Fall Celebration

Today was an exciting day in our kindergarten class.  We had our Fall Celebration!  We started the day with a wonderful story…

…and then made a list of things we think of when we talk about fall.  Check out all these amazing ideas!

We quickly decided to write about our favorite thing to do in the fall in our Reader's Notebooks.  We started by thinking of an idea.  Then we did a "Turn and Talk" with a partner.  Turn and Talk is when we get to share our ideas or thinking with a friend.  Talking about our ideas helps us to plan out what we are going to draw and write.

   

Next, we added a picture of our favorite thing to do in the fall in our Reader's Notebooks.  We even tried to add some labels and words to our pictures!

  

   

Of course, the most exciting part of our day was the Fall Celebration that took place after lunch today.  We participated in activities at four different stations…Fall Bingo, Pumpkin Craft and Bean Bag Toss, Play Dough, and Roll a Pumpkin.

   

   

   

   

   

   

  

   

   

   

After the celebration, we headed off to Art class.  But when we returned, we found a popcorn snack at our table spots!  We had a popcorn snack while we watched a movie about pumpkins!

   

At the end of each day, we do an Appreciation Circe, where the kids reflect on their day and share one thing with the group that they appreciated about their day.  I appreciate my volunteers…Lisa Krier (Everly's mom) and Jessica Rau (Colton's mom) for taking time out of their busy day to come and help with the celebration.  I also appreciate some Northview staff members who also assisted us today…Mrs. Radermacher, Mrs. Tavernier and Mrs. Town.  We would not have been able to have this celebration without these wonderful people.  Thank you all!!!

Fire Safety

Today it was all about fire safety in Kindergarten.  We started our day off with a story about firefighters, but we were interrupted by a fire drill!  We dropped what we were doing, lined up and headed outside.

Once the drill was finished, we came back inside and finished our story.  Then we made these sweet fire fighter hats!

Shortly after we finished out hats, we were visited by two Eagan firefighters…

   

…Firefighter Pat and Firefighter Ben.  They told us what a great job we did on our fire drill this morning.  They also told us lots of information about what to do in case of a fire, when it is appropriate to call 911 and they showed us their cool equipment.  This is so if we are ever involved in a fire, we won't be scared of how the firefighters look and sound when they have all their gear on.  We were really interested in what they had to say to us!

   

The firefighters were great about explaining all of their gear to us.  They told us that when they have all their gear on, it weighs about 70 pounds.  Wow…they are strong.  One thing that was really cool about these firefighters…firefighter Ben used to go to school at Northview when he was a young boy.  We thought that it is pretty amazing that he is now an Eagan firefighter and he visits Northview every year during the fire safety visit!

   

   

Following the classroom visit, we got to go outside to see and learn about a real fire truck.

   

   

There sure is a lot of interesting equipment on a fire truck.  But the best part was that we got to go inside the truck!

   

After lunch, we read another fire safety story.

Next we got to work making our own fire trucks.  We had to do some cutting and gluing on these.  They turned out great!

    

   

And, of course, we had to get a photo of our silly faces, too.

Please take some time to discuss with your family what to do in the event of a fire at home.  Setting up a meeting place is so important, as well as reviewing all fire safety rules.  These little ones know lots about how to be safe.  Be sure to ask them what they learned!

Zones of Regulation

We have seen this sign around our school…in our classroom, in the halls, the lunchroom, the gym and many other places.  We were curious about it so we decided to investigate.  This sign is for the Zones of Regulation.  

This helps us to remember what voices are appropriate for different part of the school.  For example, when we are walking in the hall, we hope to be in the blue zone or to have our voices on "0".  To better understand this, we made a list of places where the voices are appropriate during one of our community writing sessions this week.

This has been very helpful with our kindergartners to learn about their voice volume at school.  Ask them about it!

How to be a Splendid Friend

We read the story A Splendid Friend, Indeed by Suzanne Bloom.  The story has a wonderful message that even though we are all different, we can still all be friends.  We talked lots about what splendid means.  We also talked about how we can be a splendid friend.  We recorded our thinking in our Reader's Notebooks.

   

  

After we recorded our thinking, we gathered perimeter on the rug to share our thinking!

   

   

Sometimes our writing consists of just pictures and sometimes we add some letters or words to the pictures.  It is so exciting to hear the students' great thinking!

Guest Readers in Kindergarten

We had so much fun meeting two very important All Stars this week…Mrs. Tavernier and Mrs. Town! They both came to visit our classroom this week and they each read us a wonderful story.

   

Mrs. Tavernier is new to Northview this year, just like we are.  She is our Assistant Administrator.  She read us the story The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires.  This story is about a little girl and her canine assistant that set out to make the most magnificent thing.  However, things don't go exactly how they think they should and they quickly become frustrated.  Be sure to ask your kindergartner how the story ends!  We did make a connection in this story…the girl had an assistant and Mrs. Tavernier is Mrs. Town's assistant.  Mrs. Tavernier told us that her two children love when she reads this book to them and we can see why.  We loved having Mrs. Tavernier visit our class.  Welcome to Northview, Mrs. Tavernier!

   

   

Mrs. Town also visited our classroom this week.  She read us the story What Does It Mean To Be Present? by Rana DiOrio.  This story has such a wonderful message about how each day is a gift and that is why we call it being present.  Be sure to ask your kindergartner to tell you about this beautiful story, too!

   

We really enjoy getting to know the staff at Northview.  We are learning their names and also learning that they are here to help us and we don't need to be scared of them.  We are excited for them to drop by our classroom to see what we are up to in kindergarten!