Learning the Ropes

We opened Monday with a name activity to try to remember who our friends were from Friday!  

We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and completed a coloring sheet.  The text said "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, will there be enough room for ____________?" Students wrote their name on the line and decorated the tree with the letters in their name.

When everyone finished, we came back to the carpet to read each page and share our work.  

Students turned to the person who wrote the page, waved, and said "Hi, ____!"

After our Chicka lesson, we read the Gingerbread Man.  Whaddayaknow, the Gingerbread Man is real and visited our school!  He left us a clue in the back of the book to go find him.

The kids had a great time, but were disappointed that they didn't catch the Gingerbread Man.  They were also disappointed by the overly ginger cookies he left us as a consolation prize.  The entire rest of the day the kids continued to look for him and speculate what could have happened.  "He's on the roof! He got eaten! Did you eat him? Maybe he's in that closet!"

At the end of the day, we read some counting books and students explored manipulatives.  This is essentially free play so when it's time to do real work with the manipulatives the novelty is gone.

Yesterday, we read the book Unlovable.  It's one of my favorites! Who are we kidding? Every book is my favorite.  But really. This cute little pug character is always made fun of ... until he makes an unexpected friend next door!  The ending is just too cute.  You want to cry in the beginning and scream with joy by the end!! Can you just check out how focused the kids are? They were really concerned about the main character.

We've also been taking some GoNoodle breaks.   (Remember THIS post?  Gotta get this group of kids as excited about exercise!)

Yesterday was our first Writing On Demand assessment, when the kids are asked to write with ZERO help.   They all did a fantastic job!  They took their time and remembered what they wrote about.   

Today we read "How Full is Your Bucket?" and talked about ways to fill other people's buckets.  Students made a bucket and shared how they'd like to help be bucket fillers.  (If, as adults, you're familiar with Gary Chapman's 5 Love Languages, the "bucket" is the same as a "love tank," to give you an idea.)  If you're not familiar with either of these, well, we all have an "invisible bucket" above our head, and when people say or do nice things, it's like adding a drop to your bucket.  When people say or do mean things, it's dipping out of your bucket.  We all want to strive to be bucket fillers!

Before kiddos made their buckets, they had to practice using glue bottles without the mess.  Just a dot, not a lot!

Then we had our second of three writing on demand assessments.  Today was the informational genre.  (Parents, you didn't know? Kindergarten students have to write in three distinct genres these days! Narrative, informational and opinion writing.)  That sounds crazy if this is your first child in Kindergarten.  Trust me, they end up doing it and it's amazing.  Anyway, some of the stuff they were teaching me today was downright hilarious, especially since in some cases it was something I'd gone over earlier in the day.  "That's a sticker. I'm teaching you that if you move your sticker too many times, it won't stick anymore."  

One of the other teachers has a really decent garden and was selling watermelons for $5.  I bought one the other day and had no idea how gigantic it was going to be.  After slicing and deseeding it, I brought half of the watermelon for the little ones to eat at recess today.  

How cute are they??