Dice Tally Game

It was great to get back after our long weekend off.  Mrs. Lorenz is teaching us about stretching out words in Writing Workshop.  She said that we need to listen to the words we want to write carefully.  Then we should try to write down all the sounds that we hear.  She told us to "do the best you can, and move on".  So, that is what we tried today.  It was a little tricky but we kept trying and it actually went pretty well.  We will work on that again tomorrow.

In Math, we learned a new game.  It is called the Dice Tally game.  Mrs. Kurt gave us each one die to roll and a game sheet.  We reviewed how to make tally marks and what to do when you get a group of five.  When we rolled the die, we would put a tally mark next to the number that the die landed on.  It was a really fun game and it gave us good practice making tally marks!

Reading Workshop and Inside Recess

On Wednesday during our Reading Workshop time, we talked about all the different things that people read.  Of course we talked about books, magazines and newspapers, but we also talked about how people read on their computers, iPads, iPods, Kindles, phones...people read everywhere!  Part of our lesson was on finding things to read that are interesting to us.  In order for us to do this, Mrs. Kurt put baskets of books out on our tables.  We looked at the books in the baskets and found a few that were interesting to us.  Then we found a cozy spot in our classroom and took time to look through the books.

Some of us can read the books pretty well.  Others are recognizing some words that we have been learning in Writing and Reading workshop.  In a few weeks, we will begin our Guided Reading groups and will be bringing books home to read for practice.  Very exciting!

Since it was raining, we had inside recess today.  Here are some photos of the things we did during that time.

Have a great MEA weekend!

Number Corner, Tally Marks and Footprint Ghosts

In Kindergarten, we have Math every day.  Each Math lesson begins with our Number Corner.  Number Corner is an interactive calendar display that reinforces basic skills and it takes about ten minutes of each Math lesson.  Number Corner gives the students practice with sorting, patterning, graphing, counting, numeral recognition, comparing, addition, shapes, money, time and calendar reading skills throughout the school year.

In Math, we are learning about tally marks.  Tally marks are another way to represent a number.  We have shown numbers using tally marks on our white boards for practice.  After lunch today, we used tally marks to see how many students in our class had hot lunch, sandwiches, or lunch from home.  Mrs. Lorenz is also teaching us about tally marks and we are using popsicle sticks to show numbers.  Using tally marks to show the number five has been a little tricky for us, so you could help us practice this at home!

This morning we finished a fun Art project for Halloween...footprint ghosts.  Mrs. Radermacher helped us paint our feet white.  We stepped on black paper and waited for it to dry.  We added eyes, stars and a moon and made them into ghosts.  It was really fun and these look pretty cool hanging in the hallway outside our classroom.  Check them out!

National School Lunch Week

This is National School Lunch Week!  In honor of this, the kitchen workers at Northview invited the Kindergarten students to visit for a tour of the Northview kitchen.  We saw many things.  First, Mrs. Hanson showed us where the kitchen workers serve us the food.

Next she showed us the huge machine that washes the dishes.  The water in this dishwasher gets up to 180 degrees.

Then Mrs. Hanson showed us the freezer and refrigerator.

  

 

She also showed us the big room where they store the canned goods and paper products.

It was really cool to see where the lunchroom workers work hard every day to prepare our healthy school breakfasts and lunches.  We appreciate their hard work!

Later we went to lunch.  We had pizza and Mr. Jim was serving us today.  We also got to choose vegetables and fruit.

Mrs. Offerman helps us to put our lunch numbers in as we go through the line.

Lunch time in Kindergarten is fun.  You should join us sometime!

Eagan Firefighters and Trees

What an exciting day in Kindergarten Plus today!

Our day started with a fire drill.  We all get a little nervous when we hear the very loud alarm, but the firefighters told us we did a great job.  Then we had a chance to visit a real fire truck!  Engine Four was here today and there were two really nice firefighters who showed us all of the equipment on the truck. It was cool!

One of the firefighters even dressed up in his firefighter gear.  He wanted us to see what firefighters look like so we would not be scared if we ever see a firefighter in an emergency.  He sounded a little like Darth Vader!

The best part of seeing the truck was that we got to actually sit inside it.  The steps on the truck were really big, so the nice firefighters helped us to get in and out of the truck.  It was really cool to sit inside the truck.

When we went back inside, we went to Mrs. Dahl's room and visited with some more nice firefighters. They talked to us about calling 911, what to do if there is ever a fire at your house, only cooking with an adult, and they even gave us homework!  They told us to be sure and talk with our parents about what to do at home in case of a fire.

When we went back to our room, we put on our fire hats that we made yesterday for a picture.  We look pretty cool!

We are coming to the end of our Science unit on trees.  Mrs. Lorenz had a really cool activity for us to do today.  We made tree "books" out of paper bags.  We used the materials we collected yesterday when we went outside.  We glued words on the pages, illustrated the pictures and even put real pieces of bark, branches and leaves inside.  Then we practiced reading the books!  We put the books in our Friday Folders so we hope you had a chance to see it.

Read Aloud and Writing Workshop

This morning, Mrs. Lorenz read us her favorite story from when she was a child.  That book is "Mama, Do You Love Me?" by Barbara M. Joosse.  We really liked hearing it!

In Writing Workshop, we are learning what writers do.  First, writers have to think of an idea to write about.  We know that it is good to write about something that we know lots about!

Then we sketch our idea.  Did you know that sketch means to draw something quick?

Next, we try to write some words to go with our picture.  To do this, we stretch out the words and listen carefully to the sounds that the letters in the words make.  Then we write down the sounds we hear.  We do the best we can and move on!

At the end of Writing Workshop, we always take some time to admire some of our writing samples.

 

Tomorrow we will finish up our Science unit on trees.  Be sure you ask us to tell you all the parts of a tree!

Leaf Sorting and Assessments

This afternoon we were busy learning even more about leaves.  We decided to sort the leaves we collected from our leaf walk last Friday.  After some discussion, we thought it would be good to sort the leaves by color.

Mrs. Lorenz got out the enormous floor graph that we used a couple of weeks ago after we tasted different kinds of apples to see which one we liked best.  We listed the colors of the leaves and started sorting.  We are learning that using a graph helps us to organize information.

Next we made a chart that tells us how many leaves of each color we had.

Last, we recorded the information from the floor graph on to our own papers.

We have been quite busy working on our assessments.  Mrs. Kurt has been checking our letter names, letter sounds, writing, counting and lots of other skills.  It is pretty amazing how much we have already learned in Kindergarten!