Skip Counting

Here is another fun You tube video for skip counting! Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTYxfltyPgg&feature=related

Donations

Kindergarten would love some help to make some great centers!

Items needed-

Wooden clothespins
Wooden paint sticks
Stickers to make stories with
A working gum ball machine
Magnetic doodle boards
Small pringle cans with lids

Thanks!

Dr. Seuss

One of our favorite authors is having a birthday this week! We are so excited to be celebrating Dr. Seuss. Today we talked about all of our favorite Dr. Seuss' books. We also began to realize that most of us have the same Dr. Seuss' books. One of the things we will be doing this week is EVERYONE from our class will be dressing up as The Cat in the Hat. Cheers just continued to come today as I explained to them what we will be doing Friday. I love this age group and this group of children because they are so excited and thrilled to do EVERYTHING! Its always a party doesn't matter what it is! I can't wait to take pictures of them on Friday! Please make sure your child is dressed in black. At school we will be making the white belly, the red bow tie, and the cat's hat. I will supply the face paint! Even I will be dressing up with them :)

Flat Heart

So one of the BIGGGGGG things we do during our Healthy Heart week is Flat Heart.

I have used the idea of Flat Stanley and changed it to a Flat Heart.

Flat Stanley (for those who do not know who he is) is a young boy who is flatten by a bulletin board. He goes on many adventures once he is turned flat. Like flying like an kite and his biggest one visiting his friends by being mailed out.

So how does our Kindergarten Flatten their hearts??? Well we don't. They each get a heart of the color they choice. They hold the heart and they put their hands on their hearts. Then they hold their paper heart and put the magic love spell on their paper heart. Then they get to decorate their heart.


I ask their parents to please give me an address that we can mail their heart to.


The recipient is then asked to enjoy the Flat Heart for a week and take it places, take pictures with it, and write about their adventures, just like the Flat Stanley project. EXCEPT ours is a little different... The adventures need to be heart healthy adventures! Last year I gave examples of things that they could do; if they golf take the heart golf etc. The pictures and stories we got back were great. One Grandma sent us heart shaped cookies... made by love from a grandma. Love is one thing all our hearts need ;) We had a heart also visit a fire station. 


The kids LOVED getting them back and sharing all the great pictures and items that came with Flat Heart. I have a giant bulletin board waiting for each hearts arrival.


They all have been sent out and we are now waiting! This year we have three going out of the country: Ireland, Poland, and Canada! Can not wait to get them all back and see all the creative things that come from it this year!!! Will post more pictures soon!

National Heart Month

My mom suffered from a heart attack when I was in fifth grade... I remember my dad explaining it to me. We got out books and he showed me the body and I can't really remember anything from that night except he said your moms heart stopped. The dr jumped on top of her and used this machine. He did it several times and he was so scared she would not make it. I remember the first night going to see her. The smell the noises the scene. Nightmares....

Flash forward many years later to 2007. My mom had suffered from a MAJOR stroke followed by another mini heart attack and stroke. Why the stroke? The clots were formed by the "dead" part of her heart caused by the first heart attack.

Heart disease runs in my family. I have had grandparents who have passed away from it... great grandparents... etc.

So why do I teach Kindergarteners about how to keep our hearts healthy.... because I have a very sensitive part in my heart and know how important it is.

Last year was the first year we did a two week unit in my class on heart health. It was a success and I brought it back again this year! We touch on some things about bad hearts... more because the class brings up things they know "Your heart can be black if you smoke" etc. In no way do I want to scare them!

So we put a positive spin on it! Keeping our hearts healthy will let us live till we are very very very old and we will be able to run in races and exercise and play etc.

So we talk and do things to bring awareness to our families and each other.

Here is a video I had to put together for my ESL tech. class. I will show it to my class when I get back from being sick! :) Enjoy! These are things we have talked about in our Kindergarten classroom!

http://youtu.be/ladnNW0PtoU


Oh and heres a picture of my mom and I just a few years ago! She is doing so much better but the stroke did take the women she was away and is having to learn a different life... She does not have control of her right side of her body as well as other things. But she sure is a strong women and a fighter!

Valentine's Day

We call it our friendship celebration day. In KL kindergarten we are always making everyone who walks through our door feel part of our family. You will hear kids welcome other children as well as adults into the classroom, sometimes before I even get a chance to! If we have other children come to visit our classroom they will introduce themselves and ask if they would like to do what they are engaged in as well. I am amazed at conversations I hear (when they do not think I am listening). They are eager to help someone out, show someone how something is done if that child is frustrated, or solve problems. We are a tight little cozy family in KL and it makes days like Valentine's Day seem like any other day because the only difference we do on that day is have a little party!

One of the activities we did on Valentine's Day was make bags to put all our special cards and treats in. We were given foam stickers that we could place any where we liked. Many of us came up with stories about why we decided to decorate it one way appose to another way.

Another activity we started on Tuesday was creating our Love Monsters. This was used to help them as a writing prompt. First we start as a whole group and talked about monsters and Monsters Inc. the movie was brought up. So we talked about the different looking monsters there were in that movie. Then we talked about different ways we could use construction paper to create different looking monsters. I showed them a few different ways of curling paper and folding paper. There were given the choice of what colors to use and how they wanted to create their monsters. After they were done they were asked to to name the monster and dictate a story about their monster to me. Since I wanted it to be longer than a sentence I typed them up for each of the children. They turned out really cute. After all the stories are posted on the bulletin board I will take a picture and upload it to here. For all my parents that are reading this they are located in the back hallway on the bulletin board by the back doors!

Sorry for the delay

Wow. I have been really hit hard with this sinus infection this time. It has not been fun at all. Went home early from work on Friday and have been in bed since! I have gotten really restless though. Since my migraine pounds anytime I sit up I figured I would come upload things to my blog. It was a busy week last week in KL Kindergarten. We had a lot of fun celebrating our love for our friends, creating love monsters, and learning about ways to keep our hearts healthy. This next week we will continue to talk about our hearts and also our teeth :) We are very excited to have a special guest visitor tomorrow to talk to us about our teeth.