept track of what they found using a scavenger hunt checklist.  It was a perfect afternoon!

Ready to begin...

Parker and Tristan work together.

There were many signs of Fall in the woods and on the playground.

There was also plenty of silliness.

Some of the hardest things to spot on the checklist were birds.
We had to wait patiently and quietly to see one.

Everyone loved being outside.

More silliness. Who doesn't love kindergarten??

We enjoyed our time working with our artist in residence, Ms Lizz.  She taught us about the art of mosaics.  We all worked on the mosaics by placing pieces of glass to help create a picture. We tried to get the pieces of glass to fit together.  It was just like a puzzle!  The art for the murals were created by older students.  The murals will be on display soon.

Ms. Lizz gives us the final directions before working on the mural.

We worked on the mural in small groups while the
rest of the class worked on the rug.

We looked for pieces of glass that fit together like
a puzzle.

Max and Makayla work as a team.

Amelia and Kameron work to fill the background
with pieces of glass.

We've been having a ton of fun growing as a community. I look forward to meeting with all of you during parent conferences.  I will send home a reminder for your conference time this week.