Thursday, December 22, 2011

Day 42

We were the jingle bells at our DCS Christmas Carolling today!  What fun to jingle even when we didn't know all the words.

Then we made Christmas cards and wrapped our Christmas presents and packed up for our Christmas Party!  We hiked through Foxwood Forest, better know as Edison Park.  There were water drops on all the trees.  It was the last day of fall so I guess fog turned to drops on trees is ok, although we usually have snow to hike through and talk about tracks in the snow.  We did find a every green bough and compared it with all the every green/fir trees along the way.  Its needles were either too short, or too flat, or too soft to be any of the trees along our route.  It was a good learning experience even though we didn't find out where the bough had come from.

We toured Mrs. B's fishy ocean bathroom, touched a rubber blow fish and a real one.  Saw a lobster tail from Maine, a huge barnacle from Alaska,  a coconut shell from Florida- all hanging in Mrs B's fish net on the ceiling...oh, and a sponge and a fake snake, and a fish made out of palm fronds from Hawaii.  We looked for 20 white things with wings- angels on Mrs B's Christmas tree.  We had two great moms to make a party for us!!  Mrs. Englert helped us make a ginger bread house.  Mrs. Barbee helped us make gingerbread men and some angels and reindeer as a craft.  Mrs. Englert brought an amazing game for us to play that let us move and make a lot of noise and we loved that!  Then we sat still for a minute or two while Mrs. B read us God Gave Us Christmas.  "Can we go find Santa, Mama?"  "Hmm.  Santa is hard to find,"  said Mama.  "But we can go find God.  God is everywhere."  Kids always talk about stuff like that and this book starts where they may be and the Mama helps baby bear to see how much God loves us by sending us Jesus.  That was my favorite time in the party because there are seven little souls so ready to hear God's truth and I get to sit in the middle of them for a short time in their life and help them meet my Savior.  Sappy sounding but from my heart!!

Merry Christmas to you all.  This has been a great year so far.  A little rest and off we'll go again!!  And now we have a magnetic white board for Reading Center and Number Notebook time.  With magnetic markers I won't misplace!  And a classy scarf and necklace from the class.  Thanks to the moms for a great party!!

DCSgradeK: Day 41

DCSgradeK: Day 41: Our story today was If Anything Ever Happens At The Zoo. It is a clever story about a girl who invites all the zoo animals to her house if ...

Monday, December 19, 2011

Day 41

Our story today was If Anything Ever Happens At The Zoo.  It is a clever story about a girl who invites all the zoo animals to her house if any thing ever happens at the zoo.  And all the zookeepers remember her offer when the zoo floods out and she has a big yard for the zebras,  a swing set for the monkeys, a bathtub for the alligator and other spaces.  One problem is that they show up at night and her mom didn't know about the plan.  It is such fun.  Of, course the kids played zoo animals, dressing up creatively and having more fun.  We also started organizing our own zoo on a mural.  It shows all the places the animals would need to be happy and we are placing different animals from an animal collection book.  It gives us a chance to strategize about where each one should live.  You have probably guessed that we are learning about the z sound this short week.

I am learning how to leave enough space for original problem solving in our number notebooks.  The kids need freedom to think through my problems.  Unfortunately,  they have figured every one of my problems out so I will have to keep making them a little harder.  It gives me a great opportunity to learn more about sites online that can give me ideas.

Wednesday we head to my house for the afternoon.  I hope we can contain our enthusiasm and leave my house in one piece.  We have a lot of activities to keep us busy, so it should be a great little party.  Enjoy your time off with your family!  What a wonderful time of year to celebrate Jesus coming to us!!

DCSgradeK: Day 40 if you believe it~!!

DCSgradeK: Day 40 if you believe it~!!: We started out the day with a dancing pineapple! Her name was Zero The Pineapple!! She cheered for Day 40 and the kids had a good laugh. ...

DCSgradeK: Day 40 if you believe it~!!

DCSgradeK: Day 40 if you believe it~!!: We started out the day with a dancing pineapple! Her name was Zero The Pineapple!! She cheered for Day 40 and the kids had a good laugh. ...

Friday, December 16, 2011

Day 40 if you believe it~!!

We started out the day with a dancing pineapple!  Her name was Zero The Pineapple!!  She cheered for Day 40 and the kids had a good laugh.  Later I carved it up so they saw the outer skin,  then I trimmed around the core and each of them got a peice of pineapple shaped like a...ZERO!!  We all tried it and it was delicious!  No one said 30 ten this time so they anticipated the exchange of ten ones to a bundle of ten.

We finished our first week of Number Notebooks to start off the day.  We have a page full of our results.  Day 1:  Make a pattern with two colors of cubes.  Try another combination.  Draw pictures.
Day 2:  Make a pattern with three colors.  Draw a picture of it.
Day 3:  Make a CORE pattern of three colors.  Repeat it and trade one set of three cubes with a b uddy.  Now draw the two patterns together.  This was definitely harder for them to do.  We will try it again on Monday with no help from me to see how they figure it out and if they come up with the right answer.

The goal is to learn to give them a situation to solve in their own way.

How I love Bible time!!  On Wednesday we continued to talk about the shepherds and what it was like for them to find out about Jesus from angels.  We thought about how the angel was so bright.  God put a light in them.  God was behind them.  An angel is like a candle.  The kids genuinely want to understand the God they love.  Today we talked more about how the shepherds might feel since they were out in the open and couldn't see in the dark and then the Angel appeared to them.  They shared their experiences with fear in the dark.  And then we all hurried to Bethlehem to see the Newborn King.  Afterwards we looked into the sky and saw our memory verse :  Luke 2:10 and 11.  It is due on Monday, December 19.

We are so excited about making words out of our moveable letter people.  The children are really interested in the whole reading process.  They put each standing letter on either side of letter light a and just like that they discover a word!!  Then they write it down and they are so proud!

Don't forget- P booklet homework is due Monday!  Have a great weekend.  Enjoy last minute preparations and time with your family!

DCSgradeK: Day 37

DCSgradeK: Day 37: We had a beautiful day for our play field trip. We boarded the bus with great excitement. We could see snow all over everything on the way...

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Day 37

We had a beautiful day for our play field trip.  We boarded the bus with great excitement.  We could see snow all over everything on the way to Northville and it was even snowing a little bit on our way into the theatre.  We sat in seats towards the front of the theatre.  We were so happy to have our parents and teachers with us.  The costumes were beautiful and the performances were delightful.  Bell was such a kind and cheerful soul.  She learned to love the Beast because he was beautiful on the inside.  She and her father were so generous to want to save the other one.  Wonderful lessons!

We made it back to school in time to write about our trip.  In the afternoon we read the Christmas story about the shepherds coming to see the newborn baby and acted the story out during free time.  The shepherds had to sleep on the green rug and didn't have a house to stay in.  The kids were surprised about that!  We wondered when Mary and Joseph could take baby Jesus back home..to Nazareth.  And Elizabeth wanted to come and visit Mary there.  Lots of issues come up when you are acting out the Bible.  I can't always answer their questions at the time but hopefully they will ask you, too and we can ask our Father in heaven to help us teach our little ones what they want to know.

Please look for a new memory verse in the kid's folders.  Also,  some of the kids read to me and got new library books.  The rest will have a turn on Monday.  They were pretty excited to get to read to me!!

DCSgradeK: Day 36

DCSgradeK: Day 36: Oh, so sad my camera conked out because the kids looked adorable as Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and Zechariah, their donkey, the innkeeper ...

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Day 36

Oh, so sad my camera conked out because the kids looked adorable as Mary and Joseph,  Elizabeth and Zechariah,  their donkey, the innkeeper and a whole village of Bethlehem.

Another first- we started to add today.  Eventually they figured out that the next problem was just one more or the number that comes after.  We started our Number Notebooks this morning.  We will start by answering questions about patterns and writing the way we figured it out on our graph paper pages.

Friday is our field trip,  Beauty and the Beast.  We get to ride a bus because Trevor's Uncle drives a church bus and offered to drive us!  Should be fun!  We will see many of you there!

DCSgradeK: letsfindout

DCSgradeK: letsfindout: Now let's see if we can keep track of those kindergarteners. Day 6 was Friday, Sept 16, the day of our Signs neighborhood walk. You receiv...

Monday, December 5, 2011

Day 35

I found out today that some of the kindergartners can already count by 5s!  That is really handy as we are studying about nickels now.  We also could count the number of fives days we have had and it is 7.  It may not mean much to them right now but they saw multiplying in action during calendar and counting time today.  We will start playing the ant go marching 5 by 5 in math center time.  Should be a fun way to practice counting by 5s.  Picture lots of insects to count and boys and girls who like insects and you can see how much fun they will have.

I just got their number notebooks put together today.  Each morning we will find out something about math problems during guessing time.  Today we tried it together-I asked the question, "How many cubes can you pick up in your hand?"  So we all guessed and I modeled how to figure it out with their help.  We wrote down our guesses and compared them.  Then we tried it out to see how many were white cubes.  When they use their notebooks,  I will give them the chance to try to figure problems out on their own and write down their answers in the notebooks.  The problems will go along with where they are in math right now.  We will do patterning problems for awhile.  When adding starts to make sense we will use what they know about adding, too.  I am excited to see how much this helps them with thinking through math problems.

The kindergartners were pretty excited about learning how to put sounds on either side of letter light a to blend together to make words.  We did it together with the help of the small letter people called Moveables that they use on their map.  Then we tried it at the word shop where I worked with them as they moved the letter people together to blend the sounds together and read the words they had formed.
To celebrate this great day, we have opened the lending library.  They each picked out a book to read with you.  They go along with the a that Ms. A says when she says a-choo (or the a in apple).  I sent home a note to help you know what to do with the book and when to send it back and get a new one. I will let them read their book to me and that will give me a good idea of how they are doing.

Besides all that,  we saw the rain start to float- or rather snow started to fall this afternoon.  That was very handy for talking about snow in science class.  They told me that rain in God's tears.  He has alot of extra  that He puts in clouds.  When it gets cold enough it melts into snow.  (I suggested freeze might be a better word for it but all our ideas are worth talking about!!)

DCSgradeK: letsfindout

DCSgradeK: letsfindout: Now let's see if we can keep track of those kindergarteners. Day 6 was Friday, Sept 16, the day of our Signs neighborhood walk. You receiv...

Friday, December 2, 2011

Day 34

What a joy to talk to your kids about God's plan to come down to earth to be with us.  We sang "God Promised He would send us His Own Son". (repeat)  This is how he kept his promise-He sent us baby Jesus!  God promised He would send us His own Son.  Add some claps and we really worshipped today!

We started talking about doctors today.  We learn alot about things just by talking about our experiences.  Gabi brought in a little horse that was her grama's.  She told us her grama had cancer and died.  What is cancer someone asked.  Where you can't breath because of the dirt.  When you have it and get better and get it again.  Of course,  my comments were about it spreads, and they said it makes you really sick.  At the book bank they love the Animal book with so many actual animals.  They teach each other about getting germs from being bit by a bat and cleaning out the bite.   We hope to learn alot about our bodies just by bringing up doctors helping us stay healthy.

In weather class we started talking about where wind comes from.  From a cloud?  How did it get there?  God put it there.  Could God breath it into the clouds?  Not every question gets completely answered but we will keep having the conversation each day and they will be amazed at what God can do and how his weather works.

Our writing gets more detailed as we learn more everyday words.  We have 1 1 letter word-I.  We have five two letter words-do, to, me, my,  is.  We have five three letter words-you, see, are, and, the.  Two letter words are- like, made.  One five letter word-there.  We use them in our Kindergarten news each morning when we try to put them in sentences.  We used slash marks to count up how many my's we used today and we found we used my six times.

We have two new math games:  We are counting gingerbread men into a cookie sheet,  starting to count by fives up to 30.  We couldn't believe they were baked by the eighth graders when they were in Kindergarten (and extremely hard, too I might add).  We are also counting out pennies to see how many go into a nickle- again counting by fives.  That is a magnet game we made up today with our magnetic money.   They love making up new games to play.  I need to help them sometimes since I know what we are learning in math.

Well, have a good weekend I say from my house where no one is discussing anything at the moment.  And that is ok.  May Our Father in Heaven give you peace as you enjoy your little ones at your house.  

DCSgradeK: letsfindout

DCSgradeK: letsfindout: Now let's see if we can keep track of those kindergarteners. Day 6 was Friday, Sept 16, the day of our Signs neighborhood walk. You receiv...

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Day 33

We started a new unit in Science today:  Weather.  While we were at it we also learned a new color: white. It seemed just the right thing to do since it snowed in the night last night.  We started out trying to guess my riddle:  What is white,  is small and is both up and down.  We thought about that while everyone was coming  in this morning.  I added it is in a cloud when it is up,  it floats down and lies in a blanket on the ground.  When no one guessed it,  I told them it was pointy.  Finally,  someone figured out it was snow.

We are getting ready to put letters on either side of the letter light (or vowel) Miss Aa.  That will help us find alot of words we can sound out.  Let the fun begin.  We use the letter people themselves to help us understand blending letters together.  After we have done it together in a group, we will use smaller versions of the letter people to make up our own words and write some of them down.  That opens up alot of possibilities for the kids so you can look for them trying to string letters together on their own.  I hope you can enjoy that process with them at home.

Our Bible lessons are concentrating on God coming down to be with us here on earth.  Many of them said they have manger scenes at home.  We will be using a stuffed stable and characters from the Christmas story as we talk about how God went about showing us how much He loved us when He sent Jesus to earth to rescue us from our sins.

Our Bible verse is from Psalms 139 v 14.  "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  your works are wonderful, I know that full well. "  We will add that second half for next week.  They are so excited to hear more about their loving Father in heaven.  

DCSgradeK: letsfindout

DCSgradeK: letsfindout: Now let's see if we can keep track of those kindergarteners. Day 6 was Friday, Sept 16, the day of our Signs neighborhood walk. You receiv...

Monday, November 21, 2011

Day 31

Everyone including me returned to Kindergarten raring to go today.  Who needs days off from Kindergarten.  We started the day with the pledges at Chapel.  There seems to be nothing we can't do!  Good strong voices said,  let us say the pledge to the Bible,  the flag.  And after all the classes had come up front to say what they were thankful for, the kindergartners were asked to close in prayer and Marley did with a beautiful prayer for all of us.  And one of us who was hoping not to have to say anything in front of the microphone didn't hesitate when it was her turn.

We  made Mrs. B guess how many buttons were in our guessing jar today.  We found 20 small black buttons and 19 large buttons and 25 middle sized buttons.  She had guessed thirty.  The kindergartners love to do anything that seems like a competition.  They all thought they had won when one of the piles hit 25! They are really making progress at seeing what ten buttons looks like.  Many of their activities in math are helping them to quickly see how many objects they have by looking at how they are grouped.  10 is just five and five and they can often spot five without counting.  It is so much fun to have a sharp class like these guys.

We did a family portrait today during art time.  Come on in and see their bulletin board with art about themselves.  They are getting better at noticing their address as we practice it in our writing center.

Next week we will get our first Letter Light-  which is another way to describe a vowel.  It lights the way for the other letters so they can make words together with a letter light.  We should really enjoy blending letters when we see them working together.  We start with the letter a,  then learn a few more consonants and then another vowel and so on until we know them all and can blend them into words.  I will begin sending home little extra books for the kids to read once they have been introduced to blending.  These will be lent out to the kids and then returned.  I will explain more when I start sending them home.

DCSgradeK: letsfindout

DCSgradeK: letsfindout: Now let's see if we can keep track of those kindergarteners. Day 6 was Friday, Sept 16, the day of our Signs neighborhood walk. You receiv...

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Day 27

The best thing about today was free time when the kids decided they wanted to have a play so they got dressed up as Abraham and Sarah,  the servant girl,  The Lord Jesus and The LORD, God the Father and a goat and a servant man.  Of course they needed food and the animals needed leashes and there was a baby Isaac waiting to be born.  They needed their tents and the two Lords had to wait in Heaven.  The reason for  The Father and the Son was that two people hadn't played The LORD before so they needed to go meet Abraham together.  Sometimes we learn something new by cooperating.  So the announcement was made after A and S served vegetables, and meat and the two LORDs went back home.  The baby was born and Abraham immediately left to take care of his goats.  Hopefully,  we will get to show you our pictures if I ever learn to put pictures on this blog.

We wrote safety tips for Officer Buckle (a policeman in a book we are reading).  Don't play in the road.  When you fall,  make sure you have your helmet on.  Or when you stand on a swivel chair, be sure to have a helmet on.  Actually, the lesson also would be not to stand on a swivel chair, which is what Mrs.  Toppel, the principal did in the story.

I am so excited by how much the kids are learning about words and how they like to write in their journals.  I will show them to you when you come in for your child's conference next week.

DCSgradeK: letsfindout

DCSgradeK: letsfindout: Now let's see if we can keep track of those kindergarteners. Day 6 was Friday, Sept 16, the day of our Signs neighborhood walk. You receiv...

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Day 26

We walked to Foxwood Forest this morning.  Isaac said it didn't seem like  a forest and he was right but it was a place to see fir trees at our park.  They don't turn colors or loose their leaves like deciduous trees do.  Then we collected leaves as Mrs. B told asked for  a one point, small, yellow leaf (or large...), one fat small yellow maple leaf(or a small one...) and so on until we had twenty or so leaves.  After a while we got tired of looking for leaves and started running  in them and throwing them around.  Finally we took them back to school and sorted them by color first and then by shape afterwards.  When we were done we decided that there were more brown leaves and oak leaves than any other kind and we graphed that in our pocket chart.  We topped leaf day off by making a collage of leaves.


Wait until you hear what we are going to do on Monday!  We are going to walk in paint with our bare feet.  Ms. F will be so happy to see us using our feet!  We are going to start measuring around the room and maybe decide how our feet compare with a foot long ruler and other fun measuring stuff.

DCSgradeK: Day 24

DCSgradeK: Day 24: We had a great field trip to U of M Dearborn Environmental Center. We spent a few moments looking at two birds Matt's Dad's Highschool cla...

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Day 24

We had a great field trip to U of M Dearborn Environmental Center.  We spent a few moments looking at  two birds Matt's Dad's Highschool class were studying, saw a deer when we first hit the trail,  and thought we saw a turtle but we couldn't be sure.  We listened for sounds of the woods but most of the creatures were already flying south or in their holes.  We did see insects eating under leaves and in logs and several fungi on trees.  By far the most fun was climbing- on cut down logs,  fallen branches,  and even the trail edges made of tree trunks.  We noticed trees loosing their leaves.  That leads us into our present work in science-  we are learning to see differences in leaves.  Maple leaves are fat,  oak leaves are tall.  We are also  noticing the size of leaves and of course, their color.  All of these activities fall in nicely with grouping by shape, size and color.  Friday will be our Foxwood Forest walk where we will find leaves of all shapes, sizes and colors around our school and wooded areas.  The kids will pick up a large,  brown,  pointed oak leaf,  a small of the same type,  a large fat orange maple leaf, and others of that type,  and so on.  When we get back to room we will put them on cards labelled size or color or type.  Then we will pick out our favorites and make a collage out of them.  It is usually a very exciting field trip right in our own yard so to speak!  I love the teaching opportunities of fall!!


We are working hard to keep track of what teens mean.  One way:  A jingle


Teens, teens are lots of fun
Teens, teens start with one

DCSgradeK: DCSgradeK: letsfindout

DCSgradeK: DCSgradeK: letsfindout: DCSgradeK: letsfindout : Now let's see if we can keep track of those kindergarteners. Day 6 was Friday, Sept 16, the day of our Signs neig...

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

DCSgradeK: letsfindout

DCSgradeK: letsfindout: Now let's see if we can keep track of those kindergarteners. Day 6 was Friday, Sept 16, the day of our Signs neighborhood walk. You receiv...

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Day 19

We aren't sure what the number for Monday is!  Let's see- zero for the last number but then what?  Hopefully we will figure that out at counting time...

Playing dentist is going well.  The kids have to pay play pennies to get their dentist tools so first thing for free time is finding our change purses.  Then they go to the market to buy what they need.  I try to place their telephones (cell phones) and other things they love to play with in the market so they get practice spending their pennies.  We have tops and tubes of toothpaste and towels and anything else that comes up that starts with a t.  We even wore our Ms. T masks to the dentist so that we could get those tall teeth brushed.  We did have one problem- Marcos had some dogs that he couldn't leave home to come to the dentist because they would be barking for him.  You never know what problems we may have in our imaginary play life at school.  He was able to leave them home for a short shift as dental hygienist.  Usually they have social studies type play time to start with,  that includes the letter person of the week.  This week is the dentist because of Ms. T's teeth.   Next week we will talk about policemen because Officer Buckle will be in our next story and will help us learn about safety tips.  

We will finish our Senses science unit next Friday when we go on our Senses Field Trip to U of M Dearborn Environmental Center's woods.  Pray for good weather, as in no rain in the afternoon on Friday.   We have enough drivers already.  Lisa Stolman,  Elise Englert are driving and of course anyone else who wants to come is invited.  Please send your child's car seat along to school on Oct 28 if you are not going to join us.

We are trying to get adjusted to pottie breaks on our own any time we aren't listening to Mrs. B.  We will remind ourselves to use the time coming in or out of recess to take time for our bathroom needs.  There are plenty of times that we can leave the room one at a time but we get busy and forget sometimes.

Please let other parents know that there is a kindergarten blog!

DCSgradeK: Day 18

DCSgradeK: Day 18: I am so excited! You found my blogsite!! Pass on the good news. Today we had inside recess at afternoon recess. It is fun to see the ki...

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Day 18

I am so excited!  You found my blogsite!!  Pass on the good news.

Today we had inside recess at afternoon recess.  It is fun to see the kids all work as a class on basketball.  They get in a line, each get one ball and stand behind the free throw line (the edge of our reading rug).  They are getting pretty good at one pointers and sometimes get in the hoop.  They are working on positive comments and maybe not tattling quite so much.  I am trying to sort out real complaints from the fun of keeping running bouts of picking at each other.  There is never a dull moment.  Loving one another is complicated when we are dealing with other human beings!!  Look at the person when you say something for or about them and see how your comment made them feel.  We have made alot of progress in knowing what to do.  Now we just have practice actually being nice to each other in different ways.

We are catching on to the teens pretty quickly.  Today we raised our arms when we saw a teen instead of a 1-9 number.  That was so easy I turned the cards over and we identified many pictures of a given amount of animals, like a picture of four otters and moved up to guessing how many I was showing them in ten or more.  They actually got pretty close.  They are amazing me!!

We are going to have a Dr. Fisher,  my dentist come in to talk to the kids next Monday, October 24 from  11:00 to 12:15am.  You are welcome to come and join us if you want.  He talks about teeth and brushing and lots of fun stuff like different animals and their teeth.  We are inviting the 2 and 3 graders to join us.

Can't wait for the field trip to the woods.  I do have to correct what Matt said about what we will be doing in the woods--we won't be hunting, as Gabi thought.  I am so glad we cleared that up at school today!!!Feel free to offer comments of things the kids tell you at home.  You never know when someone will get the wrong idea about something.  

DCSgradeK: letsfindout

DCSgradeK: letsfindout: Now let's see if we can keep track of those kindergarteners. Day 6 was Friday, Sept 16, the day of our Signs neighborhood walk. You receiv...

Monday, October 17, 2011

Day 17

I missed the kindergartners while I was gone.  I had a class about math manipulatives which will help me when we start to add numbers later on.  All the kids are doing so well with numbers already, that I am sure they will enjoy adding when we get to it.  


Today we started talking about teeth and good health.  We started with a game of touch your teeth,  lips, your knees, your h__s.   (hint: it rhymes with lips).  The kids love anything that seems like a game or has a song with it.  We read Arthur's Loose Tooth and felt bad for Arthur until his friends started trying to help him with his loose tooth.  They thought it was funny that  a friend  was willing to punch him in the mouth to make his tooth fall out.  We started to learn the words you and are today when we thought about how we would feel before and after we lost a tooth.  (You are sad, you are happy...)  We made posters about how to keep our teeth healthy.  You can see them in the hall outside our room or inside our room.  Please come in and look at our self portraits, too!!  Wednesday we studied Vincent Van Gogh's self portrait.  It was yellow and red, mixed into orange.  We started with yellow skin and ended up with all shades of yellow, orange and red.  Then we finished off with some brown and blue.  We did a really good job!


We were really good at guessing how many yellow leaves Mrs. B brought to school today. It was 15 and we thought maybe 11 to 14.  It gets harder to fool us kids!  We learned how to write the number five.  That was not hard for us!  We used white boards to practice.  Did you know that a five starts just like our last number 4.  That helped us get started.  


We read a really fun story about David and Goliath today.  The pictures were made of different kinds of trash.  It told the story of David and we were able to find out that this is the same David that wrote our Psalm 147:7through9.  I can see them spending a few days looking for things on the pages because it is in the format of a treasure hunt.   


We said our memory verse with the motions without Mrs. B today.   Friday the whole section is due:  Psalm 147:7-9 and 11.  I told the kids they need to say where it is found.  They have motions for the 7 and 7,9 to help them remember.


Let me know if you are getting this!  I hope so.

DCSgradeK: letsfindout

DCSgradeK: letsfindout: Now let's see if we can keep track of those kindergarteners. Day 6 was Friday, Sept 16, the day of our Signs neighborhood walk. You receiv...

Monday, October 3, 2011

Day 12

We had an amazing chapel today with Isaac's dad asking us questions about the first and second commandments.  We know a song that tells you right away what the answer is!  Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.  We need to talk more about music as part of what the community of the believers has to offer to our worship.

We wrote our first sentences today if you can  believe it!  Of course they started with I like or I like to and each of the kids wrote the rest in kid spell or mostly the consonants that they could hear.  Mrs. B helped alittle but it was mostly their work and I was really pleased with how they did.  We read them to each other during story time.  They really like to do their own reading and since they wrote their words, they could read their words.  We are off to a great start!

I hope to report that this blog is attached to the DCS website and you can view each day's offerings.

DCSgradeK: DCSgradeK Day 11

DCSgradeK: DCSgradeK Day 11: We finished up our review of our ABCs today. We used our new white boards to check ourselves on writing all our letters randomly. Mrs. B ...

Friday, September 30, 2011

DCSgradeK Day 11

We finished up our review of  our ABCs today.  We used our new white boards to check ourselves on writing all our letters randomly.  Mrs. B was pretty impressed.  She even asked us to spell I and like.  No problem!  Of course, we know where to look for those words on the board along with and and to.  We use them all the time in our Kindergarten News.  Mrs. B needs our help as we ask her to write down some pretty long sentences already and she has to keep spelling our four words along with all the other words she knows.  The most fun was playing musical chairs to review all the alphabet.

We had a special Chapel sing today.  That is what the kids asked for- can we have chapel?  Isaac's Dad had given Mrs. B the words to the songs he does in chapel and we had a good time singing some of them as Mrs. B played her xylophone.  She needs some practice!!  We really like to sing a creation song from Bible class, too.  We know all six days of creation and that song helps allot.

On day one,  God made light.  Now there's day and night.
On day two God made sky.  It is up above so high.
On day three God made land,  plants and flowers and the sand.
On day four, God made stars, the sun and moon and even Mars.
On day five God made fish,  birds that fly and whales that swish.
On day six God made (animals and people)-can't remember those lyrics yet!

God made me and all of you.  God loves and God loves you!!

We had a guest for show and tell- a praying mantis.  We loved it!
We had another guest for lunch-  Marley's Dad helped us draw names to find out the name of our new gerbil-  It is Scurry!!  We don't know if it is a girl or a boy.  I can tell on hamsters but not gerbils.  Anyone know the difference?

DCSgradeK: letsfindout

DCSgradeK: letsfindout: Now let's see if we can keep track of those kindergarteners. Day 6 was Friday, Sept 16, the day of our Signs neighborhood walk. You receiv...

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Day 10

Let's celebrate ten days of kindergarten!  We figured out that you have to move the straw all out of the ones place when you get ten of them.  Now they are bundled into one ten in the tens place.  And guess what?  We celebrated by having a guest call Zero the Hero.  We found out that he wanted to play parachute with us and that there is a zero in the middle of the parachute.  We practiced bouncing a beach ball in the parachute.  When we went down and up fast it flew off the parachute, so we slowed down a little and gently went up and caught it.  After awhile we started doing the wave, all going up and down at random and it really went all over the place so we had to slow down again and this time we saw it go around the edge and we each tried our best to wave it back toward the middle.  Then the bell rang, so Zero wanted to fly away but he was afraid to try so he will practice and try to fly next time we see him.  Thank you Zero!

Some of us decided to be missionaries this afternoon.  That is a pastor who goes to different places to tell people about Jesus.  We went to the church in our room and told where we were going. Then we helped each other get started by giving each other money.   Marley went to South Africa as a doctor to help people.  She got a ticket to fly there.  Marcos wanted to help people at work so he stayed close by and took a car.  Isaac wanted to help sick people so he took a boat to the Rouge plant.  Noah wanted to go to Detroit so he took a taxi.  Matt went to Chicago to help sick people so he got a ticket to fly there.  Blake took alot of things with him to share with people in Chicago.  

We liked listening to Mrs B's apple rattle today so when we forgot to listen that really helped us remember.

And the biggest news of all!  We now have a pet Gerbil.  Marley's mom brought it in.  It is black and nibbles cardboard really fast.  We will try to name it on Friday.

Talk to you soon!

DCSgradeK: Day 9  Our number box is almost full.  Mrs. B told...

DCSgradeK: Day 9 Our number box is almost full. Mrs. B told...: Day 9 Our number box is almost full. Mrs. B told us that only 9 straws can fit in the ones box. We will have to do something about that o...

DCSgradeK: Day 9  Our number box is almost full.  Mrs. B told...

DCSgradeK: Day 9 Our number box is almost full. Mrs. B told...: Day 9 Our number box is almost full. Mrs. B told us that only 9 straws can fit in the ones box. We will have to do something about that o...

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Day 9  Our number box is almost full.  Mrs. B told us that only 9 straws can fit in the ones box.  We will have to do something about that on Day 10.

We found a basket of bells in the science center this morning.  They all sound a little different.  There were a lot of sounds coming out of the sound studio, too.  Add those things to our new instruments we made and we had plenty of sounds going on in our room today.  So, you can guess that we are talking about the sense of sound this week.

We have a new math game.  We counted nuts into the 6,7 and 8 boxes today.  You are always welcome to come in and have your kids show you what they are doing.  We are getting really fast at our number floor puzzles.  We will have play pennies in our play center so we can start counting them out.

We are finishing our review of abcs this week.  We are matching up capitols and small letters at our map and in our abc games and also at our writing table.

After all of this,  the kids prayers at the end of the day are in thanks for the chance to play together.  As an early childhood educator,  that sounds good because they are learning in their play and all their interactions and still getting the education I try to provide for them.  They are fully engaged in all the work of the day,  most of which are activities they naturally engage in but they still can't wait for free play at the end of the day.

DCSgradeK: Day 8 Letsfindout

DCSgradeK: Day 8 Letsfindout: Today Chippy, the Chipmunk helped us welcome in the first day of FALL! We added like as our new everyday word and shared: I like.... and ...

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Calling all super heros!!

This Wednesday we will have a guest called Zero the Hero who will help us celebrate Day 10 in Kindergarten.  He will come and play beach ball parachute with the kids at 12:00 so if the weather is nice picture us out by the flag pole having some fun with Zero.  Every 10 days we will celebrate and learn that our number system always goes back to ending with a zero after we count to 9.  Do you know a grama or grampa who would like to be a Zero the Hero?  Sometimes he reads a story that relates to Zeros and sometimes she could help us with a cooking project that looks like a  zero or maybe a trip to the gym to play with something that looks like a zero.  It would give a grandparent or a parent and chance to get in on the action!  Let me know.....

DCSgradeK: Day 8 Letsfindout

DCSgradeK: Day 8 Letsfindout: Today Chippy, the Chipmunk helped us welcome in the first day of FALL! We added like as our new everyday word and shared: I like.... and ...

Friday, September 23, 2011

Day 8 Letsfindout

Today Chippy,  the Chipmunk helped us welcome in the first day of FALL! We added  like as our new everyday word  and shared: I like.... and most of us still like the word green so we wrote I like green...grass, leaves, and other stuff.  We keep finding out more about each other everyday.  We are really good at our ABCs and played a letter search game where we all found all the capitals and small letters.  We like our I Spy game where one person spies some picture on a card and the kids find it on lotto boards.  They were quick to realize that the picture was found on the square with the letter that made the first sound.
We learned about the penny today-Abraham Lincoln is on it and it says In God We Trust on it.  It is worth 1 cent so we counted up to 8 cents in our piggy bank poster.  We could visualize what 8 looks like by seeing 4 cents and 4 cents next to each other.  The more numbers we can 'read' by just seeing the number of objects in our head the easier later adding and other math will be.
The funniest picture I missed today was all the kids crowding around the sound studio waiting for the tape to get to undershirt, undershirt u u u which comes up each time one of the kids plays the ABC tape.  They think that is hilarious.  They are so much fun.
We started talking about listening to sounds today in science and are making our own instrument.  Next on my agenda is to get them more interested in listening  to me than to each other.  They are really a talkative class so I guess I will start using my own apple instrument to key them into immediately listening when I need to talk to them.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

letsfindout

Now let's see if we can keep track of those kindergarteners.  Day 6 was Friday,  Sept 16, the day of our Signs neighborhood walk. You received a dictated message about what we say on our walk around Elmdale,  OuterDrive to Monroe to Donaldson and back to the school.  The kids were so excited about finding letters that Mrs.  B had to be a very careful traffic cop.  There was NO talking about signs on any of the crosswalks or driveways along the way.  We learned to look both ways actively across the whole space where cars might be wanting to turn.  Actually, cars usually watch very carefully when turning but we need to be aware of them at all times.

We now need to make sure all of you can find the letsfindout blog about DCSgradeK.