Happy Saturday! It’s time for the weekly wrap up of all things Kindergarten Smorgasboard. What a crazy busy week. People, every Saturday morning when I start sifting through pictures from the week I am amazed at how much learning takes place in a week. Do you feel that way? How in the world do we get to so much and achieve so much and keep our sanity (OK…we all know I never had the sanity…but just sayin’!)? It’s because we are amazing and incredible and dedicated teachers!!! Seriously, those who teach do. That is all.
Here are some highlights from our Franken-Pumpkin Week!
This week was all things pumpkins! We learned the parts of pumpkins with a brace map. We wrote about pumpkins using a tree map (Can you tell I love Thinking Maps?!). We predicted if pumpkins float or sink and we tested our predictions. We made a pasta noodle pumpkin. We graphed our favorite pumpkins: tall or fat. We even go to to clean out a pumpkin and plant a flower! No wonder Mr. Greg’s back and legs hurt today…
This was so much fun. I love the discussion that we had about why the pumpkin might sink or float. The reactions were priceless. They were blown away when that big heavy pumpkin floated in the water!! Science is powerful and amazing! (Even my high school student helper was amazed that the pumpkin floated!)
This is always a favorite of mine! We measure how many pumpkins tall we are! We learn to estimate (which means a smart guess…not a wild crazy guess…) and after estimating how many pumpkins tall we are, we measure. Can you say fun, engaging and meeting Common Core standards?!
Here’s my self pity moment of the day: HOW IN THE WORLD DO ALL OF YOU TEACHERS GET YOUR CHARTS SO DARN CUTE?! Look at that train-wreck of a chart…it’s all crooked and stuff…makes me crazy. I need to hire a class chart maker! Moment over. Moving on.
This week we got to do our very first real science experiments! People, they were such a hit that (with principal approval!!!!!!) I am going to cut our math lesson on Friday and do a true hands on science experiment every Friday. The discussions and learning that we had this week with these experiments were incredible!!!!! People, Mad Scientist Fridays are coming! Get ready!
It’s amazing what some soap, baking soda, vinegar and food coloring can do! We made predictions what would happen when we mixed our ingredients together. Did you know that adding some dish washing soap to the vinegar makes the fizzy goodness super-size?! Man, it was a blast! Hearing the oohs and ahhs and squeals was priceless. Afterwards hearing them talk about the sounds they heard, what they say happening and how it made colors was some great learning! Um, and can we say MESS??!?! But ya know my motto: MESSY=SUCCESS!
We also transformed eggs into monster eyes!! This was another fun two day experiment with some great learning and discussion. The ‘staches never cease to amaze me. When we were discussing what happened to the egg shell, one of them said: “It dissolved!” Seriously, where do they learn this stuff?!
If you want directions for these experiments, CLICK HERE!
Of course, no week is complete without some fun art projects! A little frankenstein…some ghosts…a little candy corn! What is a dedicated teacher: When you hold 15 little feet in your hand to paint fun pictures!! Seriously…
The highlight of our pumpkin-palooza was our pumpkin planting! This has been my classroom tradition for 7 years. It was started by an amazing classroom volunteer and the tradition has continued! The ‘staches had a blast cleaning out the pumpkins and planting a flower! OK…check out the ‘stache in the green shirt…he might not have been having as much of a blast as others! This is probably one of my most favorite activities for the whole year. During parent conferences yesterday, many parents made great comments about the pumpkins and how excited the kids were to bring them home! Success!
And of course, it’s not a week in The Kindergarten Smorgasboard without silly hats! This week was all about the letter O so we became octopus! (Octopi?!)
And don’t forget to enter the give away for a set of Draw Write Now Books! That’s $100 worth of books! Your kids will LOVE THEM! We’ve had so much fun with these books!
HURRY! Only 12 hours left to enter! Be sure to tell your friends!
Click the pictures to enter!
And it’s that time again…It’s Currently time with my mustache lovin’ friend Farley!
Here is my November Currently!
Be sure to visit Farley for more fun Currently reads!
