Cricket the owl

Owls

Dressed as a banana in celebration of Halloween, Ms. P of the Burlington Science center came to visit the kindergarteners of Pine Glen today.  She brought the center's owl, Cricket.

She also brought other taxidermically preserved owls so we could see various kinds including a Great Horned Owl, Massachusetts largest owl.  She shared that recently she helped rescue a Great Horned Owl at Fox Hill. It had become caught up in the soccer nets and then rehabilitated at the science center.  

Silent wings

During the owl presentation today Ms. P demonstrated that despite an owl flapping its wings very quickly it did not make a sound!  This is one way an owl can protect itself and grab its prey.

Room 101's Clay Pumpkin Patch

We created a clay Pumpkin patch!  Mrs. Parnell challenged us to make our pumpkins no larger than 1 inch in diameter.....so we had to measure......we did great!

Go Sox!!!!

Mr. Lyons has declared Wednesday October 30 to be Red Sox day at Pine Glen.  If you would like, please wear Red Sox colored clothing or Red Sox apparel to school.  AND, hopefully not necessary, we will celebrate Red Sox spirit again on Thursday if need be.

Snake's Lunch

Here is Twitch eating his mouse with video taken from a different angle.  He was very popular so the paparazzi were present!

Inspecting the snake skin!

Twitch shed his skin.  Students used magnifying glasses to better analyze and study the skin.

Twitch the Snake Eats Once a Week!

There was a combination of amazement and horror as we watched Twitch eat his mouse today!  We thought it was really interesting that he could open his mouth so wide.....many of us thought he looked like he was smiling (he must be happy to eat!).  Others commented on how long it took and how patient he was to slowly swallow it whole!  Students asked us to post it on the blog so they could share it with you at home.

Hairy-ette eating lunch!

Students in Room 101 were eager to get up close to make sure they did not miss a thing as Hairy-ette enjoyed her crickets for lunch!

A Favorite

Today Mrs. Delia share Dr. Seuss' ABC.  Mrs. Hoyt remembered this one from when she was a little girl.  Maybe other grown-ups to do!  

Big A, little a

What begins with A? 

Aunt Annie's Alligator ..... A A A

Animals and Their Families

Room 101 worked with Mr. Callahan to create this video.  Watch and listen as we tell you about some of the animals and animal families we learned about.  We will share which animal family the animal we selected to draw is in!

Mrs. D'Elia showed us how to use Shelf Markers

We even saw the giraffes!

We went to the Franklin Park Zoo!

Animal Family iPad Project

Beanie Baby Animal Family Sorting

Stand as One

Pine Glen celebrated Stand as One...one united school that stands together, takes care of one another. We work to make sure everyone at Pine Glen is positive, shares, and are good friends!
And we were dressed as united Red Sox fans!


Here is a little further information - October is National Bullying Prevention Month. This Friday will be 'Stand As One' day! The goal will be for children and staff to feel a sense of unity and togetherness, as ONE.  We are encouraging the children and staff to wear RED (since it will be Red Sox day) on Friday, October 11th. We will be reading a special story and the children will be writing a positive comment about how they belong at Pine Glen and/or contribute to making their classroom/school a positive place for learning. Some examples include: ways they feel safe at school, ways they working together, ways they show caring for others, and ways they work together to solve problems. Let's continue to 'Stand As One!'

Parent volunteers!

Thank you parents!  This week parent volunteers started helping out in our classroom.  They helped us make book pages, with math project and a special painting project.  We always love the extra helping hands and are excited about all we can do when parents are in to help us out!  Thank you!

Labeling our Classroom Pets

Our new writing program encourages us to explore all the many forms of writing we do in our world.  People write lists, letters and emails.  We have diagrams, post-it notes and labels.  In fact, none of us could get through a day without the benefit of labels.  We have been practicing our writing by making labels around the classroom.  Today we worked on sketching and labeling pictures of our classroom pets.

Keyboard Zoo

During our trip to the LTC this week we were introduced to keyboarding!  We worked to find all the letters in the alphabet.  The program is zoo themed........so appropriate as we study animals in preparation for our trip to the zoo next week.

Cross-section Diagrams

When looking at a cross-section diagram the reader learns about what is on the inside of something.  We created cross-section diagrams of apples!  Next week we will be creating diagrams of the inside of the human body!  Kindergarten sure is cool!

Supplies needed!

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

- Brown, handled paper bags are used for many project.  Over the next several months 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.

-Assorted sized zip-lock bags are often used in our classroom as we prepare and distribute supplies, send home projects, etc - sandwich, gallon and quart sizes are all most appreciated.

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

Thank you!

Offices

You might be surprised to hear that we sometimes work in our "Offices".    Here is a glimpse of us working in our offices.  We turn our benches into work stations!

Over the last few weeks we have explored apples.  We discussed the four seasons and how an apple grows.  We also discussed how tasty the different varieties of apples are and what a decomposing apple might look like!  We estimated how many seeds are found in apples and then counted the seeds in a few!  We wrote about apples and even helped Mrs. Parnell write a persuasive letter to the cafeteria staff encouraging them to make sure apples are on the menu often!

Creepy crawlers