Bats, Spiders, Owls...Oh My!!!

We have learned so much about owls, bats, and other nocturnal animals.  We discovered they come out at night because that is when they can safely find the most food.  We learned that bats aren't as scary as we may have thought.  They actually help us by eating pests like mosquitoes.  I still would not want one trapped in my house though.  I wish I could find the picture of the one I actually had in my bedroom when I lived in an old, historic building in Raleigh (old, historic is my way of nicely saying it probably should not have been lived in).  I woke up at 2 am to the sound of wings flapping over my head!  When I tell the story to the kids I have a tendency to make the bat the size of the flying fox rather than the very small brown bat that it was.  I had a picture of the animal control officer pointing to it on my wall that I would always share.  The kids would always laugh at just how small it really was.  In my defense, it sounded a lot bigger just over my head. I lost the photo though and it was before I had switched to digital photos (phones on cameras...what was that?).  Boy did I just date myself!!  Anyway it gave me a great topic for writing in front of the kids!!  We practiced making connections using the story Owl Babies. It tells of 3 baby owls who are afraid when their mom is out hunting for food. Most of us had a similar story (missing a parent when they had to leave). 

Here are a few photos from our week with nocturnal animals. 

This free picture collage created with Smilebox

Photo collage generated with Smilebox

We read The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle.  We wrote about what we are busy doing in Kindergarten.    This is our tree map to sort information we learned about bats. Our Schema chart about spiders.  We try to do one of these at the start of each unit/topic.  This helps us to see what we already know (or think we know), what questions we have, and what our misconceptions are.  We did 2 really fun investigations about spiders (from D. Jump's Science unit).  We learned how spiders eat their prey and why they do not get stuck in their webs.  Ask your child to tell you what they discovered.   How stinkin' cute are these??  Don't you just love Kindergarten drawing!!  Even though I showed them step by step how to draw the Old Lady (after reading There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly) they all look different.  We used these and cut outs of the other characters to retell the story.

Fall and Fire Safety

Here are a few more pics of our Fall Fun with leaves!  I also included a pic or 2 of our fire truck creations. 

 

 

Make a picture collage

Fire Safety

       
Look at our future little firefighters!!  I could eat them up-so adorable!  You have to be pretty strong to be a firefighter and carry all of that gear around!
                               

The whole crew!!! 

Apples

Wow!  So much for getting caught up!  I am so sorry I have been such a slacker on here lately.  I have not been able to keep to my promise of giving up Pinterest for a while.  I did cut back though so that should count, right??  Anyway here's a peek at what we have been up to the last few weeks!

Apples

  We have been working on labeling in writing and gave it a try with the parts of an apple.  We tore pieces of paper to make our apple cores. 

  

 

We used our senses to describe an apple.  We painted plates to look like apples. 
We tasted all 3 colors of apples (red delicios, golden delicious, and green Granny Smiths).  We graphed our favorite. 

On Friday we made a recipe for applesauce and followed it together.  We let it cook all day in the crockpot.  It was pretty tasty.  We had apple juice to go along with it.  We surveyed our friends to see if they liked applesauce or apple juice better. 

 

We learned how apples grow and change during each season.  We made these trees to show how an apple tree looks in winter, spring, summer, and fall. 

We talked about how nonfiction or informational texts give us facts about a topic.  We read lots of nonfiction stories about apples.  We also read about Johhny Appleseed.  We learned that he was a real person who did plant apple trees and seeds, but many stories about his adventures are made up in what are called Tall Tales.  Here are some of the key details we learned from some stories about John Chapman.





Colors

I think I have figured out why I cannot get caught up this year!  Pinterest....Yes, I blame Pinterest and the Internet in general.  I have been following so many amazing teacher blogs and pinners on Pinterest that I am now overwhelmed with too many wonderful ideas or things I want to try.  I think I need to take a little break for a while.  I have a feeling it will be like the time I tried to cut out carbs. I say I am going to do it, and may stay away for a whole day or two.  Afte that I find myself eyeing a box of Cheese-It snack mix and I say "just one, I have earned it".  My one turns into the entire box(that snack mix is my kryptonite).  I could easily see myself in the same type situation with Pinterest and the internet.  I'll just look for one thing...next thing I know 3 hours have somehow passed me by.  We'll see how it goes and if I get caught up.  Wish me luck...

Even though I cannot seem to get caught up we have been having a ball down in Kindergarten.  I must say that color week was a blast!! I have a new favorite series of books....Pete the Cat.  He is awesome!  The kids really loved him as well.  here is a little snippet of them singing alond with the author and illustrator.  (will try again could not get loaded)

You can find the video for the song below if you want to watch at home.  Love them!!

 

 

Here are some other photos of the fun we had...



 

We explored making new colors by mixing primary colors (we used play doh).  

Here are a few pics from our literacy stations this week.  

 Our Pete the Cats from D. Jump's Colorful cats unit.  We have been finishing them up in our writing station.