What a week! I just loved getting to chat with you all about your fabulous kiddos at conferences. Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me and talk about your child's progress. It is still hard for me to believe that we are already a third of the way done with the school year - yikes! The school year is 180 days and on Monday we celebrated our 60th day of school. Amazing how quickly time is flying by. To celebrate being 60 days smarter, we added the number 60 to our math journal and turned the zero into a turkey...because this week it was all about the turkeys! Every tenth day of school we practice counting by tens and get excited for our big 100th day of school celebration!
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We also made turkeys with 6 feathers and painted 10 dots on each feather. We practiced counting the dots by ones and tens. By the end of our kindergarten year, our goal is to count to 100 by 1's and 10's - keep practicing these skills at home!
  |  I have mixed emotions about celebrating the 60th day of school. On the one hand, I love seeing how much of a family we have become after spending the last 60 days together in Room 4. On the other hand, I start to think about how impossible it is going to be to say good bye to these 22 faces at the end of 2016. One day at a time... |
Turkey Families!
This is one of my favorite math/drawing activities of the entire school year. We asked the students to draw their "Turkey Family." They draw a turkey for each member of their family in their household, then label the turkeys, and then count the eyes, beaks, feathers, etc. I just adore kindergarten drawings! (I didn't get a picture of everyone's work, but check for your turkey family below!)
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 | This was a fun year for me to draw my turkey family too - we are getting (frighteningly) close to Baby Bowe's arrival! |  |
Room 4 Artists
This week we learned about wild turkeys (ask your child about the wattle, the snood, and dust baths!), and then we drew and painted our own turkeys. We used a combination of oil pastels and water colors. The students followed along step-by-step to complete the directed drawing and then used a variety of techniques (spirals, zig zags, dots, etc.) to decorate their turkey feathers. These fabulous Thanksgiving decorations will come home in folders next week!
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We are Thankful!
We also worked on Thanksgiving placemats this week. We wrote and drew about something we are thankful for. Then, we learned how to set the table with a plate, napkin, fork, knife, and spoon! We will use these placemats for our room 4 Thanksgiving feast on Tuesday afternoon and then your child will bring it home in their tote. They make for an adorable kindergarten keepsake! :)
Just look at this crew of hard workers!
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Room 4 Mathematicians!
This week we continued our work with 2D and 3D shapes. We love using pattern blocks and play-doh to help us learn about the similarities and differences between shapes. We also started working on a Shape Hunt project on our iPads using an app called Explain Everything. The students are excited to show off their iPad projects to their grandparents on Monday!
   | These kids are on the hunt for spheres and cylinders - ask your child to guess what 3D shape their friends are capturing in their picture!  We figured out how to build cubes using toothpicks and play doh!  We also learned about hexagons, diamonds (or a rhombus), and trapezoids as we built turkeys out of pattern block shapes! |
In our math journals we solved multiplication problems! We don't actually teach multiplication in kindergarten, but it is amazing what the students can do when they are given a word problem. This week, they solved the following problem using the number of their choice:
There are ________ turkeys. Each turkey has 2 legs. How many legs are there?
(3) (5) (8) (11)
Try solving this problem using different numbers with your child at home!
There are ________ turkeys. Each turkey has 2 legs. How many legs are there?
(3) (5) (8) (11)
Try solving this problem using different numbers with your child at home!
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Last, but certainly not least, here's a glimpse at some of our GoNoodle fun to end the day. Due to the early dismissal days, we didn't have time for choice time most days this week. But we did find 10 minutes at the end of the day on Friday for "super-duper-mini-choice-time" and a few of the kids chose to do some Go Noodle movement activities. I love these tiny dancers. :)
Thanks (as always) for checking in - looking forward to meeting some of our Room 4 Grandparents on Monday morning! - Mrs. Bowe