We did so many things on Thursday. We continued our pumpkin study building off what we learned from reading our Let's Find Out. We read and highlighted our 5 Little Pumpkin books.
We also read and highlighted our zoo book. Please ask your child to read these two books to you and give them credit for reading on the Reading Corps sheets. Many students are bringing in these forms. Please continue reading at home!
We are continuing to work with numbers 6-10 in our enVison math program.
Mrs. Murphy worked on a rhyming worksheet with us.
We finished our Scary Books! They will be sent home on Halloween. We hope you won't be to scared reading them!
We highlighted our news a day early trying to be prepared for our field trip to the zoo. (But we needed to postpone the trip due to the cold, rainy weather). We are doing a great job finding the news words!
Before lunch we started our pumpkin math and science. We looked at Mrs. Gordon's class pumpkin and found out that their pumpkin had 512 seeds in it. We made a comparison by looking at the size of Mrs. Gordon's pumpkin and our pumpkin. We noticed how much bigger our pumpkin was. Most of the class estimated that our pumpkin would have more seeds because it was bigger. Mrs. Parnell cut the stem out of the top of the pumpkin, cutting through the pumpkin's skin, and pulp revealing the pumpkin's strands and seeds. The students also noticed that not all the space in the pumpkin had seeds or strands. There was some hollow areas.
The students were excited to touch, see and smell the pumpkin. This was very exciting pumpkin science.
We also conducted an experiment to see if a pumpkin would float. The students remembered that the apples floated back in September. During a turn and talk partner discussion the students presented their argument stating whether or not they thought the pumpkin would float or sink and why. After the discussion we tried it out. We did not have a big enough container to fill to test the big pumpkin, but we did test 3 smaller pumpkins. Guess what? The pumpkins floated!
While the students were at lunch and recess, Mr. Parnell came into our classroom and started cleaning out the pumpkin so it would be ready to carve. This process took a while! When the students came back in from recess they voted for what kind of facial features we should have on our class pumpkin. See chart below. Mr. Parnell then sketched the items on the pumpkin with a pencil and showed the class to make sure they all liked it. The class approved the sketch. Mr. Parnell started carving the pumpkin and we serenaded him by singing our Halloween songs, The Ghosts go Flying, The Skeleton Dance, and Bones Inside of You.
We all love our new class jack-o-lantern. We think Mr. Parnell did a great job!
We all posed with the jack-o-lantern, and this experience will go into our kindergarten memory book. The students posed with the clay pumpkin they created earlier this week.
We ended our day with ST Math. The students are still enjoying this program. We hope to send home information on how you can access ST Math at home for homework soon.
While we were busy watching Mr. Parnell carve the pumpkin Ms. Antenucci laid out all the pumpkin seeds that were in our pumpkin. She grouped them in 10s. This made it easier for us to count. We have been practicing counting by 10s up to 100, we had to do this 7 times, almost 8! Our pumpkin had 791 seeds in it. We used the base ten block to illustrate this LARGE number. Some of the students have asked to bring home pumpkin seeds. They are hoping to grow their own pumpkins. We will try to start this growing process in the Spring to go along with our planting unit. We had a great day! We did so many things. I know I went home tired!
We had yet another busy week in Room 101! Here are a few things we did early in the week.
We wrote in our journals about what we will be for Halloween.
We worked on letter sound correspondence with Mrs. Murphy.
On Monday, Mrs. Thomas came in to help us. Thank you to Mrs. Thomas, Mrs. McNamee, Mrs. Baker, Ms. Antenucci and Ms. Powers for volunteering in the classroom this week! We appreciate all your support!
We went to the library and Miss Small read us a story called Twenty Yawns by Jane Smiley, illustrated by Lauren Castillo. We have been listening to may books either written or illustrated by Lauren Castillo during Global Read Aloud Choices 2016 #GRA16
The block area was busy again this week.
Using the unifix cubes on the rug was also busy area.
Spending time in the Reading Nook. It is a comfy place to read with friends.
Working on a math lesson with Mrs. Kearney.
We read the Let's Find Out magazine and created our own jack-o-lanterns on the scholastic magazine app.
We worked on our letters and letter sounds with Mrs. Murphy.
We read the Let's Find Out magazine with Mrs. Parnell. We also looked for our news words in the magazine. The students are becoming more aware of how important it is to be able to read. The students have been very excited about recognizing these flashcard words in the books, poems and our Kindergarten News.
We spent time this week sorting the beanie babies into different animal families based on family characteristics.
At the fine motor station the students practiced forming the letters we have learned.
We went to the Learning Commons. Mr. Donoff helped us create our own wild animal self using the website http://www.buildyourwildself.com/. This was our first time using the Chromebooks and the trackpad was a little difficult for some. After some practice the students understood how the trackpad worked and they were able to create their own creation. They were sent home on Wednesday.
Ms. P. from the Burlington Science Center came to Pine Glen to do an Owl Show for all the kindergartners. Ms. P. shared many interesting facts about owls and we even met Scout an Barred Owl that lives outside the Burlington High School cafeteria in a big cage. You are welcome to go by and see her!
Ms. P shared an owl skull with us and she wanted us to see the shape of the skull and then she had us predict what owls do with their curved beak.
Evan helped Ms. P. demonstrate that owls have the ability to see very well.
She showed the skull up close for us to inspect.
She also shared that owls regurgitate a pellet of their food that the owl could not digest. This concept kind of grossed the kindergartners out.
Ms. P. showed us how sharp the owls talons are. We got to feel how sharp they were at the end of the show.
Ms. P. brought out Scout at the end of the show. We heard Scout talk to us. That was pretty cool.
Scout got a little nervous and tried to fly, but Ms. P had her tethered to her arm, so Scout could not get away.
We were a pretty good audience and at the end of the show every student got to get their picture taken with Scout! These photos will be in the memory books of important things we did in kindergarten.
