Thursday, December 3, 2015

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Thanksgiving is here and pretty soon Christmas will be here.  Where is 2015 going?  The Kindergartners have been busy these last two weeks.  
We learned about who the Pilgrims were and how they lived their lives.  We compared their lives to how we live back then.   There were a lot of kiddos saying they would NOT like to be a pilgrim because they had no lights, bed and of course no TV!   We did a craft and a writing activity about pilgrims. They each had to finish their sentence off of our chart that we listed facts about Pilgrims and what we learned. 







Our thankful turkeys.  They had to list three things they were thankful for and write on their feathers. 







Our sight words for the week were: brown and seven.  The letter of the week was the letter Cc.  They had to cut out 7 circles and glue them how I drew circles on the board.  They had to guess what we were making.  They all guess right after I drew the three circles on the top!  I have some smart Kindergartners.  The circles were brown and then on each circle they had to write a letter Cc. 




Our Brown song - sung to "Jingle Bells" 


Our Native Americans fact chart.  We learned how Squanto and his tribe helped the Pilgrims. 


We talked about lists and why we need them/what they are used for.

We made a class list to show them how to make one and how it helps us know what we all need.  We made a list of the things we would need for school.  They each got to name an item.   



After making our own class list they each got to make their own list.  The list they were making was a grocery list.  Since it was almost Thankgiving they had to make a grocery list of the things they think they will need to make a Thanksgiving meal.  There were picture cards of some foods and the words underneath.  They had to write the words on their grocery list. 


When they were done they had to draw and color their Thanksgiving meal.  The grocery lists are there on the side that they made. 




We read a book called:  Turkey Trouble.   This story is about a turkey who tries all these different disguises so he doesn't become the farmers main course at Thanksgiving.  The Kindergartners had a homework assignment.  They had to disguise their own turkey so their turkey could hide from the farmer.  I gave them some ideas and showed them some pictures of some turkey disguises.  Let's just they all did a VERY GOOD job! 









We read a lot of Thanksgiving books and discussed some of the foods that we eat on Thanksgiving.  I asked them if we have to always eat turkey, mashed potatoes or stuffing.  Could we have something else?  I asked them to think of other things we could eat at Thanksgiving or places we could go instead. We then listed them on our turkey chart. 


We used our ideas from our list and made our turkeys on strike craft! They each had to think of something to eat besides turkey.  We then placed them in the lunch room.  





Centers:  Roll a turkey 








Monday, November 16, 2015

Thank You Veterans!!!!

This is one of my favorite units to teach due to it hitting home for me, Veterans/Heroes.  Learning  about Veterans Day is a great way to help thank all those heroes who have served for our country and who are currently serving for our country and freedom.  
This week we also learned what being 'thankful' means since Thanksgiving is coming up and we are also thankful for our Veterans.  After reading a story about being thankful we listed some things that we are thankful for. 


One of our Veterans Day crafts. 


The Kindergartners singing at our Veterans program!  They did an amazing job! 



We learned about Soldiers/Veterans, the types of soldiers and what they did/do for us. 


To incorporate in with our handwriting they had to think of something to thank a soldier for.  I gave them some examples on what to say and then after that they started listing some good reasons why we should say thanks to our soldiers/Veterans.   We attached our writing to our soldiers. 









I said earlier that this unit really hits home because my husband is a Veteran.  He was in the Army for 8 years and did two tours overseas.  He really helps out with teaching this unit because I get to use some of his Army items to show the Kindergartners what they all use.  This year he surprised us all and came in to talk about all of his items (he does such a better job at explaining everything :) ).  The Kindergartners were very excited and they had TONS of questions about everything for him to answer.  Here are some pictures of him showing them his items and some Kindergartners trying some items on.  








Thank you to all the Veterans and soldiers who fought and are currently fighting for our country!  Words will never describe how thankful we all are for your time and sacrifices you have had to make! Thank you again! 


Here we are working on some word work by using letters and building our sight words.