week of November 16 | snapshot

This week was all about Thanksgiving.

We talked about foods that we eat at Thanksgiving and foods that the Pilgrims and Indians ate that first Thanksgiving and what is the same and different.

The students made a list of Thanksgiving foods with Ms. Shelby and then wrote down their 5 favorite.

We also looked at what Pilgrim men and women wore and what their clothing was called. 

We compared and contrasted that with our clothing of today. 

They liked to say coif and breeches the best :)

Thanksgiving is one our few times we make crafts but since we were discussing Pilgrims and their clothing, we decided to make a few Pilgrims of our own and turn them into a bulletin board!

I gave them the materials and minimal direction and they got busy.

We had fun putting them together!

Since we have been talking about being thankful all week it was just fitting that our Write the Room be "thankful!"

The students also made personalized placemats to use over the holidays and I laminated them so you can also keep them as a keepsake. :)

{there are several on this site you can grab for free}

We also learned a lot about our friends' traditions and about other people's traditions this week.

We took a poll in the classroom on a few things before dance and gymnastics started, too.

Here are a few things we found out about each other:

My students always enjoy putting together this goofy turkey.

{you can grab it here for free}

We watched several educational videos...

{The Story of Thanksgiving by Plymouth Rock}

{view a reproduction of the Mayflower}

{virtual field trip of the first Thanksgiving}

{What was life like for Wampanoag?}

 and several fun videos...

{Turkey Jive} 

{Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving read aloud}

{Albuquerque the Turkey}

Most of them are on my Pinterest Thanksgiving board if you are interested in watching or need them for your classroom!

Who were the Pilgrims and Wampanoag? (below)

The students practiced so hard all week for the Thanksgiving program!

And the grownups prepared just as much!

The student bulletin boards turned out great!

Our 'family tree' looked great with some of the totem poles on it!

Everyone did such a good job on their family totem poles! So proud!

  

And then it was showtime!!!

All my deer hiding from the thanksgiving hunters!!!

I'm hoping my singing doesn't show up in my video  lol :)

Thanksgiving 2015 from Jaysa Smith on Vimeo.

The Tooles kept adding the their family tree :D

We are even thankful for Sofia, the hamster!

I hope each and everyone of you reading this has a safe and blessed Thanksgiving!!!

Gobble till you wobble!!!

week of November 9 | snapshot

Last week was our Clothing Unit.

To start off our unit we gathered information about what the students already know about clothes and recorded our ideas on a KWL chart. 

Some things to learn about clothes if you are interested in this unit: What are the different kinds of clothes? How do people make clothes? How is cloth made? How do clothes get to be so many different colors? What special clothes do some people wear for their jobs? Who decides what clothes should look like? How do clothes get to the stores? How do our clothes compare to clothing in the past? You can see above what my class wanted to learn.

One of our projects:

Students chose one article of clothing from one of the categories we discussed and drew a picture of it. Then cut it out and taped the drawing to chart paper. 

We also described the colors, styles, and textures of different clothing worn to school one day.

Questions I asked: What do you notice about these clothes? How are some of the clothes the same? How are some of them different from the others? How did you decide which clothes to wear to school today? What do you notice about the materials from which the clothes are made? What are your favorite kinds of clothes? Why? 

I asked the students how they wanted to graph their clothes that day. They decided as a group to graph them by color, so that's what we did.

Another day we read clothing labels to find out where clothes were made and locate on a map. This was especially fun to the students because they liked to see who was the closest to home and who was the furthest. (Grady was closest ;) )

We also read the clothing labels and made a tally to see what our clothes were made of. A lot of the students had never heard of polyester and thought it was a funny word. Ms. Angie said she could tell we had been studying about clothing materials that day because she had been hearing a lot of discussion going on at the snack table that day. :)

In our research, we learned that plastic bottles can be recycled to make polyester when we watched this video. How cool is that?!
Fun fact: One of the most famous pieces of polyester clothing is the white suit worn by John Travolta worn in the movie Saturday Night Fever. It sold at auction for $145,000.

Our new math game is called Bean Out. The students took turns rolling a die and would cover the amount of dots with a counter of their color. If the number was already covered, their turn was over. Once the board was covered, they would count their color of counters to see who won!

We also finally got around to graphing our Cheetos Bag of Bones from Halloween.

Better late than never, right?!?!

Anywho, Cheetos makes this great bag of skeleton shaped Cheetos each year for Halloween and I made up a graphing sheet last year to go with it. I pass out a handful to each student in a Ziploc bag and they have to graph what they get before they eat the pieces. There are hands/feet, rib cage, arms/legs, and skull pieces. :)

The students also put together and learned to read  Wishy Washy, Wishy Washy.

{click here for this freebie}

Our Shared Reading book this week was Shopping by Joy Cowley. 

Libby turned 6 last Tuesday!

She waited to celebrate with her BFF, Stori, on Wednesday who turned 5 :)

AND they dressed up as Elsa and Anna!

limited centers:

blocks- add outlines of clothing for students to fill in with blocks, make patterns with blocks, etc.

dramatic play- add props for washing, drying, sorting, folding, and hanging clothes

art- add laminated patterns of clothing for students to trace and be a clothing designer

math- add different sizes of clothing for sorting

discovery- fabric samples for students to feel and observe textures; add magnifying glasses

computer- Max and Ruby Dress Up http://www.nickjr.com/games/max-ruby-dress-up.jhtml?path=/games/all-shows/online-dress-up-games/all-ages/index.jhtml

Dress Up With Olivia http://www.nickjr.com/games/oliv-dressup-with-olivia.jhtml?path=/games/all-shows/online-dress-up-games/all-ages/index.jhtml

Blue’s Mix-n-Match http://www.nickjr.com/games/blues-mix-n-match-dressup.jhtml?path=/games/all-shows/online-dress-up-games/all-ages/index.jhtml

upcoming December events | save the dates

I know this is early, however, some of you may need the time to order items beforehand. The date for our class Christmas parties has been changed from December 11th  to December 8th. 

On the 11th, we will have Polar Express, Pancakes, and Pajamas. We will have a very special jolly guest visit us, and the kindergarten class will be travelling to The Gingerbread Man Workshop at the Children's Hands On Museum. 

We also want to try something a little different this year. If you would be interested in assisting us with a Gingerbread Day at the Campus School, please let me know. We are looking for people who would like to donate items to create gingerbread houses and/or donate time to make them with our students. Items may include the actual gingerbread kits, or items to create the houses from scratch such as icing, graham crackers, M&M's, peppermint, and variety of other candies, paper plates, paper towels, and baby wipes. We need your assistance to make this day possible. If you, or any of your colleagues and students would be interested, please email me as soon as you can. We are looking forward to hearing from you.  

Thanks, 

Kimberly M. Smith

Campus School Program Director