Friday, September 30, 2011

Tissue Paper Leaves

To finish off our theme on leaves, we created our very own tissue paper leaves using liquid starch. The students had their choice to make a green, yellow or red leaf. I was excited that there was a good mixture of students picking each color. Once they are dry, we will hang them in our window for a few weeks to remind us of the changes leaves are going through during fall. They'll look pretty cute too :)!



























Thursday, September 29, 2011

Leaf Rubbing

Today we took leaves from our leaf bags and created leaf rubbings. We first practiced what it is like to rub our knee, and then our elbow and wrist. We discussed when we begin the leaf rubbing we should not push down too hard with the crayon. If we do, the magic might not appear. After a few practices we were able to see our leaf appear through the paper. To see the look on the kids faces when they begin to see the leaf is exciting. They start moving that crayon even faster to see more and more of the leaf!
 



































Leaf Measuring

To continue our study of leaves this week, we measured them using cubes as our form of measurement. Each student picked their favorite leaf to measure. We had several different measurements when we were finished. Our largest leaves were 12 and two 14 cubes long leaves and our smallest was 4 cubes long. We had several leaves in the 5-8 cubes long range. The class was surprised to see how long their leaves were from the bottom of the stem to the tip top of the leaf petal.

 


































































Surfer of the Week

Last week, Zackary's mom came in and created a puppy chow recipe with the class that we were able to eat when we were finished! Each student had a job of his/her own and we worked as a team to make the delicious dessert. Yum!
 













































Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Leaf Graphing

This week is all about leaves! We have been reading books about the fall season and the changes leaves on the trees undergo. Today, we took two student's bags of leaves from home and sorted them by color. After we sorted the leaves, we graphed them on our ENO board and discussed the similarities and differences we found after graphing. It looks like we need a few more red leaves to the mix! 





Parent University

Last night was our first Parent University night here at Mayflower. We will have three of these nights throughout the school year. The focus for the first one was on our 90 minute reading block instruction. As a school, we have implemented Daily 5 & CAFE everyday kindergarten through fifth grade. Below is a clip from our local news station WLFI who was there to cover the event. I have also added the video the kindergarten team used to showcase Daily 5 & CAFE to the K parents. We spoke to them about each section of the video before they watched it, in order for them to have a better understanding as to what their child is doing during this reading block as well as what the teacher is doing too!





Sunday, September 25, 2011

Exploration Acres!

We went on our first field trip of the year to Exploration Acres. The class and chaperones had a fun filled day, there was so much to do! Once we arrived we went through the straw bale maze, raced pedal cars and rubber duckies and jumped on the mound of hay. We then took a hay ride to visit an 18-acre corn maze and finished the day out in the pumpkin patch where we cut our very own pumpkins off the vine!