This week was so busy and fun! First, we went on our field trip to the Edith Moore Nature Sanctuary and Terry Hershey Park. We had so much fun exploring in the park, watching the ducks, and playing with our friends. At the Nature Sanctuary we learned that a sanctuary was a special place for plants and animals to live. We toured a real log cabin and tried our best to fish with nets in the small pond. We were so lucky that the rain left us early that morning so we could enjoy the beautiful day! Thanks to the parent volunteers that came along with us!
On Friday we held or first ever Kindergarten Rodeo! It was a wonderful way to top off our learning about ranching and rodeo life. We ate cattle drive food, had barrel and stick horse races. Practiced our aim as we through bean bags into cowboy boots and even panned for gold.
A special thanks to all of the parents who came out to take pictures, set up, clean up and supervise during our rodeo! We couldn't have made it such a success without your help!!
Today our class used a number line as a way to work on adding. The focus of today was learning how to count up using dice, a number line,and manipulatives such as bears. First I showed the class the number line 0-10.
This is the basic number line that I used .
Here is a picture of the two different types of dice that I used during this lesson.
Four bears went for walk in the forest
One more bear joined them for a walk in the forest. How many bears went for a walk in the forest?
We repeated this process several time so that students would have time to practice independently. Then I modeled the same problem as before except I moved the bear along the number line alone.
In this problem there are four bears going for a walk, but the bear is the marker for the total amount of bears. Then a added one more bear joining in for the walk by moving the bear up one space on the number line.
Again we repeated this process several times. I even let a few students come up with their own story problems that the students tried to solve. You can do either of these methods when working at home in math with your child. Teaching your child about how a number line works is a great skill for math later on. Mrs. Smith
I am so sad that it has taken this long to post our 100 Day celebrations. We really did have so much fun. Our class traveled around to different teachers where we built with 100 items, made a 100 day snack, created a 100 day pop-up card, and even made a fun art project with 100 gumballs. In the afternoon we shared our 100 day projects, and created a 100 day necklace. Below are some pictures from our fantastic day!At the bottom of the page is a little video of all their 100 day projects. They did a fabulous job on them.
Today I wanted to share with you a few fabulous videos that I found to practice counting. If your child has already mastered counting to 100 by ones I suggest practicing different ways such as by 10's, 5's, and even by 2's. These videos are a great way to practice.
Over the last few weeks we have been learning a lot about letter writing in writer's workshop. We studied why someone might write a letter and the parts. I found an awesome video to review the parts of a letter.
Here are some of the wonderful thank you letters we wrote to our parent, friends, and teachers.
Dear Cameron, I hope you had a great birthday. Good bye, Cal
Dear Mom, Thank you for taking me to get my nails painted Love, Rachel
Hi Blake, Thank you for playing with me. We had a great time together. Love, Caroline
Dear Caroline, Thank you for hugging me everyday. Love, Madelyn
This week we started our social studies unit on homes around the world. We read a wonderful book called The Big Orange Splot, by Daniel Manus Pinkwater. The book is about a man who had orange paint spilled on his house. When his neighbors asked him to repaint his house to cover the splot he decided to create the house of his dreams. Once we read the story we imagined what the house of our dreams would look like and created these fabulous water color illustrations.
Welcome back to school!! I can't believe that it is already 2013. We are diving back into learning this week, and we started our fabulous unit on rocks. We have had lots of opportunities to examine rocks, sort rocks, and even mine for rocks. We learned that rocks are made up of minerals from the earth and that rocks have many uses. We build houses with rock, create statues out of rock, and make beautiful jewelry out of polished rocks. Here are some pictures from our week!
We had a rock museum. Students walked around to different tables and looked at the rocks up close.
We had a lot of fun mining for gemstones . Everyone loved using the tools to break open the rocks.
In this kit students got a chance to try and identify rocks.
My name is Becky Smith. This is my tenth year teaching at Valley Oaks I absolutely love teaching, and fill blessed to have such a rewarding career. My hope for all my students is not only to learn, but to love to learn.
When I am not teaching I am taking care of my two beautiful children Tommy and Mackenzie I am so lucky to have the best husband in the world to help me juggle work and being a Mommy. I also enjoy cooking, sewing, walking,and biking.
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