One Sweet World

Introducing...

2012-02-02T13:24:00.000-08:00

Wilmington Willie

That's the name we selected for our class groundhog for Project Groundhog. He definitely saw his shadow this afternoon. We had a great time finding all of our shadows and learning about groundhogs this week! Here were our predictions from Wednesday.

We were pretty good prognosticators. :-) We have been learning lots about groundhogs with Ms. Herron. She took over Science this week. Here is a sample of what we created after learning more about groundhogs, aka woodchucks, aka whistle pigs and their burrows.

Today we predicted whether or not we would see our own shadow if we went outside. We discussed how the weather conditions have a lot to do with shadows. Then we went outside to check our predictions. We were right! We knew that if the sun was shining and we were able to block the sunlight from the ground, we would have a shadow. When we came back inside we drew what we observed. We determined that we needed to add a sun to our picture because no sun = no shadow.

We watched the traditional groundhog ceremony from Gobblers Knob to see Punxatawny Phil make his annual prediction. The anticipation of the kids waiting to see the most famous groundhog of all was so much fun. They loved him! We were not as thrilled with his prediction, but we talked about how he would have had the same prediction here-6 more weeks of winter. Now we are going to be checking his accuracy for the next 6 weeks and reporting back to our team each week via email. Our team for Project Groundhog consists of 2 classrooms from New York, 1 from New Jersey, 1 from Texas, and 1 from the other side of NC! We can't wait to compare our groundhog predictions. Each day, during our calendar routine, we will record sky conditions and temperature to see if it really is more like winter or if we got an early spring. So far we have definitely been more spring like. It was 72 degrees today!

Click on the groundhog link below if you want to check out the video

We went outside for math to trace our shadows and measure their length. We used our feet to measure the length. The coolest part was when our shadows suddenly disappeared when a cloud came over the sun. They completely vanished! It was a great reinforcement to what we were learning about how light causes shadows.

Here was our special groundhog snack on Friday! Thanks again for helping us with these!

Penguins

2012-01-29T05:50:00.000-08:00

What a long week! We had so much going on with finishing Dibels and getting report cards done. Ms. Schiffer was out all week (congrats to her son on his graduation!). We sure did miss her. I apologize for the poor quality of some of the pictures. I was snapping quickly when I got a chance. I am so upset that I did not take any photos of the books we worked on in writing all week. They turned out so good! I think I was just as excited as they were to take them home and share with their families. The kids have really loved working with nonfiction stories this week. We created this chart to show all of the text features found in nonfiction books.

I loved hearing them say "look this one has a table of contents" or "I found a glossary". I felt like a proud mama. :-) I put together some browsing boxes full of a variety of nonfiction books for the kids to explore as they came in to the class in the morning or if they finished work early. They had given me a list of topics they were interested in learning more about and I checked out as many books from the library as I could.

Our unit is on Polar Animals. We started by learning about the Poles (North and South). We were so surprised to learn that a polar bear and penguin would probably never meet unless at the zoo. We could not believe that it gets so cold at the South Pole that metal could snap! We made a connection to our learning about animals in winter last week. We talked about how some animals adapt to colder weather last week. That is just what polar animals do. They have adapted to live in extreme cold. Some migrate as well.

This week we focused mainly on penguins. We created a schema chart to record what we already knew about penguins and to keep up with what we have learned. We read lots of NF on penguins and we practiced picking out key details to add to our chart as new learning or to attach to our prior knowledge (schema). In writing, we made our own NF books about penguins-complete with a table of contents. Many of the activities I used for penguins came from a unit from Deanna Jump. Love all of her stuff! Wish I had pictures to share because the kids really did an amazing job! I do have a photo of our tree map that we created to help us write our sentences. We had lots of questions about penguins and how they stay warm. We used the scientific method to find answers to those questions. First, we read in one of our books that it gets so warm in the middle of a penguin huddle, they have to move to the back to cool off. We couldn't believe that they could get hot in 100 below 0 weather. We made some predictions (hyposthesis) about how it happens and then decided to try a huddle of our own outside.

Here's our little penguins all huddled together. We concluded that being huddled closely together helps to block the wind. If we stood close enough together we could trap the warm air and keep the cool air out. Pretty amazing! We also wondered how having oily feathers could help keep them warm. We had a few interesting ideas (acted like a coat) so we decided to give that one a try. We coated our hand with petroleum jelly and placed it in ice cold water. We observed that the water would bubble up on our hand and roll off. Our hand felt dry. We determined that the oil helps keep their feathers dry. We all know that we feel colder when we are wet. So by staying dry the penguins can stay warm.

In math, we started our unit on measurment. We focused on height this week. Our penguin friends helped us out. We really had to work hard at using the words "taller" and "shorter" (not just saying "bigger" and "smaller"). We compared our height to that of an Emperor penguin. First, we predicted whether we would be taller, shorter, or the same height. Then, we compared and graphed.

We traced our foot to make a penguin. We took our penguins around the room and compared his height to other objects.

We did take a break from NF to read a fiction story about Tacky the penguin. We LOVED him! We talked about how this story was different from all of the others we had been reading. We created a character map for Tacky. I used the data projector/doc camera to show the kids how to draw Tacky. We came up with a list of adjectives to describe him. We had to use examples from the story to support our thinking. Here are some of our creations.

On Friday, we made a special penguin snack. We had to read and follow the recipe to make our own. It was not as easy as we thought to break the Oreos. They were cute and yummy in the end though!

We also took a virtual field trip to 2 aquariums across the country to observe penguins. You can check them out at home! Just click on the links below to visit the websites!

Project Groundhog

2012-01-24T17:04:00.001-08:00

I just signed our class up to participate in Project Groundhog!!! This will be my first experience with this project. I am kinda excited about this and looking forward to having our class communicate with other classes throughout the United States. Click on the picture below to go to the website and learn more. Parents-look for a letter with some additional information this week!

Snowman projects

2012-01-20T13:28:00.000-08:00

Here's a peek at some of our snowman projects! These were a family project for the students to complete after hearing the story Snowballs by Lois Ehlert.

Enjoy! We had a great time sharing them!

Now if we could only build some real ones....

Bears, hedgehogs, and hens...Oh my!

2012-01-20T09:49:00.000-08:00

What an exciting week! We were focused on one of my favorite authors/illustrators...Jan Brett. We shared many of her stories this week and looked at the many unique characteristics of her writing/drawing. We created this anchor chart to store all of the new information we were learning about her.

Of course one of the first stories we shared this week was The Mitten. We created this story chart to retell the characters, setting, main events, and author's purpose. The author's purpose was a new one for us, but I thought it would help us next week as we begin to explore nonfiction texts. I thought it was a great grounding point for learning why we need the different texts. We discussed how some authors want to teach us something, some want to change our mind or convince of us something, and some just want us to have fun.

We made mittens with all of the characters to help us practice retelling a story with LOTS of detail and in correct sequence. We read several more of her stories that include Hedgie the hedgehog. Some of the books are pictured below.

We visited Jan Brett's website and watched her video tutorial on how to draw a hedgehog. I had the students follow along on their white boards. We took our new learning to our seats and wrote about Hedgie in our journals. I have such amazing artists!!! You should give it a try http://www.janbrettvideos.com/how_to_draw_a_hedgehog_high_bandwidth.htm!! She has lots more!

We made Hedgie with his accidental hat after reading The Hat. We compared The Mitten and The Hat by creating a venn diagram.

We visualized our perfect pair of mittens and created a bubble map to describe them. We decorated a pair of mittens to match our mental image and hung them out to dry. The next day when we went to get them to write about them, they were gone!!! We felt just like the Three Little Kittens. We decided to create "lost" posters using our bubble maps to help describe the lost mitten. We have our posters displayed in the hallway. Hopefully our mittens will be returned.

All week long we have been talking about how animals handle winter. We learned that they have three choices: to hibernate, to migrate, or to adapt (as we do). We learned which animals do each. Here you can see some hibernators peeking out of their warm dens. We discovered that animals do what they have to to find food and stay warm. A big "a-ha" for us was that geese are not the only animals that move or migrate to warmer temperatures. Whales and reindeer are also migrators. Animals can adapt by growing thicker coats of fur, storing food, changing their diet, or even changing the color of their fur to white. We made bird feeders to help out some of our feathered friends.

Here is our special snack: a bear track in the snow!

Frosty Fun

2012-01-14T18:28:00.000-08:00

We did lots of learning with the help of snowmen this week. Here is a brace map we completed after reading an emergent reader about a snowman.

Here are a few student samples. I have such wonderful artists!

We've been working with the poem Five Little Snowmen in Math. We focused on ordinal numbers first-fifth. We made a flip book to practice counting, identifying, and writing those. ordinal numbers.

We've also been working with pattern block shapes. We used them to make a pattern for a snowman's scarf (from Julie Lee's blog) http://mrsleeskinderkids.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-01-22T21%3A33%3A00-06%3A00&max-results=10)

We read There Was A Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow and created a flow map to help us retell the story. Swallowing snow did not sound too strange-we've all done that, but in true Old Lady fashion she went a little crazy after that.

We've been working a lot with story elements (characters, setting, problem, and solution). We read The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keatts and created a map for Peter. We listed all of the things Peter did in the story. Then, we used this map to make text-self connections. We looked for ways we could connect to Peter and wrote about them.

We learned a lot about snow and ice during this unit. We talked about how snow/ice is water in a solid form. We talked about how snow/ice can change. We all already knew that snow/ice melt when heat is applied. We did a little experiment to see who could devise a plan to melt ice the fastest. The students were given one ice cube in a zip-loc bag. They could use anything I had in the room to try to melt their cube. We stated our question and recorded our hypothesis. Next, we tried them out and recorded our observations. The kids had some great ideas. Some tried to hold their ice cube under the light, some sat on them, a few laid down on them, several kept stepping on them. We clarified the difference between breaking the ice cube into small pieces and actually changing the state of the ice cube from solid to liquid (water). One student went over the the sink and added warm water to her bag, and her cube melted first. We made some predictions as to why that worked the quickest. We also learned how we can generate heat with our hands and breathe. We tried those new techniques to melt the rest of the ice cubes. We made pictures of snowmen melting under the warmth of the sun (got this idea from Chalk Talk).

To finish out the week we made a melting snowman snack!

Next week we will be learning about how animals handle winter changes.

Clutter Free

2012-01-10T10:32:00.001-08:00

Instead of actually making a resolution this year (that I probably would not keep), I decided to choose a word that related to something I felt I needed to improve/change. The word I keep coming back to is "simplify". I have always been one to take too much on or feel like I need more stuff "just in case". My goal this year is to simplify my life in lots of different areas. I came across a blog with a project that will help me simpify my life in the classroom. It was the "Clutter Free classroom project". If I can make my classroom more organized and clutter-free it will save me time and lots of headaches. I start off each year with the best intentions to remain organized and together, and by this point in the year things get placed wherever I can find a spot. I was feeling pretty good about this year until I took photos for last weeks assignment. As I was taking pictures of different areas in my room I realized just how bad they were! I was ready then and there to start throwing/giving things away. I was able to resist that urge and follow the project. I am in the process of collecting a few large and small clear bins. I plan on labeling my large bins for things to Keep, Recycle, Donate, and Trash. This week we are supposed to come up with a plan for where things will go as we purge. Wish me luck as I begin this process. I am posting (reluctantly and with much embarassment) some of my BEFORE photos. To look at the positive, it will only make my AFTER pictures look that much better. :-)

BEFORE

Welcome back!

2012-01-06T13:06:00.000-08:00

Wow what a busy week back!! It has been the perfect week to learn about winter weather! Man has it been cold!! We had to kick off the week talking about the New Year and what we hope to accomplish in the new year. Here is an example of our resolution writing. We decorated party hats in math by rolling dice to determine how many of each decoration we could use. Then, we had to write a sentence to compare two of the numbers.

In writing, we have been talking a lot about sentences-what they are and what they have. We created an anchor chart to help us remember all of the things our sentences should have.

We wrote about a lot of wintery kinds of things. We looked at a few different snow globes and talked about what we see inside. Then, we brainstormed ideas of what it would be like to live inside one. I could not help but imagine that poor little snowman from that Pixar short in the first Toy Story. He tried his best to get out. We wrote about being in a snow globe and drew ourselves inside one. This activity came from a Snowman unit I purchased from TpT by Deanna Jump (love all of her stuff!)

We even made our very own snow globes!

I got a little too carried away with the glitter...

During writing this week we also started working on "how to" writing. We looked at several examples of this type of writing, like recipes and and art/craft book. We discussed what these writing samples had in common. They told people what to do to make (or do) something in order. We learned about transition words like First, Next, Then, and Last. We decided to use interactive writing to tell someone how to make hot chocolate. First, we needed to plan out the steps. We chose to use a flow map. We drew a picture in each box to show what should be done in correct order. We used our flow map to write our sentences. Later, in math, we graphed whether or not we put marshmallows in our hot chocolate. Here is the finished product.

The next day the kids were on their own. We have been talking about how winter weather affects how we get dressed. We read several stories on Friday about winter wear: The Jacket I Wear in the Snow and Froggy Gets Dressed. After reading the first story we created a bubble map with all of the winter articles of clothing. Later, during writing, we read the Froggy story. Poor Froggy kept forgetting to put something on and had to keep going back inside. We decided we could help keep that from happening by writing a "how to" on getting dressed to go play in the snow. Here is a sample of the planning sheet and writing the kids completed. We also drew a picture of ourselves ready to play in the snow and labeled the clothing.

We learned a lot about snow this week. That is not something we get to see too much around here. Here's hoping we'll get at least a little this winter...Since we could not feel real snow this week, one of my sweeties brought in some fake snow for us to make and explore.

We cut snowflakes out of coffee filters to make our room feel more wintery. We also made snowflake designs in math using pattern block shapes. I was blown away by some of the designs the kids came up with! Truly amazing.

We worked with partners and used a cup of 9 two-sided coins (snowflake and snowman) to make combinations of 9.

Here is our new behavior board for winter. Our goal is to keep our snowflake in the air (not on the ground or completely melted). :-)

It has been such a busy week, but there is so much fun stuff out there for winter! Next, week we will continue to learn about winter activities and precipitation. Can't wait!

Mrs. Karnes

Great Giveaway

2012-01-04T19:40:00.000-08:00

To all of my teaching buddies...there is an amazing giveaway on Mrs. Albanese's Kindergarten blog. You can enter to win 5 fabulous winter units from some of the most popular sellers on TpT. Check it out. You can enter up to 4 times. Hurry though...the deadline is Thursday, January 5th at midnight! Click on the link below to go to her blog to enter.

Good luck!

Mrs. Karnes

Winter Ideas

2012-01-04T18:47:00.001-08:00

Hello my name is Nikki and I am addicted to Pinterest...I cannot get enough of all of the cute, amazing things I find on there each night. Yes, I am on there each night. Love it. Here are just a few of my finds for our winter unit. I cannot wait to try some of these in the classroom!

How stinkin' cute are these????

Source: blog.modcloth.com via Nikki on Pinterest

We are making these this week with some animal beads I got at Michaels this weekend! Super excited!

Source: childmadetutorials.blogspot.com via Nikki on Pinterest

Love this!!

Source: littlestlearners.blogspot.com via Nikki on Pinterest

Cute snack idea!

Source: randomhouse.com via Nikki on Pinterest

Remember those Little Golden Books?? I had tons of these as a kid! We used this website today to make our own snow globe scene to before we wrote about living in a snow globe.

There is so much cute stuff out there for Winter! I want to try it all, but have no idea how to fit it all in. Check back later for pics of all the things we have been working on this week!

Holiday Workshop

2012-01-04T18:29:00.000-08:00

Boy do I feel like a slacker. I promise in 2012 to be much more faithful about taking pictures and up loading them. There was so much that we did in the weeks leading up to our Winter break and I have no photographs to share. :-( . I am working on getting a better camera that will be easier to use in the classroom. Once I get into a routine of taking pictures on a regular basis each day, I should be fine. Thanks for your patience. In the meantime here are just a few pictures of some of our Holiday Workshop fun!

Enjoy!

Making gift tags.

Snoman pins!!

Handprint Santas!

Applesauce/Cinnamon ornaments.

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-26T10:15:00.001-08:00

I hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas! I cannot thank everyone enough for the amazing gifts and sweet sentiments this holiday! I truly appreciate everything you all did (and have done) for us both in and out of the classroom. I am truly looking forward to see what the next year holds for us all. I will be posting a few photos and notes from all of the holiday fun! One of my resolutions for 2012 is to take pictures more often and blog on a much more regular basis!

See you in 2012!!

'Tis the season for .... batteries

2011-12-13T12:44:00.000-08:00

I cannot believe that I did not get any pictures of the kids' Gingerbread Houses last week! :-( As soon as they were all gone on Friday it dawned on me that I did not get a single picture. I had planned to take photos on Thursday of the last few kids working on them when lo and behold...the batteries were dead! I replaced them and was all set to take photos of the candy covered houses perched along our windowsill preparing to go home, and then someone asked me a question. Once my attention had been diverted that it was it for that project..So, anyway I hope you all enjoyed them as much as we enjoyed making them. They are so much fun. I love how different they all turn out.
We have been pretty busy travelling all over the world to learn more about holiday traditions and customs. It has been pretty cool to discover the "why" and "where" a lot of our customs here in America have come from.

What is your favorite tradition?

Run, run as fast as you can...

2011-12-02T13:10:00.001-08:00

This is definitely one of my all time favorite units to teach. I LOVE The Gingerbread Man stories. I have collected quite a few different versions over the years and am always on the look out for new ones! We read so many Gingerbread Man stories this week! Some of our favorites are pictured below.

I purchased Deanna Jump's Gingerbread unit on Teachers Pay Teachers and loved it! Many of our activities were from this unit. Here are some of the many things we did with the Gingerbread Man this week:

Story Element Chart:

Gingerbread Man journals

Each day we wrote about a different story we read. We talked a lot about using writing to respond to what we read. We made a chart of the different ways to respond to stories (state opinion, favorite part/character, connections, retell a detail, what we would do different, what the characters did after the story).

We talked about What Scientists Do (ask questions, make hypothesis, test theory, record observations, and state conclusion). We asked "Why couldn't the Gingerbread Man cross the river on his own?" We thought he would either sink to the bottom or crumble. We tested it out by putting a gingerbread cookie in water and observing what happened. Here are some photos:
Before and After

Our conclusion: He sank AND crumbled to pieces. He had no choice, but to climb on the fox for a ride across the river. He just should have stayed on his tail. :-)

We made Gingerbread Man cookies and can you believe they RAN AWAY!!! We went to the cafeteria to pick them up and they were GONE! We put up posters all over the school in case anyone found them. Luckily Mrs. Hamilton, Ms. Spencer, and Mrs. Suggs were able to wrangle them up and get them back safely to us.

Mrs. Hamilton accidentally left her walkie talkie in our room after she came in to check on us. Here is a video of the kids as they overhead Mrs. Hamilton and the office staff try to capture our runaway cookies.

We made a pie graph to show which part of the cookie we bit first. The head was the most common.

We described the Gingerbread Man and made a tree map to write about him.

It was such a fun week! We are so ready for all of the holiday activities in the weeks to come! We can't wait to start making our Gingerbread houses next week!

Mrs. Karnes

Being Thankful

2011-11-27T04:47:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I know I have many, many things to be thankful this year! I saw this idea on another blog (Literacy and Laughter by Mrs. Rider) and just had to do one myself. I am so fortunate to work with such an awesome group of children. Click on the document below to see the full size version.

Thankful

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Mrs. Karnes

2011-11-22T13:03:00.000-08:00

What a busy time of year! Sorry it has taken so long to get photos of our fun Turkey stuff! We made turkeys by answering some questions about Thanksgiving and then analyzed our class data. It was a fun way to learn more about each other. Here are some pics of our turkey glyph and data analysis. We played a matching game using the document camera. We had to match numerals to the numbers represented on ten frames.

We did lots of writing about turkeys. We had our turkeys go on strike and offer suggestions on turkey alternatives for Thanksgiving after reading A Turkey for Thanksgiving and Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving.

We wrote about how we would catch a turkey for Thanksgiving.

We made a special turkey snack on Friday. This was from an idea I found on Pinterest.

We used Native American Symbols to decorate vests for our Thanksgiving feast.

It was a great week!

Mrs. Karnes

Turkeys in Disguise

2011-11-18T13:28:00.000-08:00

Here are photos from one of my favorite projects! The students had to disguise their turkeys so they would not get eaten on Thanksgiving. I think they would all be safe! Enjoy!

Mrs. Karnes

Giving Thanks

2011-11-18T12:38:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that over the last few months I have become addicted to teaching blogs, but I am so glad that I have. I have found so many wonderful blogs from Kindergarten teachers throughout the country who are willing to share some fantastic ideas. It has ignited a spark in me and I am rediscovering my love for teaching. So to all of those teachers who have opened up their classrooms and files I am giving many thanks! They have also inspired me to start my own blog. What an amazing way to keep parents informed of what is going on in the classroom. I am hoping that this will serve as a forum for them to not only get a peek inside our classroom, but also a way for them to leave feedback and ask questions.

I have found so many wonderful ideas and activities on pinterest and some of the blogs listed on this page I had a hard time planning and making everything fit! Several of the activities we did this week came from a Thanksgiving Literacy and Math packet by Deanna Jump that I purchased from TpT (Teachers Pay Teachers). I have loved it, and I think the kids did too! We started the week by sharing our own Thanksgiving traditions and then jumped into how those traditions were started. We read a book about Pilgrim life and created a tree map about the roles of pilgrim men, women, and children. We used this tree map to write about the Pilgrims. We made Pilgrims (TLC style-from D. Jump) to display our writing.

We talked a lot about what their journey was like on the Mayflower. The students wrote sentences about the Mayflower after reading If You Sailed On the Mayflower in 1620 by Ann McGovern. We put their sentences on a tree map based on three topics-why they sailed, who sailed, and what it was like. We also labeled the parts of the ship.

We made Native American vests using symbols to tell the first Thanksgiving story. We talked a lot about how symbols can be used to communicate through language barriers. I also tried my first pie graph in Kindergarten, and must say I was thrilled! We read Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting and asked the question: Do You Like Turkey for Thanksgiving?. Students responding and we created a class pie graph with the data. The children then surveyed their friends to complete their own pie graph.

I am so excited about some of the turkey activities we have planned for our very short week next week!

Mrs. Karnes