Last week

Did your child tell you how we 'painted' pumpkins with water and tissue paper?  They look pretty cool.  Thanks to Kathy @ Art Projects for kids for the idea.  It took a long time but it was worth it the next morning when everyone took off the dried tissue paper to discover the color underneath.  "Wow!"  "It's like a miracle!"  (Warning: tissue paper can stain tables)

 Someone tried their own picture the next day.

No, it wasn't twin day, but two girls happened to come wearing the same outfit.  So exciting!

 A literacy center this week - listen to Goldilocks and the Three Bears, act it out, then retell it to me later.

We practiced writing sentences using sight words, spaces, and ending punctuation.  We did a good job, so we wore our work proudly.

 More center time fun

Non-field trip excitement

Here are some of our literacy centers from the week: color word puzzles (above), making signs to practice our sight words,

 and reading letters and words around the room.

 During science we used our senses of sight and touch to observe Franklin the turtle.  Everyone was really good about being gentle and quiet so we didn't scare him.

 He was very popular.  They didn't want him to leave.

Above is a video clip of a fall alphabet game we played when we had a few minutes to spare earlier in the week.  The boys decided to play again  and a few girls came to join at different times.  They did a good job of taking turns saying and swatting letters.

(Can you tell it was tropical Thursday?  There was a lot of bright clothing, though most children had lost their leis by the afternoon)

Super Ss!

 Some centers from this week (sorry for the poor pictures): matching lettered spiders to a corresponding picture, alphabetizing spider webs (I think I got these from Shannon over at the Kinderpond), stamping spiders -aren't they cute? - and some fantastic fine motor skills trying to make spider webs.  We also used scissors to make spirals, and read/acted out The Itsy Bitsy Spider.

 And our favorite: making sparkly spider webs.  Today some children used their center time to make more spider webs...so there may be more glitter headed your way.  And then they asked "Can we do it again tomorrow?"  But I said no (because I don't want all you parents to hate me :), and brought the glitter back to the art closet.

Math and Literacy Centers for the week

Above: we introduced geoboards this week as one of our math centers.  Since it is the first time using them in Kindergarten, it is more just free play.  Later some of the centers will be more specific or task-oriented.
Below: an apple counting center.

Trying to make snap cubes into numbers.  After cleaning up supplies today, we figured out that it took a lot longer to clean up a center if we dumped all the supplies on the table.  The group that cleaned up first was very willing to help the other groups though :)  We'll see how if things go differently tomorrow.

Literacy centers for the week: fine motor fun - coloring and cutting out candles for...shhhhhh.  It's a surprise

 Playdough letters!

 uppercase/lowercase/beginning sounds puzzles.

Some centers this week

We made numbers with playdoh (math PLUS fine motor practice PLUS fun)

 Listening center - I think some children listened to this book 3 times today :)

 Building patterns.  Here two children are working together on a more difficult pattern (AABBB)

Creating patterns in our math journals (and after I took one of these pictures, the child requested that I use my phone and put it on 'that place where everybody in the whole world can see it' - Facebook.  I guess she was proud of her work :)
 And a great filler activity: when you are finished your math journal, go build a pattern with unifix cubes.

And for a little more fun, go to this webiste and click on the mp3 for Jump, Shout! to hear one of the songs we have been singing in our morning devotions.

:)

After they matched up all the alphabet puzzles, this group decided to try to put them all in order.  :)
(Not sure why blogger flipped the picture)

"School is the funnest thing EVER!"

"School is the funnest thing EVER!" one girl told me at the end of the day today.  We had a great second day.  It wasn't as messy as our first day (we only covered one hand in ink, rather than two feet in paint), but it was still lots of fun.  Here are a few pictures:

Today was our second day of literacy centers and I could already tell that they were catching on to the routine.  Here are some children reading magazines.

Putting (lowercase) letter beads on pipe cleaners.

 Matching letters.

Today we started sharing.  Over the next few weeks each child will be assigned a day that they can bring in their All About Me! poster (watch the calendar/newsletter for when it is your child's turn) and a few pictures and a book/toy to share.

 A big part of Kindergarten is teaching children that learning is fun and that they are capable of learning.  We don't just want to teach children to read, we want to have confident readers, so here is our I Can Read bulletin board.  Everything on it is something they can 'read'.  I only planned to put a few up today, but they kept asking for more and saying it was "easy" even though some are really long words.  They're just so smart!

Reading by memory is an important pre-reading skill as children hone their visual discrimination skills and grow in their confidence as readers.