Welcome to Kindergarten

 

(Ms. Jen, Ms. Kelsey, Ms. Sara)

Welcome to Kindergarten!  This is our kindergarten team this year.  We are so excited to partner with you this year.

Our classroom is all set up and now all I need is a brand new crew full of curious, kind and resilient kindergarteners!

This year will be full of learning, laughter, exploring indoors and outdoors and building relationships with each other.

I can't wait for the walls to be filled with student thinking and work!  See you soon.

The Last Days of Kindergarten

 What a year it has been!  I am so proud of our crew's perseverance, kindness and resiliency during a challenging year!  We sure had fun celebrating the last days of kindergarten.

Field Day was so much fun!  We got to play games, do an obstacle course (outside and inside) plus end with a fun water game, Drip, Drip, Drop!  

We met our other kindergarten crew from Ms. Kelsey's classroom.  We had fun chit chatting and drawing with chalk.  We look forward to having some of these friends in our first grade crew.

Our crew had a great time blowing bubbles with bubble gum and playing with donated bubbles.  There was lots of joy and giggling!

We loved going to our first all school North Star Assembly outside.  We are sure sad to see our wonderful leader and principal, Mr. Brian leave us.

It was a perfect last day for a picnic with ALL of kindergarten crew to have lunch outside under trees.  We are so excited about our new friends!

EL Education Better World Day

 We were so excited to celebrate Better World Day today!  

We started the day by painting kindness rocks.

Each student painted rocks and wrote BE KIND!  Students will go on a walk with their family to place these kindness rocks in our local community.

We headed outside to plant seeds of flowers to make our school more beautiful!

Our last project of the day was to clean up our school's Lost and Found!

Students showed contribution by folding clothes, hanging items on hangers and sorting mittens and hats.

Students organized all the items so that our school would be easily be able to find their missing items.

We sent an email to our fellow crews to have students come find all of their items.

We are so proud of the way we made our neighborhood, outside space and our school better!

Collaboration

 

We focused in on our Habit of Character of Collaboration.  Throughout the year we have discussed that collaboration was about working together.

Students learned that it means a lot more than that!

We learned to actively listen when others were sharing their ideas.  We used a "talking stick" to give each person a chance to share their ideas and the other team members an opportunity to listen closely to others' ideas.

Each small group was given a group of supplies to collaborate to create something.

After many days of listening, discussing and working together, each team collaborated and made a creation.  It was a week full of feedback, some conflict and productive problem solving.  Collaboration is hard!  As a crew, we are committed to continue to keep practicing to help our collaboration muscles get stronger.

Trees Are Alive Learning Expedition

What better way to study about trees then to get outside and observe them!

Our crew loves anytime we can take our learning and adventures outside!

Students observed trees and looked for the parts of a tree to understand how they meet their needs.

We have learned:

roots give trees water

leaves give trees food using photosynthesis

stomata helps trees breathe air

bark protects trees

trunks help trees grow strong and sturdy

branches help trees  move

We loved doing the work of a dendrologist outside!

 

We are mathematicians!

 

We are doing the work of mathematicians!  Students have been persevering to understand, model and solve addition and subtraction problems.

  Math is not about memorizing facts, but understanding what is happening in these problems.

Students are collaborating together to solve problems using many strategies including drawing models, using fingers and using number lines.

Students try all the strategies and then reflect:

"I am the kind of mathematician who....."

We are Scientists!

 As scientists, we have been observing, experimenting, recording and asking questions.  

We studied force by exploring push and pull.  We noticed that some things move by pushing away from us and that some things move by pulling closer to us.  We also noticed that some things can be pushed and pulled.

On a different Wonder Wednesday, we observed rocks.  We researched them by looking at non-fiction texts and asked questions.

What better way to study weather than going outside!  As meteorologist, we learned about temperature, thermometers, weather elements and collecting data.

We also enjoyed wondering about pumpkins by observing closely, using our 5 senses and recording our thinking.  We are really growing as scientists!