Have a wonderful break!

Mrs. Parnell and Mrs. Hoyt wish everyone a wonderful break and a Happy New Year!  Be sure to write in your new journals!  Let us know about what you do during your time away from school.  Make sure you are reading every day.  We will be looking forward to getting back to work and learning about creatures in the ocean in January!

Polar Express Day

What a wonderful time we had celebrating our Polar Express Day!  Clad in our pjs(students and staff), we met on the stage of the cafeteria with our stuffed, fury friends, for a special reading of The Polar Express.  Mr. Lyons, clad in his pj's too, read to us!  Then back to Room 101 we went for a wide variety of fun activities.  We re-created an image of the Polar Express train with ink and stamps, built beaded candy canes, guessed the contents of the mystery stocking, played the dreidel game, made festive frames, and more!  Our afternoon was topped of with a special viewing of the movie version of our theme for the day!

Our lesson was Electrifying!

Mrs. Parnell shared an enlightening lesson about electricity!  Thanks to hands on resources from the Science Center we were able to test various items to see if they are conductors or non-conductors(insulators).  Then we created electrical circuits! ( A lot like a circle!) We created light and sound.  Be sure to check with your child and ask him/her about the fun we had this week testing out the ways electricity works!

The Hedgies Came to visit!

Clementine and Luna, mother and daughter hedgehogs from the Burlington Science Center visited room 101 with Ms. P. today!  Ms. P was invited to share her friends as a tie in to the Jan Brett stories we have been reading.  We learned that of all the animals that climbed into Nikki's mitten in Brett's story, "The Mitten", the hedgehog is the only animal whose habitat is not in the United States.
Students told Ms. P that hedgies are mammals and are nocturnal.  Ms. P told us that in addition to eating fruits and other foods like lizards and mice, hedgies are insectivores............they really like to eat bugs and insects.
Since we are so big, and sort of loud, we scared the hedgies.  Clementine and Luna showed us what they do to protect themselves when they are scared.  They rolled into a ball, they showed their quills and they made noises.

Mother Ginger Dance!

Nutcracker Dancers

Today we learned to dance two of the dances from Act II of the Nutcracker!  Watch us as we practice the dance of the Spanish Chocolates and Arabian Coffee.  See the snake dance it's way out of the basket.  Mrs. Hoyt and Mrs. Parnell were very impressed at how well they did after 15 minutes of practicing.  Experiencing the dance will better prepare us to appreciate and understand the ballet when we go next week!  Imagine how great they will be after we learn and practice a little more!

Welcome Chloe!

Our class is growing!  Yesterday Chloe joined our class!  She recently moved to Town and is fitting right in!  As we begin to prepare for December lessons and our Nutcracker Dancing we will get to know Chloe and make her feel welcome.

Our Animal Research Project

During the months of October and November we learned about animals and animal families.  With the help from Mr. Callahan and Mrs. D'Elia of the LTC at Pine Glen we researched and produced the above video!

Animal Families we saw at the zoo......

Thanksgiving 3

Thanksgiving Singing 2

Thanksgiving Singing 1

Feast and Sing a long

Kindergarteners gathered to celebrate Thanksgiving today.  We dressed up, sang songs and then feasted together.  EAch student was clad in the costume of their choice and ate at their homemade woven placemat.

Be sure to watch for the large bag of project heading home with your child today.  It contains many items that we worked on during the month of November.  The Native American board game can be a fun addition to your family celebration on Thursday.

Mrs. Parnell and Mrs. Hoyt wish everyone a Happy and restful Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Preparations

The students in Room 101 have been learning a lot about the Native Americans and the Pilgrims.  We have discussed why the Pilgrims wanted to journey to live in America and their desire for religious freedom.  Through various stories we learned about the struggles of building a new life in their new home and all the work they had to do.
Last week we even practiced being Pilgrim children for a short while.  Did you know that Pilgrim boys and girls did not have a seat at the meal table.  They were to stand and eat.......and not speak to anyone unless an adult addressed them!  It was a quieter than typical lunch for room 101.
We also explored the Native Americans.  Depending upon which part of the country they lived, their homes were quite different.  We have created replicas of teepees, plank houses and wigwams and have also learned about Adobe homes.
A highlight of our learning to make costumes for ourselves to look like Native American and Pilgrim children.  After a recent fashion show in which the students viewed what the costumes will look like on, they each voted upon what they would like to wear for Tuesday's feast!  Our models are pictured below.

HELP !- Supplies Needed!

Help! - Room 101 is in need of various supplies.

- Brown, handles paper bags are used for many project.  Over then next several weeks each student will need at least 3.  And then in the spring we may need more.  If you have bags from a store like Trader Joe's please think of us.  Students need them to bring projects home next week. 

- We can always use more Wet Ones hand wipes as we use them at lunch and for sticky fingers in the classroom.

Thank you!

Welcome Jensen!

Room 101 welcomed a new student to our class today.  Jensen was welcomed as our 13th boy in the classroom.  We are excited to share all we have been doing and are eager to get to know our new friend and classmate!

Room 101 is going Batty!

One of the animals we learned about this month was the bat!  It seemed appropriate and fun to learn about this nocturnal animal given the Halloween season!  AND, like Ms. Frizzle in the Magic School Bus books, we went Batty!

Actually, we made Bat hats to wear along with our Candy Corn Necklaces!

On Wednesday, dressed in our festive attire we celebrated by watching a presentation by Ms. P on owls and then did some Halloween writing and math.  We did a candy corn worksheet, finished our Halloween How Many? books and then practiced ordinal numbers with some ghosts!

It was spooktacular!

Wildselves??

As one of our culminating and fun activities for our animal unit we visited the computer lab and created our wildselves.  What this means is we used a software program to incorporate different animal family characteristic into a new wild animal that each student created.  The catch was the students were to share what traits they were adding and to which animal that trait would be attributed.

The resulting creatures are awesome!

Thank you Mr. Callahan for welcoming us into the computer lab for our first visit.  It was awesome!

Schreeching Good Time!

Ms. P. of the Burlington Public Schools science center paid a visit to the Pine Glen kindergartners this week.   She brought an Eastern Screech Owl named Cricket.  We learned all about owls.  They are in the bird family, are nocturnal and do not really like people to touch them.  Cricket is special because she likes to live at the science center.  She was injured and unable to return to her natural habitat of New England forests. 

We learned about the owl's eyes, feathers and neck.  Did you know that an owl has twice as many neck bones as a human?!  That is how an owl can turn its neck nearly 360*.   Ms. P played a CD with the many different sounds that different species of owls make. 

Zoo Trip

Zoo TripClick here to see zoo trip pictures!

Zoo Trip

Zoo Trip

 Some of the animals seemed to smile at us............
















......others did not!

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Zoo Trip

Zoo TripClick here to see some of the animals at the Franklin Park Zoo!

Ms. Horton helps us with Fundations!

You may have heard your son/daughter talking about different teachers who are in and out of our classroom.

Ms. Horton is an RTI tutor who works with the kindergarten.  Sometimes she does reinforcement games or activities and other days she helps us with journal writing and soon will be helping with reading groups.

Word Quiz Tomorrow

Room 101's first word quiz will be held tomorrow!  We have been practicing in class and hope everyone has been practicing at home.  This afternoon we played a flashcard game in which we wanted to be the fasted to read the word.  Assessment will be given in two forms.  Students will be asked to read the words to a teacher and students will be asked to write the words as they are dictated.  Mrs. Parnell and Mrs. Hoyt want to make sure everyone can both recognize and read the word as well as spell and write the word.

We were very impressed with how well everyone did this afternoon!

First Ever Science Night at Pine Glen!

Animal Family Research

Mrs. D'Elia visited us in our classroom this morning to help us with a new project.  We are researching animals to create a dictionary of animals.  In order to make the book we need to find out about each animal by searching for evidence about which animal family each animal belongs to.

Today we learned how to better use the books and resources available to us.  Mrs. D'Elia taught us about the title page, the table of contents and the index.  AND we learned that not only can we search for information in a book, but we can use applications on the iPad and look through magazines and articles.

We will be working more with Mrs. D'Elia and Mr. Callahan as we create an electronic presentation of our research!

Fundations Fun!

 

Fundations is Fun!

In addition to practicing our letter identification with Echo the Owl, we play many games to help reinforce the connection between the letters in the alphabet, the sounds each letter make and how to write each letter. 

Recently  we have taken turns being the leader and instructing each other on the sound of given letters.  Other times we use our dry erase boards or magnetic letter boards.

This week we played a puzzle matching game with the letters we have covered thus far............t, b, f, n, m, c, a, i, r.

Ms. May visits us for 2nd Step

 

Ms. May has been visiting us on Tuesday mornings to lead the 2nd Step program. We have been exploring emotions and feelings.  "Be Calm Bunny" has assisted us with sharing and listening politely.  Ask your child about the song, "Everyone has Feelings."

 

 

Which ones are mammals?

 

On Thursday and Friday this week we did some animal family sorting with Beanie Babies!  In order to do this job we need to know the characteristics of each animal family.  Like which animals have backbones, which animals lay eggs and which ones have live babies.  We discuss how the baby animals are fed and if the animals are warm or cold blooded.................ask your child what it means to be warm blooded.  The largest pile we made was the mammals.  Mrs. Parnell has 137 mammal beanie babies!  What animal family do we humans belong to?

 

 

Cornsnake's Lunch

 Today we observed the cornsnake eat a mouse.  It was pretty impressive to see how wide it opened it's mouth to swallow the mouse whole.

Equally impressive was how quiet and attentively we all sat to watch!  "It was cool!" was the concensus of both the kindergarteners and the teachers.

The Creepy Crawlies Have Arrived!

On Friday, Ms. P. from the Burlington School Dept. Science center arrived with various animals for us to explore and learn about.  Our new visitors are a cornsnake named Micahn, Hairy-ette the Rose-Hair tarantula and a group of Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches.  The boys and girls were very excited to see and touch the animals.  We discussed their size, nutritional needs, characteristics and natural habitats.  Be sure to ask your child which animals are cold-blooded, why farmers like cornsnakes, and how many body parts the spider has.

Photos of Life in Room 101

Happy Birthday! - Room 101 celebrates birthdays with the presentation of a special birthday book of poems!

Miss May, Pine Glen's Guidance Counselor likes to visit room 101 and often jumps in to work with students!

We love exploring with manipulatives!

Cooperation! - We can build the coolest things when we work together!

Estimation!- This macintosh apple had only 4 seeds.......that was twice as many as the apple the day before.

We love using the computers.......

...and the iPads.  Thanks for checking in on things Mr. Villano!