Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

We love celebrating Read Across America and the life and work of Dr. Seuss in Kindergarten! 

We kicked off Read Across America week by reading many of Dr. Seuss' best loved books including The Cat in the Hat.  We enjoyed comparing and contrasting that silly cat's antics in The Cat in the Hat and The Cat in the Hat Came Back.  Then  we created our own cats and our own adventures!

The Cat's red hat also inspired a hat themed STEM building challenge!

We met and then created some pretty interesting feet in The Foot Book.

We read about and cooked up some green eggs and ham.  Not everyone loved them, but we tried them just like Sam I Am.

We also read about and compared the adventures of Horton the Elephant.  The Cat in the Hat inspired us to write some silly stories, but Horton inspired our hearts.  After reading about Horton, the selfless protector, we took time to think of some ways that we could be more like Horton.

After a few weeks of living and breathing Seuss in the classroom, we created some of our favorite characters and create classroom graph.  We love those Things!!

Kindergarten also had an opportunity to celebrate the universal love of authors everywhere with a fantastic storybook character parade and Seuss themed pep-rally!

Kindergarten is Beary Fun!

Winter is the perfect time to learn more about the wild, ferocious, hibernating mammal-- the bear!

Children spent a several days working together in small groups to research different species of bears.  We used QR codes and iPads to learn about bears from all over the world--and we learned some pretty interesting facts!  Did you know that a polar bear's skin is actually black? Or that sloth bears eat termites?  Or that sun bears have ridiculously long tongues?

After completing our research, we worked together to create some pretty amazing multi-media art to show what our bears look like and where they live.  (I really wish I had pictures!  We were up to ears in paint and glue and tissue paper.  It was very loosely controlled chaos, so no pictures.  Sorry!)

While most bears should not be approached in their natural habitat, we read about one kind of bear that is always up for a little human interaction--the teddy bear!

We loved reading and comparing the many adventures of Don Freeman's Corduroy. 

And because we LOVE to write, we created our stories about Corduroy.

We also read and compared several different versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  One of our favorites was The Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett.  In this Arctic themed version of The Three Bears, the bear family lives in an igloo.  So, we tried our hand at engineering an igloo of our own using sugar cubes and icing. 

We also taste tested some porridge.  Most of us decided we would not mind having some porridge for breakfast in the morning! 

We wrapped up our bear unit with one of my absolute favorite Kindergarten activities-- stuffing our own teddy bear!  After we stuffed our bears, we used our newly acquired measurement skills to complete a Teddy Bear Birth Certificate for our new teddy bear friends.

Plenty of Penguins!

The weather has been cold outside, so we have been learning about some silly birds that love the ice and snow--PENGUINS! 

We started our unit by learning as much as we could about these flightless birds.  We used Gail Gibbons' book Penguins as a mentor text and created teaching books of our own.  

 

We learned lots of interesting facts from Gail Gibbons, but we also found some great information from other sources. If you and your family want to learn some more information you can investigate different types of penguins by visiting Pebble-Go.  You can also learn some more from Ed and Eppa by clicking here. 

We also got a chance to see what it feels like to be an Emperor Penguin and waddle with an egg on our feel.  We used a measuring tape to measure our how far we waddled.  

Turns out it's harder than it looks!  I'm glad we're not penguins!

After learning about all the things that real penguins do, we spent a week reading about a very silly and very tacky imaginary penguin--TACKY!  

We read stories about Tacky and hunters, Tacky and an elephant, Tacky at camp, Tacky's birdday, and even Tacky and a haunted igloo!  If you and your family have not enjoyed Helen Lester's Tacky at your house, do your self a favor and search him out at the library or book store.  You won't be sorry that you did!

After enjoying so many stories about Tacky, we did what we do best and created some Tacky stories of our own!

Since authors write for the enjoyment of  their readers, we invited some special guests to our classroom to share our stories.

And...since we can't do anything without snacks in our room, we wrapped things up some yummy penguin themed snacks--

and some Tacky inspired outfits!

Wonderful Winter!

We have kicked off the new season with lots of snowy fun!

First, we spent some time learning about winter and snow.  We love to us Pebble-Go to do research in the classroom.  (If you time, try it out at home!)  We learned lots of new things that we were able to add to our existing knowledge of the season.  We learned lots of new information about snow and how it is formed.  Did you know that in the center of every snowflake, there is a hexagon?  We used this knowledge to help us build some snowflakes of our own!

 

After we boosted our background knowledge with some informational reading, we read some great imaginative stories about snow and snowmen!  Some of our favorites were Snowmen at Night and Snowmen All Year by Caralyn Beuhner.  

After enjoying these great books, of course we were inspired to create some fun snowmen and snowmen stories of our own!

We did not let the wintery fun end with reading and writing about snow!  You know we like to get our hands dirty and our bodies moving in Kindergarten!  So we got our hands dirty in some "snow" of our own.  We got to touch and build with some very cool snow dough! (The kids loved it and asked for the recipe--it's super easy!  1 part white hair conditioner to 3 parts baking powder.)  Then we used some shaving cream to create a snowy writing space to practice writing letters and words and solving math problems!

And you can't do snow without a snowball fight! Click here to see some of the snowball craziness! 

(Each snowball had a sight word written on it.  We stopped to read every few minutes--it wasn't a total free for all!)

And last, but not least, the treats!  We made and enjoyed some hot chocolate and wintery trail mix, and we even made a snowman good enough to eat!

Classroom snow is fun, but I'm hoping that we'll get to see some of the real stuff before the season is over!