Penguins!

We had so much fun learning about penguins this week!  We began our study by filling in our penguin schema chart.  We knew a lot of fun facts about penguins!  During our shared writing, we read nonfiction books about penguins.  As we read, we added facts to our new learning, asked questions, and found out we had some misconceptions.  We also discussed nonfiction text features.  We found out that nonfiction books sometimes have a table of contents which helps us locate information.  They also have labels, diagrams, maps, and glossaries.  

During writing we wrote our own nonfiction books about penguins.  This came from Deanna Jump's Penguins unit on Teachers Pay Teachers.  

Here is the front cover of our "All About Penguins" book.  

We made sure to add a table of contents.  

We drew a diagram of a penguin and labeled it.  

We wrote a page that described what a penguin is.

We wrote about baby penguins.  

Last, we wrote about what penguins do.  We found out that penguins are very playful.  They slide, hop, swim, and even surf!  

As we were reading and learning about penguins, we added our new learning to our penguin tree map.  This helped us organize our information for when we were ready to write.  

We also took a break from our nonfiction penguin books to read about our favorite penguin, Tacky!  We read several books about Tacky and brainstormed words to describe him.

We also compared Tacky to a real penguin using a venn diagram.  Then everyone got to make their own Tacky!

On Friday, we ended our study of penguins by making a fun penguin snack!  We used oreos, icing, and candy corn to make these adorable penguins!  They were so yummy!  

 Next week we will be learning about walruses and polar bears!  We will also learn about groundhogs and Groundhog's Day.  I can't believe it is already February!

Our Snowmen Family Projects!

Just wanted to share our Snowmen Family Projects with you all!  We had some snow babies, snow puppies, snow boys, snow girls, a candy snowman, and even a snow batman!!  They turned out great!  We have a creative bunch of Kindergartners!  :)  

What Do Animals Do In Winter?

This week we learned about what animals do during the cold, cold winter.  We found out that animals either hibernate, adapt, or migrate.  We made a tree map and sorted the animals.  

We learned a fun song about hibernation that went to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus".  We got to sing it for a fifth grade teacher who was visiting our classroom.  She loved it!  We also made this fun animals in winter project!  

During our shared reading time this week we did a Jan Brett authors study.  We read her book, "The Mitten" and practiced retelling the story.  We sewed our very own mittens and story characters, and then we read the book again and used our props to retell.  We also read her book, "The Hat".  We compared the stories using a venn diagram.  We decided that Jan Brett is a very talented illustrator!  :) 

We started our week off talking about Martin Luther King Jr.  We read a book about Dr.  King's life and his famous "I have a dream..." speech.  We had some really great conversations about his life and the things he did for our country.  I was very impressed!  After our discussion, we wrote about our own dreams for the future.  We had some great responses!  

On Fridays, we always celebrate by dancing to our "Can You Count With Me?" counting song.  Our student of the day leads us in counting to 100 and we dance.  I had to take a picture of them dancing!  They were having so much fun!  

Next week we will be exploring nonfiction books and learning about polar animals!  I can't wait!  

Brrrrr!!!!

We had such a fun week learning about ice, snow, and snowmen!  In shared reading this week, we read a poem called "Five Little Snowmen".  In the poem the snowmen begin to melt until none are left.  We read the poem several times throughout the week and practiced retelling it by pretending to be the snowmen!  It was so much fun!  

Here is some pictures of our melting snowmen!  

We also practiced comparing two stories using a venn diagram after reading "Snowmen At Night" and "Snowman All Year".  We found out that both these books had the same author, Caralyn Buehner.  After reading them, we wrote about what we would do if we were snowmen at night.  Then we made torn paper snowmen at night.  (Sorry these pictures are sideways.  I can't figure out how to make it right side up!)

In writing, we learned about different types of  "how to" writing.  We talked about recipe books, instruction manuals, etc.  We learned about transitional words: first, next, and last.  We did a shared writing about how to build a snowman.  We discussed all the steps and decided how to organize it.  

The next day, everyone did their own writing about how to build a snowman.  Then they got to make their own snowman by following their steps!

In math, we have been comparing numbers to ten.  I found this great comparing numbers activity on pinterest.  Each student makes their own name snowman using their first name.  Then, they partner up and compare their snowmen.  Then we wrote sentences using the words more, less, or equal.  For example, "Cy is less than Iyana." and "Emmy is equal to Ayla."    

We also learned about ordinal numbers.  We read a fun poem about snowmen that used ordinal numbers and then made this fun little flip book.  

We also did a snowman glyph.  They turned out great! After we finished them, we hung them on our white board to examine our data.  Then, we wrote about our glyphs.  We found out that six of us have built a snowman before.  We also found out that more of us like blue than pink.  

In science, we did an experiment to see what would melt ice the fastest.  We set out four plates and put an ice cube on each one.  On the first one, we put a little bit of water.  On the second one, we put some sugar.  On the third one, we put some salt and we left the fourth one alone.  We made our predictions and then set a timer for twenty minutes.  Once the timer went off, we checked our ice cubes and found out that salt melts ice the fastest.   Then we talked about how salt is put on roads, sidewalks, and steps to help melt the ice faster.  

On Friday we ended out study of snow by having a special snack.  We used marshmallows, pretzels, and icing to make snowflakes.  We learned that snowflakes have six sides, so we made sure to count out six pretzels and marshmallows.  They looked great and were so yummy!

 Next week we will be learning about how animals hibernate, migrate, and adapt during the winter.  We will also be doing a Jan Brett author study.

Happy New Year!!!

Welcome back!  I hope you all had a wonderful break!  We have had quite a busy week!  Our theme this week was New Years and Winter Weather.  On Monday we talked about what New Years means, how it is celebrated, and we talked about how people make resolutions.  We made self portraits of ourselves wearing party hats and did a writing activity about what we would like to do this year.  They turned out great!  We came up with a lot of interesting goals for this year!  

In science we read a non fiction book about snow.  Before we read, we made a schema chart.  We talked about the things we already knew about snow and added it to our chart under "Our Schema".  Then after we read the book, we added our new learning to our chart and checked for any misconceptions.  

This week, we read a lot of fun books about snowmen.  After reading a story about building a snowman, we did a shared writing about the different parts of a snowman.  We used a brace map because brace maps show the parts of a whole.  

Then each student got to draw their own snowman and use a brace map to show its different parts.  

We also did a fun writing activity about snow globes.  We looked closely at a snow globe and talked about what we saw inside.  Then we brainstormed things we would like to do if we lived in a snow globe.  Each student wrote a sentence about what they would do if they lived in a snow globe.  Then they made their own snow globe with a scene to match their sentence.  

We had a great time learning about New Years and Winter Weather this week!  We will continue our study of winter and snowmen next week.  Have a great week!