Last Week in Kindergarten

Last week was another busy week in Kindergarten!  We had some friends share the project they had completed in Guided Writing.  They did a great job!

   

   

We also read the story Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me by Eric Carle.  We started a project to go with the story.  Once we get back to school after our days off, we hope to finish it before conferences!

   

We even took some time to snuggle up with a good book in the library.  We sat and enjoyed the sunshine on a very cold day and just read books.  Everyone needs to take more time to do this!

   

   

   

I am missing my friends so far this week.  Hopefully the weather cooperates and we can all get back to a normal schedule soon.  in addition, I hope you are all enjoying some good, quality family time.  It's a great time to play some board games, read stories together or even encourage your child to do some writing on their own.  Stay safe and warm!!

Our Own Grouchy Ladybugs

We have been learning so much about the author/illustrator Eric Carle.  We have been learning about how he creates his illustrations.  He paints lots of paper or tissue using many different colors.  He also uses tools to give the paintings some texture.  When he makes a picture, he uses pieces of lots of different painted paper and creates his characters and backgrounds by making collages.  We decided to give his technique a try by making our own grouchy ladybugs.

   

   

We started by painting some plain white paper red and using plastic forks to texturize the paint.  We needed to let these dry overnight and then lay them out flat.

   

Once the paper was dry and flat, we cut out the red paper to make the ladybug's body.  Mrs. Kurt also took photos of us making our grouchy faces and Mr. Frid in the computer lab helped us print the photos.  We cut out our faces and added them to the ladybug bodies.

   

   

We added some legs to the ladybugs, too.

   

Of course, everyone knows that lady bugs have spots.  We added black spots by finger painting.

   

   

   

Once the paint dried, I hung these cute bugs in our classroom.  Good work, artists!

Book Character Day

Last Thursday was Book Character Day.  Students could dress up like their favorite book character if they chose to.  We had lots of fun characters...The Cat in the Hat, the monster from Where the Wild Things Are, Pinkalicious, Alex Morgan, The Flash, Jessie from Toy Story, Eeyore, a transformer and the three little kittens' mama kitty.  What a fun day!

   

   

   

Reader's Response Journals

Last week, we read the story The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle.  After we read the story, we had a great discussion about what the word grouchy means and if we are ever grouchy ourselves.  Turns out we are!  The following day, we wrote about what makes us grouchy in our Reader's Response Journals and we shared our writing on the rug.  It was so great to have the students share their writing and drawings of what makes them grouchy!

   

   

   

Sharing During Writer's Workshop

At the end of our Writer's Workshop, we always take time to share what we worked on.  Some days we do partner shares, some days we might choose a friend or two to teach the class about their writing using the document camera and smart board.  Today after we wrote, we tried doing a triangle share.  We have done the triangle share before...mostly before we started our writing.  Today we used it to share the stories we wrote in small groups.

Ms. Kieltyka reviewed the jobs we have in a triangle share.  There are three people in each group.  One person shares their story.  One person asks questions about the story that was shared.  And one person makes comments about the story, using kind words.  When this is done, we switch jobs until each person in the triangle share has had the opportunity to share their own story, ask questions and make comments.

   

We listened to the directions carefully.  Then we got into our small groups, found a cozy spot to work, and got busy!

   

   

   

It was really a fun way to share our writing and the students loved doing this.  They are really becoming good little writers!