'Twas the Day Before Thanksgiving...

'Twas the day before Thanksgiving, and all through our classroom, the kindergartners were busy being grateful for families, friends and lots of other things!  We started out the day making a list of all the things we are thankful for.  It was a BIG list!  Then we each wrote on a paper leaf one thing we felt grateful for.  

We took the leaves down the hall and added them to our school thankful tree right outside the school library.

   

Each student and staff member at Northview added a leaf to the tree.  Isn't it beautiful?  We are so lucky to have so much to be thankful for!

Next we read the story "Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey.  It is a great story about some students who went on a field trip to Farmer Mack Nugget's turkey farm the day before Thanksgiving.  Ask you kindergartner what happened to the turkeys in the story…you might be surprised!

In the spirit of the first Thanksgiving, we shared a special Thanksgiving snack.  Several families donated items for our snack mix (Thank you for that!) and we mixed them all together in a huge bowl to make the mix.  Then we shared it and ate it together.  It was yummy!

   

   

Our next big job was to make our turkey hats for Turkey Bingo.  They turned out so cute.

   

And then…the best part of the whole day.  The whole school played Turkey Bingo!  It was so fun.  When you got a bingo, you had to run down the hallway to the prize table and gobble like a turkey the whole way.  Mrs. Town and Mr. Ball called the bingo cards on the news and everyone had so much fun!

   

   

   

Days like today make me remember how thankful I am for each and every one of my kindergarten students.  They amaze me every day and I am so lucky to be their teacher.  I am also very thankful for all of our kindergarten families as well.  Have a safe and relaxing weekend.  Happy Thanksgiving!

And one more with their silly faces...

Thank You, Northview Custodial Staff!

This week, we are taking time out to thank our custodial staff at Northview.  Our building chief, Mr. Ball and evening custodians Mr. Gibson and Mr. Doug all work hard to keep our school clean (inside and out!) and to keep us warm in the winter and cool in the fall and spring.  In addition, their office is right across the hall from our classroom and they are great neighbors!

THANK YOU Mr. Ball, Mr. Gibson and Mr. Doug for all you do for us!

Attitude of Gratitude

We are talking lots this week about gratitude and being thankful.  This morning we made a turkey project and thought of ways we could save a turkey.  Turkeys might not be a thankful this time of year as we are, so we thought of things we could eat instead that might save a turkey!  We had some great ideas…pizza, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, watermelon and many more.  Hope you enjoy these as much as we did!

   

   

   

   

   

Bowling and All Stars of the Week in Physical Education

Congratulations to this week's All Stars of the Week in P. E.  We are very proud of you, Kylea and Jonathan.  Keep up the good work!

We also started a unit in P. E. on bowling.  We had to really be good listeners for Mr. Nelson and we needed to work together so everyone got a chance to bowl.  When we all work together, things go very smoothly.  It is also a lot of fun!

   

All Stars of the Week

Here's a shout out to our Physical Education All Star Students of the Week this week…Deka and Kenyon.  Way to go, Kindergarten All Stars!

Managed Independent Learning and Computers

We have started introducing our Managed Independent Learning time.  Managed Independent Learning is when students engage in small group activities that enrich their literacy and math skills.  The goal of this is for the students to be independent and managed as they complete an activity and move on to the next one.  It is a process…a SLOW process to get this up and running.  In addition, we are learning how to build stamina because in order for us to do this successfully, we need stamina.  Stamina means being able to do something of a long time.  It is pretty amazing how quickly these students can adapt to new things!

   

   

   

   

   

   

Our Managed Independent Learning activities this week included Math Workplaces, Journal Writing, Research Center (where we observe our tree artifacts), Teacher Conference, Pla-Doh and Independent Reading.  It will be exciting to move forward with this as we build our stamina.

On Friday mornings you will find our class in StarLab 2…one of our school's computer labs.  I am amazed at how much these students already know about technology.  They are actually teaching their teacher a few things as well.  It is a little tricky since these school computers are different from the laptops and tablets many students use at home these days, but they are doing their best, trying hard and not getting frustrated.

   

   

Many of the websites we use in school are available on the Classroom Connections - Kindergarten page of the Northview webpage.  You are welcome to access these at home if you are interested in looking at them or giving your child an opportunity for additional practice.

All Stars of the Week

A shout out to our All Stars of the Week in gym.  Congratulations, Molly and Alex E.  We are proud of you!