Monday, May 30, 2016

Fun in the garden

We've been doing lots of digging, playing and planting in the garden lately!


We read the book The Imaginary Garden by Andrew Larson, and then created our own imaginary gardens.












One of our free choice stations is the seed station, where the kids can dig, plant, and water old seeds.




And then the real planting began!




Of course we also had to look for roly polys underneath the logs.


Saturday, May 21, 2016

Nature center field trip

We had our nature center field trip this week! The kids were really looking forward to it, and it lived up to their expectations! Here's what they said when I asked them what their favorite part was:
I liked when I climbed the tree and had an extra boost. - Sofia
I liked the part where I saw where a bear scratched a tree. - Adonis
My favorite part was petting the guinea pig. - Zola
All of the things. - Matthew
Going in the teepee and petting the guinea pig - Drake
I liked where we pet the guinea pig.  - Manuel
Seeing the birds and running on the grass - Hannah
Seeing the stick forts - Gavin
Going in the teepee - Jameson
Going in the teepee - Blenard
The puppet show - Eva
The owl - Fiona
The whole trip! - Hans
The whole thing! - Oscar
The whole thing! - Tate
When we went in the teepee - Janie
And here are some pictures from the trip. We got to look for critters in the pond, go on a hike, look for insects, play in the woods, and see a puppet show!



























Sunday, May 15, 2016

Math lately

We've been delving deeply into a few math concepts lately: addition, subtraction, shapes, and those tricky teen numbers. Below are some games and activities we've done to deepen our understanding!

Understanding subtraction as taking away
We played a game called Clear the Deck, in which the first person rolls two dice: one with an addition or subtraction sign, and one with numbers 1-6. If they roll a subtraction sign, they need to take away that number of circles from their deck. If they roll an addition sign, they need to add that many back on. The first person to clear their deck wins!




Addition and Subtraction Stories
We tell addition and subtraction stories (also known as story problems) several times a week, and practice writing out the number sentences and drawing a picture to go with. In kindergarten, we encourage kids to use their fingers and drawings to demonstrate their answer, because this helps it stay concrete in their minds.





Geoboards
These boards are equipped with small nails that allow for rubberbands to be stretched out in different shapes. We had lots of explore time with the boards, and then practicing making certain shapes - which helps students attend to the number of sides and corners that each shape has. 




Understanding Teen Numbers
We made "teen scenes" to show that teen numbers are 10 plus some ones. Students could use any object in their scenes. The choices shown below were flowers, people, and ipads!