Amy Kahofer's Kindergarten: September 2015

Monday, September 28, 2015

Outdoor Learning Field Trip

A pond, the woods, and a field were ours to explore and learn about at Mrs. Magida's property in Middlesex. All four classes had an amazing time and participated in a variety of activities including leaf crowns, seed explore, bugs, structure building, pond life and bark/leaf art. A big thank you to our parent helpers and Mrs. Magida...we had a truly fantastic day of learning together in the outdoors!

Lunch Time!

Morning hike

Leaf Crowns

Written Reflection

Friday, September 18, 2015

Outdoor Learning in the Field

Our O.L. this week brought us to the Thatcher Brook Field. It was a beautiful afternoon and the kids loved looking for insects, spiders, seed pods, flowers, seeds and grasses. We love looking through our hand lenses to observe and notice things we never saw before. Next week is our field trip to Mrs. Magida's property where we will explore more habitats, including the woods, fields, brook and pond.

Monday, September 14, 2015

Outdoor Learning in the Woods

We continue our Outdoor Learning on Thursday afternoons, this past week we went into the woods behind Thatcher Brook School. We brought magnifying glasses to get up close to trees, plants, leaves, pine cones- so many interesting things to see, and we noticed many patterns in nature! We loved the coolness of the woods, the tall trees and the crickets! We hiked over the hill and followed different paths- we had a great afternoon exploring the woods!

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Outdoor Learning at Thatcher Brook

Passing our Talking Stick

We had our first Outdoor Learning (O.L.) afternoon last Thursday. We follow a structure to our afternoon which consists of a Gathering Circle, Share with our Talking Stick, Choice, Activity, Sit Spots and Closing Circle. We are exploring different habitats and our first outing was to Thatcher Brook. The children were so excited and curious about the brook environment- We went on a scavenger hunt and we found crayfish, fish, built structures with stones, listened to birds, observed the moving water, observed insects and flowers, and shared our learning with each other. Next Thursday, we will explore the woods.

Sit Spots

Choice Time

Walking to Thatcher Brook

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!