February 6

Welcome to February. We have been so busy in kindergarten. We started our new PYP unit on weather. Earlier this week we had so much fun learning about the four types of clouds. We read Eric Carle's book called LITTLE CLOUD about a cloud who loved to change its shape. We made our own little clouds with cotton balls. By the end of the project our fingers were really sticky!



On Friday the entire kindergarten went on a field trip to Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis for their Kinder Konzerts education program. When we got there, we got to take a tour of the big stage that the musicians play on each night. We listened to several musicians introduce their instruments to us. We compared and contrasted their different sounds before listening to a story without words---just music. We were not allowed to take pictures while we were on stage, but check out the many instruments we listened to:


Can you name all of these instruments and remember which group they belong to?

Once we finished listening to the musicians play for us, we went to the "Sound Factory." We learned the musical terms for fast and slow...presto and largo. We compared these terms to a rabbit and a tortoise. We listened to fast and slow pieces of music and waved our musical streamers like we were conducting our own orchestra:

We also got a chance to play several instruments ourselves like the violin, cello, snare drum, and several different sounding percussion instruments:


At the very end we listened to several pieces of music that were fast and slow. We moved the parachute up and down to the beat of the piece--and used motions that were presto and largo. This might have been our favorite part, and a great way to end our day:

January 25

Yesterday we watched a really fun puppet show by the PACER puppets. It taught us about recognizing and understanding students with disabilities and how they would like to be treated. We learned that no matter what, everyone likes to have fun with their friends and learn new things at school. Here we are enjoying the show:

We have been enjoying winter. We read the book SNOWMEN AT NIGHT and then made our own snowpeople out of marshmallows and glue. They look just like snow and almost good enough to eat:-) They are hanging on our classroom door.

We also made snow people out of snowflakes. We are getting so much better using our fine motor skills and scissors:-)

January 22

I wanted to show you something new and exciting we have been doing during math time. I always look for additional ways that I can have my students reading and writing. We started doing math journals last week as a way to reinforce all that we have been learning in math. Each journal entry requires the students to recognize number words, and follow step by step directions, sequencing, labeling, and counting. I wanted to post a few examples of some of the wonderful work the students have been doing. You can click on each image for a larger view.

Tastes

Today we did an experiment to test our sense of taste. We have been learning that our tongue is full of tiny taste buds that send messages to our brain as to whether our food is salty, sweet, bitter or sour. Today we tasted honey, lemons, pretzels, and unsweetened chocolate. It was fun to watch the expressions on the kids’ faces as they tasted each food. They were surprised to learn that they did not like the chocolate—in fact that was their least favorite. Ask your student what they learned about how we taste, and which food was their favorite. You will see a sheet in their folders where they drew each food they tasted. For fun at home, choose foods without your student knowing and see if they can use their sense of taste and smell to figure out what they are eating.

January 2

Welcome back Families!

I hope you enjoyed a wonderful and relaxing winter break with your family. I am so excited and anxious to see the kids, get back into a learning routine and hear all about the many adventures and experiences that happened to them during the last ten days. Unfortunately I caught the cold virus that had been circulating our room before the break. I spent the majority of my vacation coughing, and stuffed up. It is nice to be healthy again. I hope that you all have found the start to 2011 to be a healthy one.

Here are a few things that have been keeping us busy in our room:

We have enjoyed learning about our sense of sight. We have been learning about how our eyes work, and how different objects can affect how we see the world.


Here we are working on an engineering project with our fourth grade buddies. Our challenge was to come up with the best flying paper airplane. It was so fun to experiment with different types of folding, paper clips, and tape.


We were excited that our friend Athen represented our classroom in the K-3 paper airplane throwing contest. We learned about how to compete positively, how to support and cheer on our peers, and how much fun it is when the school comes together.

The students were challenged to fly their paper airplane through Mrs. Gerber's hula hoop! It was hard!
Two days before break, we joined our buddies again to decorate gingerbread cookies and read together. It was so fun to read with our buddies in our pajamas...it felt so nice and cozy.

I am very excited to see what 2011 will bring to us at Lincoln Center. Thank you for a wonderful 2010.