Science Day

Science day started with the egg drop. Katherine and Madison K. both made egg vessels that we watched fall from the school's roof. Great job girls! Mr. Gauthia dressed up as a chicken to drop the eggs. :-)

(The videos of the drops aren't loading, but it was an exciting morning. I hope your kids told you about it!)

The rest of the day students rotated to different kindergarten classrooms and learned about the 5 senses (see, hear, smell, taste, touch.) The activities with each sense is below:

 

Sight- Students tossed a ball and counted how many times they caught it. Then, their eyes were covered with an eye patch and they completed the same activity. They compared the number of time they caught the ball with one eye to two eyes.

 

Hearing- Students learned about sound waves and made an instrument.

 

Smell- Students smelled yummy and yucky smells.

 

Taste- Students learned about their tastebuds. They tried foods that we sweet, sour, and bitter.

 

Touch- Students learned about braille and texture.

 

Students enjoyed a popcorn treat where they saw and heard it pop, felt it, and tasted it.

Donuts with Dad

Thanks to everyone who was able to join us for Donuts for Dad. We had lots of special guests and fun activities.  Students wrote about their dads and decorated ties earlier in the week. Students also drew a picture of their dads and dictated a clue about their dad.

When guests came, they were asked to match the clue describing them with their picture. During donuts with dad students rotated through four centers. The centers were eating donuts, playing dominoes, playing pin the tie on the dad, and writing in shaving cream. Check out the pictures below. I wish I had gotten more! It was wonderful to see the kids interact with our special guests. I hope everyone enjoyed it!

Looking Ahead

October Dates:
10/17 Sky Zone 3-7pm
10/23 Field Trip to Teaching Museum North
10/25 REES Fall Festival 4:30-7pm
10/31 Book Character Parade 8am
10/28-11/1 Red Ribbon Week

This week we will....

Math
Review counting by ones and tens. Continue to practice counting and labeling objects. The week after we will work on counting on from a number. For example, count from 6. 6, 7, 8. Students will also learn to sequence numbers. Please practice counting 0-100 by ones and tens with your child at home.

Writing
We will complete our narrative writing assessment. Students brainstormed about times they were happy and sad. They chose a topic and wrote a rough draft. This week we will edit and complete the final draft. Next week, we will start learning about informational writing.

Social Studies
Students will learn more about Christopher Columbus this week. We will discuss the things Columbus brought with him to the Americas. We watched a clip on Christopher Columbus from brainpopjr that tells the truth in a child friendly way about Columbus. Students are taught he is an explorer who didn't find America first, but did tell Europe about the Americas. At first, he made a mistake and thought he was in India.

Reading
We will be studying the letter s and identifying it at the beginning and ending of words. We will read stories that contain S words. We will also be completing our 9 week reading assessments. I will assess students on their letter sound and identification knowledge. We have also been learning about syllables and rhyming words. You can review these concepts at home. When the assessment is completed, you will see a copy in your child's signed papers.

Signed papers will go home on Wednesday along with a paper about the Book Character Parade. Please fill out the Book Character Parade sheet and return it in your child's folder as soon as possible. It is a fun event, and we want to make sure everyone has a book to go with their costume!

* We can have 2 volunteers come on our field trip on the 23rd. You would not ride the bus; instead, we would meet you at the Teaching Museum. If you are interested, please let me know and I can get you more information.

Looking Back

Hello! I'm sorry for the delays in posting.

Looking back.....

We started centers in reading. Students visit two centers a day and rotate through ten centers during the week. Some centers include: listening, big books, activboard, computer, abc, writing, write the room, pocket chart, and creation.

In math, we completed our shapes unit. Students should be able to identify 2D and 3D shapes. Here are links to songs we used to help learn the shape names and think of real life examples. 3D shapes song and 2D shapes song. Students also learned to compose shapes (ex: 2 triangles make a rhombus) and compare shapes. Lastly, students identified shapes as 2D/flat or 3D/solid.

In science, we studied physical properties. We created texture hands to discuss textures such as rough, bumpy, soft and smooth. We also learned that things are made up of different compositions. As a class, we sorted materials by plastic, wood, cloth, and rubber.

The class went though the entire writing process during A week. Students brainstormed about fall, and then we picked to write about apples. Rough drafts were written in students' journals. Next, we discussed describing words, and students wrote adjectives on apple dicuts. Students' edited their sentences by adding these describing words and finally published their apple sentence.

The next week we focused on writing about a trip each student had taken. It could be a trip to the beach, a restaurant, the zoo, etc. Students enjoyed writing about themselves and sharing their stories. Each day we practiced adding more information to make a more interesting story. Students wrote where they went, what they did there, and who they went with.

Career Day

We had a fantastic career day on Monday! We had many guests who came to visit our classroom. Some jobs included an occupational therapist, a firefighter, a paralegal, a makeup artist, a filmmaker, a wireless networker, an IT specialist, and a physical trainer. Just to name a few! Thank you for everyone who was able to volunteer! Take some time to talk to your kids about what you do. We have discussed why people work (to earn money) and the purpose of money (to buy our needs and wants.) Students also learned that each job provides a good or a service. Jobs that provide goods are professions such as a baker or chef. They make things. Jobs that provide a service help people or doing something such as a doctor or barber. Our community helper unit goes through September 13th. Below are some career day pictures. Sorry I couldn't capture everyone!

 < Mr. Stevens talking about finding actors for a movie.

 < Mr. Rogers using Edouardo as a volunteer for stop, drop, and roll. He also let students touch his hat and listen to what it sounds like when a firefighter is breathing through his tank.

Each student got to lift (with assistance) the weight and learned some self defense moves (for when they aren't at school :) )

 

Fund Run

Hello! The time for the fundrun had come. Our team name is Daugherty's Dashers. We have a poster outside of our door to let everyone know our team name. We will also take it with us to the fun run on September 18th. Family and friends are invited to the fun run to cheer on our students. It is on the upper field or in the gym if it rains.

You can find out more about the organization at funruntime.com. Your student brought home an information sheet in his/her folder on Monday with a secret code used for online access. You can also write down pledges on the form. Students do receive prizes when they get pledges. Our classroom will receive 10% of the raised amount. It is the only fundraiser our school does. We had a pep rally on Monday to introduce the fun run to students.

Each day a fun run team member stops by the classroom to tell students the character word of the day. Today was teamwork and students pretended to row a boat together. They discussed how each person was needed to make the boat move.  Unfortunately that image is having trouble showing up. Check back for updates about the Boosterthon! So far we have 3 pledges. Thank you so much for your support! If your child didn't receive his/her prize today for a pledge it will come tomorrow. They told me it may be a day behind.

Thanks,
Mrs. Daugherty

It's September!

Time is flying by! The students are doing a great job learning the routines and working together as a team. Students have begun reading groups. As an independent activity, students were asked to put the abc flashcards in order. I modeled how to use the alphabet on the wall for assistance.

 



In math, we have been studying shapes. Students should be able to identify 2D shapes ( square, circle, triangle, rectangle, and hexagon) and 3D shapes (cone, sphere, cube, cylinder.) Last week, we focused on forming new shapes. In the picture, Carter is putting two triangles together to form a rhombus. This week we are focusing on comparign 2d and 3d shapes. We will use the vocabulary flat and solid as well as faces and corners to describe shapes. Students have found shapes around the classroom and are working on identifying real life 3d objects. For example, a soccer ball if s a sphere. We have about ten more days in this unit. Looking for shapes at home or as you're out and about is a great way to review these skills!

In writing, students have been working on their Alphabet Journals. Each day we discuss about 2 letters. I model how to form the letter correctly on the lines, and we brainstorm things that start with those letters. Students then go to their seats to trace and write the letters. They draw a picture that begins with that letter and try their best to write the word or sentence to accompany the picture. Expect these to come home in your child's backpack at the beginning of next week. Handwriting is a skill we will be working on all year.

 We also had a visit from our school counselor Ms. Patton. She will be visiting our classroom once a month to do a 30-45minute lesson with the class. Her first lesson was about I-Messages. The students are taught to say "I feel (insert feeling) when you______" We practiced with examples like I feel sad when you don't play with me or I feel happy when my mommy makes me cookies. Students are taught to use their words to express their feelings.

Thanks for checking out the blog! Check back regularly for updates!
~Mrs. Daugherty