Run, run, as fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread man!

Week 2 of the holiday festivities was all about Gingerbread! The students had so much fun tasting gingerbread, decorating gingerbread cookies, and hearing various gingerbread stories!

First, we frost the gingerbread cookie.

Next, we decorate the cookie.

Last, we eat the gingerbread cookie!

You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch

Our class had a lot of fun getting ready for the holiday season. Since there are so many activities to do during this time of year, I broke up my activities up into three areas over a time span of three weeks. The first week was about about the story, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Below you will see pictures from our week of the Grinch.

A parent made "grinch" cookies using green food coloring.

Making Grinch faces: To make the Grinch grin, I would....

Another parent made these adorable Grinch cupcakes!

Our Grinch bulletin board: the hearts had three ways the students can be kind to each other.

Thanksgiving Feast

During the month of November, our class learned about the First Thanksgiving. We discussed the way people lived a long time ago vs. how we live today using similarities and differences.
I have two wonderful room moms that made some yummy food for my class to try at our feast (i.e., turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes & gravy, corn, and bread). Below are the pictures from the day of our feast.

We made feathered hats

Feast Time!



Watching the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving at the end of the day



Election 2012

As a teacher, I try to keep my kiddos updated with current events so they know what is going on in our world. I always challenge my students to share what they have learned in class with their parents at home. Since it was election time, I grabbed some freebies from a collegue who has an amazing teaching blog, Katie Knight. She created some great election activities and I used some of them in my classroom. Below are some pictures from the day we "voted."

The top portion of the paper explained the election. The bottom portion is where the students check who they are voting for: Obama or Romney



Secret Ballot made by Katie Knight



Casting their vote

Our class bar graph

The final vote!



I made "I voted" stickers and gave each student a sticker after they voted...



Pumpkin Puppet Fun

So it's been a while...I have been slacking in the blogging area, but, I blame the holidays :) My husband and I hosted our Brazilian friends during my time off & we were busy visiting family & friends. As soon as I returned from Winter break in January, it has been non-stop at work (district assessments, grades, formal observation, and tracking off......sooooooon! Oh, and I am now 21 weeks pregnat!!).
I decided to post some pics from fall because they are just too cute to not post!
The pictures below are my students making a pumpkin puppet. We returned from our break the week of Halloween. The students were super energetic, grew during the month off (physically and academically), and of course were pumped for Halloween :)

Apple Day!



Apple Beverage Table



During the month of September, my kindergarten class is learning all about apples (in addition to our district adopted curriculum, of course). Each week we do various activities such as apple tasting (5 senses), apple graphs (math), the parts of an apple (science), apple writing, and apple art. We discuss apples so much around here in kindergarten that by the end, we have apples coming out of our ears! Not really, but you get what I'm saying, right? We believe in building community at VanderMolen so we love to get the parents involved as often as we can. We know that parents have busy lives with working and what not, so us Kinder teachers pick one day a month to invite the parents to celebrate all that we've learned for the month...this month being apples!

Tasting all kinds of apple goodies!

 

Teddy Bear Picnic



What is Teddy Bear Picnic, might you ask? Well, in the land of VanderMolen Kinder, we have our annual Teddy Bear Picnic with our students and their parents at the end of the month of August. The month of August is all about bears (reality) and teddy bears (fantasy). We do various bear activities such as real bears vs. pretend bears, we read the story of Corduroy & make our very own Corduroy, we use gummy bears to make a bar graph, Brown Bear activities, etc. etc. It is oodles of fun! 

About half-way through the month of August, we send home a letter to the parents to ask for donations of gummy bears, teddy grahams, m & m's, water, juice, all the things we need to make our Teddy Bear theme & Picnic a success. Included in the letter is an invitation for parents & grandparents, to join us for a picnic. On this day, the students can bring their favorite teddy bear & the parents bring lunch for their child & themselves. The kids get super excited for their parents to have lunch with them! It is a great way to build community with our families here at VanderMolen.

Following the picnic, we bring all the kiddos (the PM kinders in my case) into one classroom to watch the Corduroy movie. Prior to starting the movie, we tell the students we are going to put our teddy bears down for a nap, they have had a long day already. The kids walk them over to a middle room (our work room) and put them down for a nap on a blanket we have in the work room. While the students are watching the movie, we have parents sneak the teddy bears out the next classroom's door so the students cannot see us removing their bears from their "nap." When the movie finishes, we send a student over to "wake" the bears up from their nap. Lo and behold, they discover the bears are gone!! However, the bears have left a clue! This then leads us on a bear hunt around the school. We usually get the librarian, the cafeteria ladies, the secretary, and the principal involved (we leave clues in those specific areas and they read the clues to our kiddos). The last clue leads us back to the Kindergarten playground, where the bears love to be most of all! The parents scattered the teddy bears all over the playground, on the jungle gym, swings, garden area, etc. The kids then run onto the playground and try to find their bear. It is great to see the kids faces as we are hunting for their bears & when they finally find them. I got some great footage of the hunt that I plan on using in my end of the year slide show.   

Teddy Bears down for a nap

Following the bear hunt, all the kinder teachers on track teach an activity to one group of kids in their classroom (the students rotate to the classrooms, every 30 minutes). For example, I taught an art lesson, where the students made a teddy bear using brown paper plates as the belly, and I had my wonderful room mom prep the rest of the bear body. The other teachers taught a reading activity, math activity, and writing activity. The day was a success, but very very very exhausting! A lot of work went into planning & prepping this culminating day, but it was well worth it! The kids came to school on Monday saying how much they loved Teddy Bear Picnic Day & wished we could do it again :)





At the start of Teddy Bear Picnic Day!



At the end of Teddy Bear Picnic Day...zzzzzzz