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Today a few exciting things happened.
First, we had someone come in with their violin. I'm not sure if the children were more impressed to hear that Mozart made up the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle" when he was three, or that the bow was made out of real horse hair.
Then in math we started with flat shapes like squares and rectangles, and then worked together to turn them into cubes and rectangular prisms.
Later in the day we voted for which VeggieTales video to watch.

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope you are all having a wonderful Thanksgiving break!
Here are a few pictures that show how we ended our week.
Since we did not have a new letter this week, we reviewed some special sounds, and worked on capital letters and punctuation in our morning message, as well as looking for our sight words.
We learned about light and heat sources. Glow bracelets are a light source (if you are somewhere really dark, like the janitor's closet) but not a heat source. They are also a source of excitement.
We walked down to Oak Street to tally the transportation that drove past
Our buddies came after lunch and we read our poetry books to them.
We closed the day in a big circle, with everyone giving thanks to God.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Feast! (and a few other pictures)

Here is one of our art projects from this week: a night time city skyline (Thank you, Deep Space Sparkle, for the idea). They look really cool all in a row, though one of my students commented that it's like a city with lots of moons.
During a Bible review lesson, one student drew this picture, titled the Moses store (the Moses story). The labels (desert, Canaan, and E for Egypt) made me smile.
Hard at work making hilarious horses: no normal-looking horses allowed!
Math game from this morning: we rolled dice and tallied the results. At the end we counted the tally marks by fives (as a class) and compared the results. 6 won with 29 rolls! I love how exciting a simple game like this can be for children, and next week when we start doing tally marks, it will already be a little familiar.
Our hot air balloons turned out really cute! The house at the bottom is where you get to write your address once you know it; we make a big deal out of it, so children are eager to practice. 5 children have signed the house so far.
And here are pictures from today's Thanksgiving feast with our buddies. Almost everybody dressed up.







The food remnants. Everything was quite tasty. Thank you so much!

Have a blessed weekend!

Friday Fun

Apparently, this shape game was very funny.
The Turkey Trot: roll the die, read the word, move the corresponding turkey. I got this idea from another teacher's website (I think last year), but I don't remember which one. Anyway, it was very popular. Some children even came back after school, while their parents were setting up for Fall Festival, and asked if they could play again. I said yes.
Train transportation center; also known as problem solving/cooperation.

Wildlife World Zoo (picture-heavy)

When we entered the kangaroo walkabout, the kangaroos were on the path, nice and close.
There were lots of kangaroos to see.See the joey?
We saw several colorful peacocks. "Look, Miss Vis! It escaped!" We also saw an umbrella cockatoo (also known as "the bad guy from Rio")
Monkeys are fun to watch, and imitate.We fed the lory parrots. Here is the 1st Grade teacher holding a lory and surrounded by lots of young friends.

Sometimes the lories landed on arms, but if you weren't quite brave enough for that, there were alternatives.Some animals were being fed near the fence, so we got a really close look.
We went to the Wildlife Encounters Show to learn more about a few animals. Here is an albino python (I think).Looking at a crocodile in 'Dragon World'.
The camel just stood by the fence as if to say "Admire me."We eventually made our way to the giraffe feeding station and gave these two guys some snacks.
It was fun!
Look at their long, dark tongues.
We made our way to the touraco bird feeding
Here is one of the pretty touracos.Class picture by the biggest parrots in the world.Then we meandered over to the petting zoo. One student commented that the deer eating the food 'feels like a vacuum cleaner'.
I was impressed overall with how willing children were to feed and touch the animals.
At the very end of our trip we went to the aquarium (well, one of three buildings) and enjoyed the touch tanks.
Lots of fish!
After a wonderful day at the zoo, the bus ride home was very sedate; there was little noise or movement.

Shape Art

I love this project for several reasons: it is easy, it works well in sunny Arizona, it was actually an original idea, and the students think it is just so cool - not just the Kindergarteners, lots of students walk by to see it.
If you ever want to try this project, make sure to use the cheap construction paper (it fades better) and choose objects that are as flat as possible. You may also want to tape the papers to your table to make sure they don't blow away. We only had these out for two days. Can you tell what some of the objects are?

Aa is for aliens and Officer Aimee (the 2 are not related, other than their initial sound)

Here are some of the cute aliens we had fun making (drip watery paint on paper, blow it, let it dry, add eyes and mouths)
Today Officer Aimee came to school. She showed us some of her tools (pen, flashlight, taser that makes a funny sound) and we got to hear her radio a bit and see her badge. She talked to us about safety and calling 9-1-1 for a real emergency.
She brought some (clean) handcuffs that everyone got to touch.
We heard the siren, saw the lights, and even got to climb through the back of her patrol car.
Then everyone got a sticker badge. Some children put theirs on their sleeve, just like a real police officer.