!yaD etisoppO

Our morning message was 'upside down' today. When we sang the "Good Morning Boogie", we sang Goodbye instead of hello. When we sang "Inright, Upright... Happy all the time" we did the actions opposite; that was hard, but it made us all laugh. And so Opposite Day begun.
We all shared the opposites we wore: backward shirts, backward shorts, mismatched shoes, long and short socks.
backward hat, black shoe/white sock, white shoe/black sock, backward/inside out shirts, more mismatched shoes, pigtail/no pigtail.
Not pictured: light and dark clothes, socks worn on hands...

We walked backward to our tables and tried to read our names backwards, read books about opposites, wrote a class opposite book, matched opposites, and played lots of opposite games. We played Opposite concentration, Lost my opposite, musical opposites (like musical chairs except no one gets out and there are picture cards taped to the chairs, so when the music stops you have to find the chair that shows the opposite of the card in your hand. Then switch cards and play again.), and Simon Says Opposite, also very tricky. Sorry - no pictures; I was too busy. Trust me, when I say we had a lot of fun.

We ended the day with a low five, and walking out the door backward. It was a great end to February.

I admit that I'm glad for a 'normal' day tomorrow. Then Friday will be Dr. Seuss day, as well as Kids BEneFIT.

Olympics

Today, because of the letter Oo, we had the air Olympics. And if you are wondering why we did air Olympics, it was for the simple reason that they are easiest to do inside (much simpler than skiing or swimming or gymnastics. Not quieter though!)

Our first event we had played before near the beginning of the year. Each child tried to blow a ping pong ball from one cup to another cup. We tried it four times and only one person got it all four times, and it was definitely not the teacher.

Our second event was a race. We practiced staying in our lane (this will come in handy when we get to Track Day at the end of March) as we tried to blow the ping pong ball all the way to the finish line. After each race, we said "Good job" to the winner and "Good try" to the other participants. 1 child had a minor meltdown, and another pouted about losing, but most of the children did a really good job of practicing good sportsmanship and had fun cheering for their friends.

Here is a picture from free choice centers. Several children chose to replay the events.
Video clip. It really was a lot of fun.

Our third, and final event was 'air hockey'. They're trying to blow the ball across the table but can only stop it by blowing it - no hands/bodies allowed. After each match, the participants shook hands and said "good game."
So, if you're ever bored at home, find a few ping pong balls and some masking tape, and have some Olympic fun!

Sunny Solution

Today at lunch, a child took off his hat and waved it around. I assumed he was trying to shade his eyes. I was mistaken. His purpose was much broader than that, as he soon explained:

"I fanned the sun, so it's not too hot out here."

A Smattering of Pictures

We usually look for our letter of the week in the morning message. This week is Oo - tricky little bugger. These are the words containing O that we found: boys, good, morning, how, you, overhead, story, okay, love. Do ANY of those make the short o sound? No. No wonder learning to read can be so challenging!
Yesterday we had some visitors: guinea pigs. They were quite a hit. This is the best kind of class pet to have - the kind that comes for half a day and then disappears. No feeding, no cleaning required.
So one of our morning centers was observing the animals and writing or drawing some scientific observations. I think only 2 children decided to draw. Everyone else used solely writing. That's one indication of our proximity to Spring: children are much more confident in their writing abilities (and I can read more of it :)
This student observed: "They like to hide and they can twitch their nose and guinea pigs can eat."

And a few pictures from center time this afternoon:
One student came and asked me, "Miss Vis, can centers be a little bit longer today? Because I need to use the bathroom and I don't want to miss it." Don't worry - we had plenty of time.

Zebra diversity

It never ceases to amaze me how very differently children's projects turn out. Zz is one of those harder letters in terms of finding activities. Once again, thanks to Mrs. Karen's blog for the idea. I'm guessing her zebras were done with a lot more adult help, since her class is preschool, but I love how ours turned out - each one unique.

We started by tracing our shoe and cutting it out. Then they had to cut a neck. I suggested a thick one, but... Then they drew and cut out ears (I did help draw some ears). After putting the pieces together, they had to find same size googly eyes, glue it all together, and then paint the mane and stripes.

This is more or less how I envisioned the project turning out.
"Miss Vis, can I put dots for the nose?"The spotted giraffe-looking version. (Green was a popular background color because it 'looked like a jungle'.)
I like the one eye that gives the zebra a whole new perspective.
The criss-cross zebra that probably would have ended up completely black because someone was just having so much fun painting (and the shoe is backwards - the larger part was supposed to be the nose)
The big eyes were by far the favorite. Maybe I should buy more.
A very black zebra from another painting enthusiast
Sorry this one is sideways. The left side is supposed to be the bottom. This one just makes me laugh.
If you can't find big googly eyes, find tiny ones...

Fabulous Friday!

We ended the day outside with our buddies. In preparation for next week's Kids BEneFIT we tried out the obstacle course, but with a twist - you had to hold hands with your buddy the whole time :)
They started by weaving between the swings.
Next, going through the hippo (these buddies had 3 people connected!)
Across the balance beam (there were various methods)Up the stairs, down the slide, and run back.
Repeat 3 times. After that warm-up we took out the parachute and did an arm exercise: shaking the parachute until all the balls popped off. We did this twice. The first time took quite a while, but the second time involved more strategizing and was much quicker.
We did some other games, and of course made several domes.

I learned that...

One of our morning centers today was a science experiment. Students worked together to build a ramp and try to figure out how to make the cars go the farthest. This is such a fun center to watch. Everyone starts out so confident in their knowledge that higher is obviously better, so they build the ramp as steep as possible and try and try.

When it doesn't work very well, they hypothesize: Well, that one didn't work because there's other stuff in the way. That didn't work because it's a tractor and has something in the front. Let's try again. But eventually, they did figure out that maybe the ramp had to be adjusted back down... One group turned the ramp around because they thought the shinier side would work better.
At the end, I asked what they learned and this is some of what I heard.

"If it's too low it doesn't go and if it's too high, it just crashes.
If it's in the middle it goes farther."

"3ish or 4ish blocks are best."
"5 was best."

"The lighter car went farther. I thought the heavier one would go farther, but it didn't."

Our other centers included journal writing,
transportation,
and some reading activities, including the twisty cup word families

Reason #426 why being a Kindergarten teacher is awesome*

You might get serenaded by a men's quartet.

Today during 'noisy reading' everyone was reading their poetry books. 4 boys stood up, and with poetry books open like music scores, stood in a row and sang me a lovely rendition of Samuel Francis Smith's "America".





(*And no, I don't actually keep count of the reasons my job is awesome. I don't know if I could count that high :)

Jonah Game

I love the story of Jonah for several reasons. It's really familiar, and it is a really dramatic, fun story to tell. We did a craft yesterday and each child used it to act out/retell the story. Then today after hearing the rest of the story, we reviewed the main events in the story by playing the Jonah game.

In case the video does not work for you there are a few pictures and here is the gist of the game: everyone yells "Go to Nineveh" but Jonah goes the opposite way and gets in a boat (upside-down table). Then he's thrown overboard into the sea (crawls under a blue table cloth) and is swallowed by a fish (cardboard box). Everyone counts to 3 since Jonah was in the fish for 3 days and 3 nights, then Jonah gets spit out onto dry ground and this time he goes to Nineveh.

Jonah is thrown off the boat and into the water.
Getting swallowed by a big fish!
Going to Nineveh now

A delightful end to the week

For the letter Dd, some children washed dishes this week. It was a little more popular with the girls, but boys were playing earlier too. Water + soap + toys = fun. Maybe in another week or two we'll try it as a car wash.
Playing a 'new' to us game (I love the school yard sale!)
We went on a field trip Thursday; the 8th Graders explained their science projects to us. This one was about how far a sling shot works based on the weight of the ball you are shooting. We also learned a little about teeth, windmills, water, texting, magnets, and eggs.
Open House night was Thursday and it was great to see so many of you there! Here one student is teaching his mom how to play a sight word game.
Today was Dot Day! I didn't make a big deal of it ahead of time (no one was told to wear dots or anything like that) because it was such a busy week, but we had some fun dot centers this morning - we painted (not pictured), read The Dot, made dot patterns,
and dotted our names.
We also listened to The Wheels on the Bus
and played valentine addition (roll 2 dice, put the corresponding number of hearts on the heart mat, then record how many there were altogether)
This afternoon the whole school watched Dolphin Tale, which is based on a true story. It was really good and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Click here if you want to see the real Winter (the dolphin).

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

We had fun in math yesterday - we estimated how many hearts would fit on a big paper heart. Then we filled the heart and counted how many there were.

Time to sort the hearts by color
and then graph by color (earlier we graphed by number of letters on the candy - 6 was the most common)Here they are playing a game that involves rolling two dice, adding the dots, and then covering the corresponding number on the game paper. And the best part was that when the whole board was filled up, they could play again, but this time taking the candies off and eating them.
And all that was only math! Later, Mrs. Clay came in for the party; they played Valentine Bingo, decorated cookies (and promptly ate them), then passed out valentine cards.

Duck! Rabbit!

Today we read a book called Duck! Rabbit! which is about two people (whom you never actually see) arguing over if a creature is a duck or a rabbit. It's a really cute book. Afterward everyone had to say if they thought it was a duck or a rabbit and then explain why. It was good practice, and a fun way to do it, since the book never actually gives the answer, so you can't really be wrong. Or maybe you can't be right...

We'll have the book out during Open House (Thursday night, hope to see you there!), so you can come read it and and give us your opinion. Some children actually remember the book from visiting the room for last year's Open House. :)

If you want a preview, click on this link to amazon and then scroll down and you can watch a video of part of the book.

Capitol, time

Today's social studies topic was symbols. This week in drawing club, we drew the Capitol. I think they turned out pretty cute. 2 children also added an eagle. And I don't know why blogger loaded this one sideways.


Today in math we hip-hopped around the clock (that is just chalk on the carpet). When we had a few minutes before PE, we took turns changing the time and reading the time. Having 12 students worked out really well today :)