Spring is finally here! What better way to celebrate spring than with butterflies. Learning the life cycle of living things is super interesting for students, especially when you get to actually see if with your own eyes. Our caterpillars arrived last week and the class was super excited when they found out they would be able to watch them grow in class. I started my butterfly unit discussing the four stages of the life cycle of a butterfly. We read informational books and watched a short video on butterflies. Each day students observe our caterpillars and record any changes they see on their observation sheet. We are excited and anxious for the life cycle to progress!

Daily Observation is FUN!

Look how Big they are getting!

Madelyn and her Beautiful Butterfly!

Reed is Super Proud of his butterfly!

Happy Spring! 🦋

This week kindergarten celebrated Read Across America Week and the beloved children’s author Dr. Seuss. Reading books aloud help create strong literacy skills. Dr. Seuss books are great for young readers. We spent this week developing our love for reading through the many adventures of Dr. Seuss. Today, children could wear a hat of their choice and crazy socks. Children explored and used their problem solving skills with a STEM activity, (building a Cat In The Hat Cup Stacking Challenge). We ended the day with a yummy treat!

We celebrated Valentines Day today with all our special friends. We started the morning discussing kindness and what it means to show this to others. Each child had to say something kind about their classmate. Many sweet things were said and you could see their hearts grow bigger with each compliment given. We ended with an ice cream sundae and of course chocolate! Kindness is free. Sprinkle it Everywhere!

Mrs. Carla’s class is 100 Days Smarter! The 100th Day of school is an exciting time in kindergarten. This day signifies the 100th day of school. Our celebration started Friday, January 29th with our 99th Birthday Bash! Our sweet friends dressed up as if they were 99 years old. How FUN to see their creative costumes!

100th day is FINALLY here! Today each child wore a 100 day t-shirt of their choice. They visited multiple math stations throughout the classroom using place value and counting groups of ten objects. They also used their creative thinking skills to create a design using legos and marshmallows. We finished our celebration with everyone’s favorite….PIZZA and a delicious cookie!

Fridays are always fun in Mrs. Carla’s Class. We look forward to Friday each week. There is always a fun learning activity planned for our friends. Show and Tell is a class favorite! Our class loves to show some of their favorite things and tell their friends what makes it special to them. Hooray for Show and Tell Friday!!

Boxing is Greyson’s favorite sport!

Look at all those gymnastic medals! 🏅🏅🏅🏅

MaeLeigh is super excited!❤️

Soccer is Mia’s favorite sport!⚽️

Piper is the Queen from Frozen!

Arthur loves his dinosaurs!🦕

Who says kindergarteners can’t vote? We celebrated Election Day on November 3, 2020, by discussing what it means to vote and the importance of an election. Then, I told the class we would be voting for our favorite candidate; Sour Patch, Kit Kat, and York Peppermint Pattie. Each student cast a ballot for their favorite candy. They had so much fun filling out their ballots and placing them in the ballot box. The winner was announced the next morning. Sour Patch for President!

Making a decision can be hard sometimes!

I think she was proud of her choice!

Hadley for President!🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Reed for President! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Piper for President! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Fall is a good time to do some experimenting with pumpkins! Today we did an experiment with small pumpkins. First, we had a discussion about why objects float or sink. Then, we predicted if our pumpkin would sink or float. Prediction skills form an important basis for young children learning reading, math, and science. Each student wrote their name on a pumpkin and placed it under the headings “sink or float.” Finally, we placed our pumpkin in water and confirmed our predictions. Seven students said the pumpkin would sink and four said the pumpkin would float.

Sight words are a core part of our literacy curriculum. Sight words or high frequency words are words that are most commonly found in written and spoken language. They consistently appear in books, textbooks, and stories. Once students learn to quickly recognize these words , reading comes more easily. I try to find fun and engaging ways to teach sight words. Our class is doing AWESOME learning their sight words! Check out these smart kindergarten students practicing sight words.

Playdough is Super engaging! Hands-on activities are a motivating way to help learn common sight words.

Students LOVE using sidewalk chalk to practice their sight words!

Johnny Chapman, a.k.a. Johnny Appleseed was a real-life hero who is remembered for planting apple trees. He is well known for his kindness and generosity for giving apples to strangers. Our class celebrated Johnny Appleseed with lessons discussing parts of an apple, creating our own apple trees, making a Johnny Appleseed book, and ending the unit cooking cinnamon apples. What better way to begin Fall!

GREYSON HELPS PREPARE OUR CINNAMON APPLES!

LOGAN IS SUCH A BIG HELPER!

WE ARE READY FOR BUTTER AND SUGAR!

HAZEL MIXES THE INGREDIENTS!

MADELYN IS SUCH A GREAT ARTIST!

REED IS PROUD OF HIS JOHNNY APPLESEED BOOK!

Kindergarten is in full swing! We are busy learning many new things. Our sweet friends work extremely hard all week and on Fridays, we love being creative and trying something new and exciting! Our first Flashlight Friday was a BIG HIT! Students brought a flashlight from home, some of their favorite books, and a special friend to cozy up with around the classroom. Flashlight Friday is a simple fun way to engage students and spark their interest in independent reading. What a FUN FRIDAY!