Planning, Practicing, Pies, and MORE!

Happy Last Week of October!

Here is a quick glimpse of the MANY adventures in Kindergarten.  As I look through these photos, I think to myself, "Wow!  We did so much together!" Enjoy!

Ask your child to teach you the Morning Greeting that we practiced this week.  Our friend Lily's older brother, Remmy, came to our class from 3rd grade to show us this fun way to say hello to our friends.

The class worked hard to finalize all of their committee work.  They gave each other feedback, put together the game pieces, drew the instructions, and went through a lot of trial and error moments before feeling like they had completed their best work.  Also, each group came up with an official game name!

Pick the Apple Board Game Committee

Apple Bite Game Committee

Grab the Falling Leaf Committee

Decoration Committee

Pumpkin Fly Game Committee

Our Forest Building Area has been developing over the years.  Friends have been thinking of different ways to use the natural materials they have collected to create a forest for these fine soldiers.  What other materials could you support your child in collecting and sorting for this space?

Our Dramatic Play Area has been transformed into a Story Telling Area  after we read The Shoemaker and the Elves in class and wished to be able to act it out.  Here, friends are establishing roles, making costumes, and reenacting a scene from the book.

"The Shoemaker and his wife go to sleep...

"...and two elves come in to make their shoes."

This week in Number Talks, our big focus was finding as many unique equations as we could, which means if someone had the same idea for an equation as someone else, they did not have to show us, just tell us.  We were excited to see Kassadeano and Miranda to teach us a NEW equation that we had never seen before! 

For this week's Language Activity, Clara worked with the friends to come up with different rhyming words.  What words can you come up with?

Check out these snapshots from Lego Physics.

Last week, kindergartners were noticing different markings on the playhouses outside and were using wipes to clean it off.  Each time them worked, they used more and more wipes.  They came up with the plan of using water, soap, and sponges to avoid making more trash while caring for their tools.  This process is one that many friends take very seriously.

This week's Learning Extensions provided us with a lot to think about, including: musical instruments, sounding out words, building theories around why batteries wouldn't work, what grown up professionals do to at networking events, and how venus fly traps eat.

Marlee brought in a venus fly trap to teach us about what makes them special.  After hearing that they eat flies and ants, friends starting theorizing how it processed it's food.  In the afternoon, the class journaled about how they thought venus fly traps eat.  Come in to check out their theories!

The following day, we had a Gallery Walk with our 7th Grade Buddies and the kindergartners got to share their ideas about the venus fly trap with multiple people.

They also had a Gallery Walk of everyone's Story Element Brainstorm.  Each partnership put a sticky note next to which idea they thought we could use in a story.  Next week, we will tally the votes to see what our choices have been narrowed down to.

During Relax and Reading Time, I have been inviting small groups to test out liquid watercolor.  Friends are noticing the different effects that happen when they use different types of brushes. 

Last week, the class worked on starting a canned and boxed food drive to collect donations to take to our next field trip to the San Diego Food Bank.  Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far.  The class is excited to present this growing and generous gift to our hosts.

We reviewed safety agreements for our field trip to prepare us to be in and around cars, how to walk in a group, and how to use their emergency contact cards.  Ask your child about our agreements for more detail.

Thank you to everyone for helping with all of our ingredients (even the last minute ones!)

After our field trip, we reviewed the different wet and dry ingredients for our pumpkin and apple pie recipes, as well as the different measuring tools and safety measures for using knives.

Thank you to Betsy (Eli), April (Joseph), Jennifer (Jackson), and Lea (Miranda) for helping support the different cooking stations.

Apple Pie Filling

Apple Pie Crust

Pumpkin Pie Crust

Apple Slicing

Pumpkin Pie Filling

Thank you to Inma and Juan for being our Family Readers this week!

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Thank you to Betsy and Eli for taking these delicious smelling recipes home to bake before our Fall Season Celebration!

Love, Gaby