Building Little Pig Houses

At the conclusion of our Three Little Pigs unit, the kids worked in pairs or trios to design and create a structure that would withstand the huffing and puffing of the wolf (my hairdryer dressed up a bit).

The planning, creativity, and team work made this one of my favorite events of the year.

Huffing and puffing to test out its strength!

Tasty Acorns!

A special thanks to Mrs. Thomas for bringing in items for us to make some delicious, edible acorns.
Here are some pictures of that event a few weeks back.  It was a fun fall snack.

Number Writing. . . It's way more fun with shaving cream!

A few weeks ago, we were practicing double digit number writing during math class using shaving cream.  The kids had fun.  The tables got REALLY clean, and the room smelled great when we were finished!

Cute Outdoor Pictures!

On Monday, the kids will participate in a full morning of Thanksgiving and colonial fun.

In one classroom, they will do a math patterning activity that will complete their Thanksgiving place mats.  These will be nice keepsakes for you.  Here are some of the outdoor shots that I took to use as the center of the place mats.

Aren't they cute?

Train Games in Math 11/5/11 at OneTrueMedia.com

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Silly Day

To celebrate the letter Ss, we had a silly day in the room.  The kids wore funny wigs, pajamas, crazy purple hair, backwards clothing and funky glasses.  Here is one little guy who was sporting some facial hair!

Nice mustache!

Monster Squeeze

     We've been playing one of the Everyday Math games called Monster Squeeze.
We have a paper version on our pocket chart, but there is also an online version.  Many kids played this game at the computer center last week.


     Kids usually like playing this game, and it can easily be adapted to make it more difficult.  A bit later in the year, we'll playing Monster Squeeze by 2s and 5s.


Check it out by clicking below:


MONSTER SQUEEZE

Square 1 Art Projects

Check out our Square 1 art pieces. The kiddos put a lot of time into them. The catalog sheet for purchasing items like tote bags, holiday ornaments, necklaces, and pillow cases with this art work on it will come home sometime in November.

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Bats!

   We have been spending some time learning about bats this week.
Collectively, the kids knew quite a few facts during our brainstorming session.
We have used the word nocturnal a lot in the past few days.
Today we saw this cool Youtube song about echolocation.


Click Below and Enjoy!

Bat Song

My Video 10/23/11 at OneTrueMedia.com

We read Ed Emberly's Go Away, Big Green Monster! We then created our own monsters for writing time. These are on display in the hall right now!

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Cute Little Pumpkins!

This young lady and her family donated little pumpkins for each kid to decorate. Thank you!  Thank you! We even had enough to share with the classroom next door.


The kids had fun creating painted masterpieces at the art center during choice time.  Did the pumpkins all make it home intact?  I hope so.

Bus pictures from a while ago. . . .

I had to post a few of these school bus pictures from earlier in the year. Back in September, we spent some time reading and singing "The Wheels on the Bus" so I borrowed my daughter's pop-up school bus.  As you can imagine, this was a big hit during choice (free play time) at the end of the day.

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Photos! Photos!

     Thank you to those who have returned the blog permission slips.

 I've been itching to post some of the cute pictures of the kids.  I will add to it regularly now.

    These are pictures from the day we practiced reading and writing the room, which is part of our literacy center board each week.  The kids found Ee words everywhere, even on LF's shirt!

Today we honored the letter Pp.

This was too funny!  I had to post it immediately before I lost it.

The kids were brainstorming all sorts of words that start with Pp.  We had an impressive list going.

I called on one little boy (BP), and he offered the word pus.  I was a bit stunned.  I said, "Well, it's kind of yucky, but it does start with Pp."  I then wrote it on the list.

The young man became a bit defensive and said, "It's not yucky.  My brother eats it for breakfast in the morning!"

I was still confused until Mrs. Fisher and I were chatting later.  She figured out he meant Puffs. 

Too cute!

Where is Mr. Grumpy?

     With the help of our college friend, Miss T., the kids took my Animal puppet (Mr. Grumpy) around the school to various locations and took a few pictures of him.  They then were able to choose which picture they wanted to include in our class book.  About 2/3 of the kids have completed their rough drafts, so I started putting the book together on Blurb.com.  It is looking so cute.  When it is complete, you will be able to go on, see a preview of it, and purchase it, if you want to do so. This is not a fundraiser. . .just an opportunity to purchase a class book.  We will probably do 1 or 2 more before the year is out.  Here is one of the pictures.  Thank you to NS for his photography skills!

O is for Octopus!

Friday was letter Oo day.  We learned about this interesting creature of the sea.


Here are a couple of cool video clips I shared with the kids to pique their interest.

Coconut Octopus


Sneaky Squeezer

We then made little octopus windsocks and wrote some octopus facts.

Ohhhhh October!

It's hard to believe the kids have been in school for a month, but here comes October, one of my favorite months of the year.  I look forward to science lessons about floating and sinking.  The kids usually think the big pumpkin will sink and the baby carrot will float.  They are surprised when we actually test them.


There is so much to write about this month. . .  bats, spiders, pumpkins, scarecrows, and of course, Halloween.


This week we'll spend a lot of time making connections to books that are shared in class.  I'll be asking kids this question, "What does this story make you think of?"  We'll go on to decide if these connections are text-to-self, text-to-text, or text-to-world.  Try this with your child at home!

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

Listen to a fun version of this children's song.  We listened to a few versions this week, but most kids liked this one the best.  It's sung by Cyndi Lauper.


Click below to see what you think:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSlK5YTI3XY&feature=related



We also used a puppet with little stuffed animals like the one below to sing the song ourselves.
The kids took turns "feeding" the lady. 

Cute Quote of the Day

Me: (Pointing to a word on the page) That word is Mom; it


starts with M.

C: I have a mom.....and a bus driver, too.

Measuring on Monday

     Last Monday, we spent time with measurement.  I asked the kids if the flag mounted on the wall was taller than me.  Most said yes.  When we took it down and I stood next to it, we found that I was actually taller than the flag.  We talked about the need to have items at the same level when you measure them in order to get an accurate measurement.  The kids then took a Post-it and found an item in the room that was either taller or shorter than they were.  They drew the items and place them appropriately on our whole group poster.

My Video 9/17/11 at OneTrueMedia.com

Wicked Cute!

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Another Cute Quote!

On Friday during writing time, we worked on family portraits.  The kids practiced the popcorn word is and were encouraged to label the names of family members in their pictures.  One little girl (LA) began to draw her dad.  She said, "He has a big head so he is smart like a college boy.  That's what we call him. . . college boy."  I had to stop what I was doing and go write that one down so I could share it with you.  I love a good kid quote and a good chuckle.

Self-Portraits....Day 3 of Kindergarten

We were working on our self-portraits this morning.  I modeled a sample by drawing my face.  I asked the kids questions like, "What am I missing?" and they would shout out "mouth" or "eyelashes."  I wanted their pictures to be detailed so we talked about eyes.  Someone mentioned the black part in our eyes. I told them it was called the pupil. 

The kids got going on their pictures and worked away filling in lots of details.  As I walked by one little boy (B), he said to me, "Look, I put the pebble in my eye."  Pebble, pupil....close enough and wicked cute!

We Did It!

We made it through our first short week in kindergarten. It was a really smooth start.  The kids were little troopers even when the temperature in the room reached 80 degrees in the afternoon.

They are adjusting so well that I even tried some center rotations on day 2!

I look forward to posting pictures and student work samples soon!

Happy Long Weekend!

Welcome to Mrs. Hatch's Kindergarten Classroom!

Hello Everyone,


I hope you are as excited about the new school year as I am.
I look forward to meeting all of you.
I made an online pop-up book so you could learn a bit more about me.
Enjoy!


Click Here: Meet Mrs. Hatch