The Saturday Kindergarten Post: Thanksgiving

It’s Saturday!  We’ve been up early to have our carpet patched.  Holy cow you can’t even tell where the patch is.  It’s crazy!  Now we can put our townhouse on the market?!  Any good teaching jobs in the Chicago area?!  teehee

Here’s your Saturday excitement!  It’s the Saturday Kindergarten Post and the weekly round up of all things Kindergarten Smorgasboard in room 114!  The little monsters have been hard at work (you know…hard at work making Mr. Greg crazy…)!  

This week was all about Thanksgiving and Peegrams (um, pilgrims is a hard word!)  and the “flower ship” (Mayflower!) at Monsters, Inc!  We had a blast measuring Thanksgiving pictures with our turkey rulers!  The tricky part was getting the ruler lined up with the picture so we could get the right measurement!  And by tricky, I mean frustrating!  The kids really had fun and are developing a great sense of measurement!  

We also had some serious fun with this new greeting during our morning meeting.  Two of my amazing teammates brought this idea back from a workshop they attended.  Instead of greeting by name, we greeted by the number (or shape, or sight word, or letter) on our sticker!  Great way to reinforce numbers (or many skills!)!  On Friday, I challenged my monsters by using ten frames all the way to 20.  It was hilarious watching them stick out their bellies so their friends could count the dots!  For more on this great new greeting, check out my post here! 

We are also working on addition!  I am so proud of how well the monsters have grasped the concept!  We know that add means plus means put together.  And we know to count to find the answer.  And we know that when we see an equation (which is a number sentence!) we use the numbers to find the answer.  And we know that Mr. Greg is an awesome teacher….I mean, we know that we work hard to learn.  We used Legos this week to practice addition.  These great toys tools lend themselves perfectly to adding and putting together!  For $15, you can get a large cup full of Legos at the Lego Store!  Was perfect for making class sets of 10 Legos!  We also used our bodies to make number sentences!  Lots of giggles and movement, but lots of learning!  After Thanksgiving we meet the dreaded subtraction monster….

We also wrote about how to cook a turkey.  

Today’s food safety tip:  Do not, I repeat, DO NOT eat a turkey prepared by anyone on in Mr. Greg’s class.  

This week we spent a lot of time writing about Thanksgiving, especially all of the food!  Did you know that you have pancakes, chicken, cereal, and coke (soda, pop, cold drinks) at Thanksgiving?!?!  Num Num!  We took a big leap in our writing this week by doing our own bubble maps.  We generated a list of ideas for food for our Thanksgiving feast and then we filled in our own bubble maps!  I was so ecstatic with how well we did.  I also am astounded at the great handwriting of some of the monsters. And yeah, horrified at the handwriting of other monsters.  We also did a class back of what we would eat on Thanksgiving!  

And no week at Monsters Inc is ever complete without art projects, craftivities, silly hats and total chaos organized chaos!

After we planned our Thanksgiving meal, we made these adorable place mats and filled our plates with our favorite Thanksgiving foods!

We hand printed the Mayflower!  The pilgrims on one of those ships is in for some rough seas!  I hope they’re wearing their sea sickness patches!

We made these super adorable paper plate pilgrims!  

And then I discovered this.  I went to the famous pink carpet (located in our ultra cool classroom library) to collect the pilgrims and this is what I found.  I know exactly which of my monsters placed his dude on top of the lady pilgrim for some pilgrim lovin!  People, teacher tip #76284:  ALWAYS KEEP AN EYE ON THE PILGRIMS!!  They cannot be trusted alone.  

And we did my number one most favorite funniest art project of the year!  Our famous paper plate turkeys!  I think they are so adorable.  They’re so messy to make (which means the kindergarten day was a huge success.  My motto is messy=learning=success=fun=angry parents!)  If you want to see how we make these check out my post here!

And no matter how much we talk…no matter how many times we show and model and do…no matter how many times Mr. Greg says no dumbo turkeys, we always get this!  Every year.  Without fail.  

  

It’s a bird.  It’s a chicken.  It’s a turkey.  It’s DUMBO TURKEY!

We also had some fun for Foodie Fun Friday!  We read The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog (we did not celebrate nor focus on the letter D for hot Dog this week!)  And we disguised our pigeon as a turkey!  

How amazingly cute is this?  I wish I were so smart and creative to come up with this idea but I ain’t got those skills.  This came from my blogger friend, Linda at Around The Kampfire!  Check her out and get your pigeon craft and tell her Mr. Greg sent ya!

We ended our Thanksgiving week with mini dirt cake!  We planted two fish in the dirt just like the Indians taught the pilgrims to do!  And we added more dirt on top!  YUMMY!

And if you’re cold, you just wear a pullover that covers your entire body.  

D for doggie!

And to end your week, you’re blessed to get Mr. Greg in not one, but TWO silly hats!!!!!  Thrilling isn’t it! 

Don’t ask.  I don’t know the picture is reversed.  And no we didn’t learn our letters backwards.  I promise.  

Oh yeah and I got my evaluation.  Um, there is only one teacher in my building to ever get a 5.  And not only did that person get a 5, HE got five 5’s.  Yeah.