Apples, Apples, and More Apples! This week the kindergarteners learned about apples. We started by learning a few facts about apples. Did you know that there are more than 7,500 different kinds of apples? We found out that apples start as seeds, grow on trees, and are flowers before they are apples. We read several non-fiction books about apples to gather more facts about apples. This week we each brought an apple to school from home. Everyone’s apple was a little different. We counted, measured, and weighed our apples. Finally we made a class book about the apples we brought. After drawing a picture of it, we had to write the color words that matched our picture.
Monday:`
Today we went to the computer room for the first time. We worked on learning the routine for entering and leaving the computers. Our first task was to get our headphones, sit down in our computer spot, put our headphone around our neck, plug them in, and wait for directions. Today we played a Bubble popping game. After opening the Chrome browser, Ms. Torborg helped us get to our game. Our task was to pop each of the bubble (mouse control). When time was up, we had to click out of our game and close the browser. Then we had to unplug our headphones and put them away.
We started our reading lesson with a picture walk through the book Miss Nelson is Missing. Then we took some time to do a picture walk through the book in our reading bin.
Just like last week, we found a quiet spot to sit and read using our whisper phones. When we came back together, Ms. Torborg read us the story that goes with her picture walk book, Miss Nelson is Missing. As we listened to the story, we identified the things the kids were doing right and wrong and how things changed.
Did you know Ms. Torborg has a book of Secret Stories? It contains secret stories about some of the letters of the alphabet. Today she told us the secret story about the letter A. Letter A is a vowel and all vowels are superheroes in disguise. When a vowel because a superhero, it says its name. When the letter A is in her lazy disguise, it sits around all day and eats apples. (It says its short name.)
After lunch, we spent some time playing games with our 5th grade buddies in our classroom. We could pick any game from the game shelf. Our buddies were able to teach us how to play some new games!
This week we are learning about apples. Today we read a book about different kinds of apples. Did you know that apples can be red, green, yellow, and any combination of those colors? Did you know that each apple has a special name? We also listened to/watched a couple of songs about apples. I Love Apples (Kid’s Song) was cool because it taught us different facts about apples. The Apple Song was fun to hear and watch because it taught about all of the different kinds of apples in the world. Have you ever tried to balance an apple on your head? It's not easy. And if the apple falls, it could be bruised. Today we read the story Ten Apples Up On Top. Throughout the story the characters are balancing apples on their heads. They start with one and work their way up to ten. In the end, everyone has ten apples on their head. Our project today was to create a picture of us balancing ten apples on our head. We started by drawing a picture of our face/head. We tried to get the colors just right. Then we had to glue ten (paper) apples on our head. Next, Ms. Torborg wrote the words. Now they are hanging in the hall. At the end of the day, we each practiced trying to balance and then walk with an apple on our head. Just like they did in the story, 10 Apples Up On Top. It was a fake apple, but it looked and felt real. We decided that it was harder than it looked. Some of us were even able to balance it for a little while with no hands.
Tuesday:
In reading, we were introduced to another Secret Story. Today she told us the secret story about the letter E. Letter E is a vowel and all vowels are superheroes in disguise. When a vowel because a superhero, it says its name. When the letter e is in his lazy disguise,, she is a little old lady who can’t hear. She always cups her hand around her ear and says Ehhh.
We were also introduced to a new sight word, the. Then we received our first emergent reader book for our reading bin. This is a book we can read all on our own. Before we started reading it, we each received our own reading finger. (This is a monster finger with a long nail.) We use our reading fingers to point to the words as we read them. The first time we read the story together. Then we took sometime to read it by ourselves.
We spent part of our morning getting ready for our standardized test that starts next week. First we watched a video together about the test. Then we did several different practice tests on the SMARTboard together. Ms. Torborg walked us through how to answer each of the different types of questions and what to do when you get stuck. Next, we were off to the computer room to try for our self. We each got a chance to take a practice reading and math test.
We finished up our day by reviewing the apple life cycle and a little project. We listened to two stories. They both had the same title, Apples. We figured out that they had different authors, so they were different stories. They both contained information about apples.
For our project, we started by coloring a big apple with a leaf and stem. We had to make sure to use real apple colors. Then we cut the whole thing out. Plus we cut it in half on the dotted line. Next we colored a sheet of paper with the 4 different stages of an apple life cycle on it. Finally, Ms. Torborg helped us fold the stages paper and glue our apple on it. Now when you open the apple, you see the stages of an apple’s life cycle.
Wednesday:
Wow, what creative "Treasure Boxes"! It was wonderful to see all of the unique designs. (Don't worry if you have not made one yet, you still have time.) Each child took a turn standing in front of the class sharing how they created their box and who helped them. Now we have a spot to keep all of our precious papers and projects.
We had our first fire drill today. Since we have practiced several times, we knew just what to do. Everyone was able to get out safely and quietly.
In reading, we were introduced to another Secret Story. Today she told us the secret story about the letter I. Letter I is a vowel and all vowels are superheroes in disguise. When a vowel because a superhero, it says its name. When the letter i is in his lazy disguise, he bends to the side, puts his fingers next to his mouth and says “ihhh”.
In Math, we played a new game, Gotcha. We had to try to catch Ms. Torborg making a mistake. She tried to trick us as she counted, identified the number of objects in a group, and counted a group of objects. We were able to catch her every time!
In religion, we explored emotions. We started by creating a list of different emotions. Many times as we thought of an emotion, we had a story to tell. Then we listened to the story Little Penguin’s Big Emotions. We talked about all of the different emotions Penguin and Panda had throughout the week. As we came across a new emotion, we added them to our chart.
After lunch, we headed to the computer room. Today we took a NWEA screening reading assessment. It was like practicing to take our standardized reading test. We had to do things like identify letters and sounds, find matching sounds, and match capital and lowercase letters.
After reviewing some of the facts we know about apples. We used the apples we brought to school for a little discovery project. First we used cubes to measure how tall and long our apples were. We recorded our answers on our paper. Then we used a pan balance and cubes to measure how heavy it is. Next we created an AB pattern on the bottom of our paper. Finally we checked to see if our apples would sink or float.
Thursday:
In reading, we were introduced to another Secret Story. Today she told us the secret story about the letter O. Letter O is a vowel and all vowels are superheroes in disguise. When a vowel because a superhero, it says its name. When the letter o is in his lazy disguise, he is always at the doctor. He is worried about germs and doesn’t want the stick the doctor uses to touch his mouth so he opens really big and says Ahhh.
Identify the Front and Back of books. When we read a book, we want to make sure to start at the beginning of the story. That means we need to identify the difference between the front and the back of a book. Together we were able to identify things we would find on the front of a book such as the title, author, illustrator, etc.
After lunch, we headed to the computer room again. Today we took a NWEA screening Early Numeracy math assessment. We had to do things like match, count and identify numbers, identify more and less, and answer questions moving objects.
In the afternoon, we made another class book. Our book is about the apple we brought to school. Each of our apples are different, so each page is different. The first thing we had to do on our page was to draw a picture of our apple. If our apple was green and red, we had to draw a green and red apple. Then at the top of our paper we had to write the color words for our apple.
In religion, we we talked about Saints. We know that saints are in heaven with God. That when they were on Earth, they lived just like Jesus did. They helped people, prayed to God, did things God asked them to do even when it was hard, etc… Today we learned a little bit about St. Theresa of Calcutta. She is also known as Mother Theresa. Her feast day is September 5th and she is the patron saint of Missionaries of Charity. St. Theresa heard God ask her to take care of the poor and sick especially the people who were dying, so she did. She spent her life taking care of people who were sick and teaching people to respect life. After watching a short video, we colored her picture in our saint coloring book.
Friday:
Our Friday schedule is a little crazy. Our day starts with a short prayer service at in the Assembly room. Since there was a funeral at church this morning morning Mass was cancelled. Then we went outside for extra recess (our marathon reward for making our first goal last week).
When we got back to our classroom, we we reviewed our two sight words, I & the, and we read through our emergent reader together, The Farm, using our reading finger before we had snack and recess. We ended our morning with our alphabet song and calendar.
After lunch, we had Spanish and library. Then we went on a numbers walk. We tried to find all of the different items in our classroom that had numbers. Together we created a big list of items. Then we completed a dot to dot. We had to draw a line to each of the numbers in order. Our completed picture was a slice of apple pie that we colored. We also spent some time playing a math game on the iPads. Before we could play, we had to review the rules and procedures for the iPads.
We ended our day with another Marathon Rally. We started with a group activity. We were divided into two different groups. Each side stood on one side of the volleyball net. Our goal was to try to get the ball over the net as a group without using our hands. After our best attempts, we tried using our hands. We found that if we work together we can accomplish great things. Hopefully by working together we can make our Marathon goal. We ended our rally with our prayer intentions. Then we found out we raised more than $10,740 and met our next goal. One day next week, we will be able to chew gum that the teacher gives us.