Amy Kahofer's Kindergarten: June 2014

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Our Final Days of First Grade!

We were a busy bunch for the last few days of school! We ended our Life cycles unit with a study on ducks! We observed (through video) and read about many kinds of ducks; their habitats and eating habits, different functions and structures that help ducks survive, and their first flight! Most important, we learned why ducks don't get wet!

Mrs. Beidermann had her horse truck and trailer at school and invited us to see this amazing set up! She showed us all of the different parts of the trailer and how her horses can be safely transported to different places. We loved exploring!

Our field trip to AppleCheek farm was so fun! We participated in different "stations" where we made butter, went on a scavenger hunt, identified different farm tools, went on a wagon ride and had a picnic lunch. The day was beautiful and we had a real taste of farm life!

Friday, June 13, 2014

The Grand Quilt Finale!

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Awesome Authors

We have been reading our stories to each other in preparation for our Awesome Authors presentation! Please come to our classroom at 2:00 for snacks (made by us) and stories on Friday 6/13!!

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Quilt Expert!

Mrs. Palermo, Jackson's grandma, and our school nurse for many years, is also a Quilt Expert! She came into our classroom with a basket full of quilts and shared her expertise with us. We loved looking at her designs, color and patterns. Jackson even helped his grandma work on a very special quilt too! Thank you, Mrs. Palermo for sharing your beautiful art with us:)

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Patchwork Quilts!

Our final math unit this school year is all about quilts! What is it about patchwork quilts that make them so universally appealing? Is it their symmetry, design or pattern? Maybe it is the stories they tell or memories they hold. For many reasons, quilts seems to fascinate children as well as adults! Quilts are rich in mathematics as children use a variety of skills, including sorting, patterning, geometry, fractions, ratio, and estimation. We are in the process of creating paper patchwork quilts of growing complexity and beauty. We are also reading a variety of quilt stories and the children have loved looking at our quilting design books many students have brought in to share.

100th Day of School!

We are celebrating the 100th day on Tuesday, February 6th. We will be completing all sorts of fun math and literacy activities on this day. One activity is “Sharing Collections”. Students are asked to bring in a collection of 100 items. All collections need to be back by our 100th day. Examples of items to collect are:

Pennies, crayons, beads, matchbox cars, lego’s, erasers, marshmallows, toothpicks, pebbles, noodles, paper clips, stickers, goldfish, cereal… the possibilities are endless!

All About Books

Our Animal Research Books are complete! We have included many facts about our animals, used "Kidspirartion" to organize our facts on the computer and used "Kidpix" to make diagrams with labels on the computer. We also included headings, bold print, a glossary, a table of contents page and a "Meet the Author" page. This project came together beautifully as children incorporated technology into their research and final products. We are now experts on many animals!! (and non-fiction text features!)

Adventure Play

One component of our weekly routine is Adventure Play. These games and activities invite children to challenge themselves, practice cooperation, provide opportunities to practice decision making skills, and build upon our classroom community skills.

One of our favorites is called "Car and Driver" where children are encouraged to participate in "challenge by choice". One child is the "car", and may close their eyes for the "challenge", but may open their eyes at any time "by choice". What fun it is to "drive" our "cars" around our classroom!