Update from the past few days

A bubble party, water celebration, writing about a favorite book in Kindergarten (5 heart maximum rating), reading outside, working with shapes, and combining kids by 1st Grade House to build relationships for next year!  Photos here!

June 3

"How-to" enter school writing for new Kindergartners, a new Mercy Watson book, buzzy celebration voting, numeral and letter writing practice, a spontaneous song, bird watching, and a new garden bed to weed and plant. Happy Monday! More photos here!

May 29

What a reprieve from the last week of assessments today! While it was still a bit cool, we managed to spend the entire day outside and weed the soon-to-be pizza garden too. We were also treated to a dress-rehearsal performance of Wide-Mouth Frog by Mrs. Dyer's class! More photos here! 

6 chicks!

The first 2 arrived in the middle of the night and 4 more made their way out during the day. Such excitement! Here is a time lapse of them moving around in the incubator too!

Chick Math- Using the egg tooth, 5 of the 12 hatched? How many are left? (one more hatched later in the day)

May 17

This wet week went by so fast. We are on day 16 with the chicks, by this time next week there should be a crowd of new chicks to observe! Thanks to Mrs. Dyer for joining us to candle some of the eggs. Kids were able to see the little air pocket that the chicks will use to take their first breath!

The group finished up how-to instructions for planting a seed (we planted one with the instructions and it grew!) and are working on other pieces now (Either How-to: wash hands, eat snack, or  brush teeth). They also recorded word problems on Seesaw for Mrs. Dyer's class to solve!

Two groups investigated the many rain gardens and impervious surfaces around the school in order to better understand storm water (some of which ends up in the Allen Brook as pollution). They drew images of those surfaces and the places water can go.

Lastly, check out this Twitter exchange we had as a group with the Bird Diva!  https://twitter.com/vtkindergarten/status/1129013021869826048 She helped us ID a new visitor!

More images here!

May 6- Catching Up

The blog has been dormant for a bit, but hopefully this batch of images will help you catch up on our latest work. We started "how-to" writing today, along with exploring measurement of weight. It was also our first day without Anna😔. On the bright side, literally, the sun was out today!  Enjoy these photos.

4.19.19

Happy Friday! The Kindergarterners finished up the week before vacation with some more research on their group’s underwater creatures, reading with our 2nd grade reading buddies, and a live online tour of the Champlain Valley Recycling Center with Recyle Rhonda!

Looking ahead to the week after break, the children will begin to compose their final projects on their group’s underwater creature and get ready for the celebration on Friday May 3rd at 1:30. More details to come soon through email!

Photos here!

4.17.19

What a beautiful Wilderness Wednesday! We took advantage of the sun and spent our day outside playing and exploring. The children enjoyed planting, playing social games, and going on a spring scavenger hunt!

Our water study is continuing as well! This week, the focus has been on animals that live in freshwater and wetland habitats. Each day a new animal is introduced in morning message and the children have truly enjoyed learning about the sounds, size, and habits of each creature!

During Writer’s Workshop the research projects have begun! In small groups the children have been using the website PebbleGo to learn about an underwater creature of their choice. Some of the creatures include frogs, salamanders, sharks, and whales!

Pictures here!

4.9.19

The spring showers have brought many visitors to our window including this black-capped chickadee!

So far this week the showers have been a perfect introduction to our new study of water! We have begun discussing Global Goal 14: Life Below Water. The discussion has started with the water in our own community: the Allen Brook and Winooski River. We will continue to make our way down to Lake Champlain and talk more about wetland habitats in the weeks to follow! The children have continued with this theme in their persuasive writing pieces about their favorite under water animal, and in math while we make and compare the lengths of different amphibians. The children have many questions and I am excited to learn alongside them!
 -Miss Anna
Here are some photos from the past two days.

4.3.19

A collection of photos from a sunny Wilderness Wednesday (thanks to Anna for compiling)! We also welcomed a new group of Preschoolers while they visited the school for the first time. Each day, a group of 6 children will stay in to be ambassadors for our room while the Preschoolers are there. The rest of the group will be outside for an extended recess. Everyone should have the chance to be an ambassador. Many thanks to Laura Dyer, Heather Scandale, Cindy Pavlik, and Angela Filion for organizing this event!

4.1.19

We shifted gears with the morning message today, integrating more CVC words and playing the sunshine game to decode it. The sunshine game is similar to the letter/word guessing game that went by an inappropriate name. Anna read the book, Hey Little Ant by Phillip Hoose as inspiration for a new persuasive writing piece. Would you step on the ant or not? Kids also practiced more addition, subtraction, and subitizing during math, along with the sight words "up", "in", and "so". More photos here.

It's Spring!

Spring has officially arrived here at Allen Brook! Today we enjoyed this beautiful Wilderness Wednesday exploring outside. Some groups planted seeds, walked to the Allen Brook, made math equations with natural materials, and played some social games! The children were also excited to hear and see the birds outside (there were sightings of a downy woodpecker and a black-capped chickadee!).
This week we have also introduced a new writing topic: opinion writing and we have continued to explore addition and subtraction in math.

More pictures here

Wilderness Wednesday!

We truly did enjoy the first day of spring today by spending our day out in the sunshine! Children spent time working on equations using natural materials, planting seeds, walking to the Allen Brook, and some social learning games. This week we also continued to celebrate Women's History Month, finish up our true stories, and introduce addition equations!

More photos here