Fall Semester Recap!

Hello everyone out there in kinder land!  Yes we are still here working hard as ever.  As Sandra had said way back in...September, we are bursting at the seams with kindergartners and that is just the way its going to be this year.  Sandra has 25 students for the year and I have 28!  Lucky for me I am the overage teacher and as soon as I got my 27 little one, I was blessed with a compliance teacher, Mrs. Mendez.  She is going to be an amazing help to me and more importantly my little monsters.  She just started with us last week and I can't wait to get into the swing of having an extra set of hands in the classroom.  It just seems so foreign in kinder, lol!  Now for the recap!  It's been FOREVER since our last blog post so we're going to give you little snippets of our fall semester which in coming to a close faster than it ever has!

September:
This month we always do a big apple unit.  We wanted to make sure we shared some different ideas from last year.  We did some really fun activities with the students, we always start off by graphing what type of apple each student brings.  Next is a cut paper activity, where they made circles from squares and cut small stems.  Students then had to write the numbers 1-5 on the apples and make their own seeds.  We also made a Deanna Jump Craftivity in which the students make the life cycle of an apple using a poem.  I translated "Eat an apple, save the core, plant the seeds, grow some more!"

During this time we are studying the 5 senses and this a very cute morning message and informative morning message that Sandra made with her students.  As you can see on it she has a review if the apple life cycle of an apple as well as observing an apple using our 5 senses.

Another very fun and super exciting apple activity is to make apple sauce in the classroom.  Oh my gosh our room smells so amazing all day.  I love to see how excited they are about making apples sauce until...they taste it, lol!  It differs from year to year and for this group of kids they were disappointed.  It may have been my fault, I think I added too much cinnamon and it ended up being a little too spicy.  Ooops...

The week following our big apple unit we learn about Johnny Appleseed.  We spend all week talking about how good of a person he was, what he did for the first settlers, how he planted so many apple trees and what he wore, which my kids think is interesting.  This year after making a group tree map with information about Johnny Appleseed we did a directed draw activity.  We drew Johnny Appleseed step by step as a group, next the students added the setting and wrote facts that they thought were interesting about Johnny Appleseed.
 

October:
This month was busy as ever, almost as busy as Eric Carle's  "The Very Busy Spider" but unlike the spider we have had no time to rest.  So much fun to be had!  Our new librarian Ms. Patton brought us something new. She asked us if we would like to decorate a pumpkin like a storybook character, luckily I responded in time!  We decided to make a "Very Busy Spider" here are a few pictures of the process.  My kids we floored by our end result.

 Another fun October activity is our annual storybook parade.  My book this year was, "If You Take a Mouse to the Movies".  Honestly if it wasn't for my parents there is no way I could have done anything like this.  They did great! Check out our costumes.

Sandra did "Pete the Cat" so cute!  The kids made their own masks during art and she had some really awesome parents make a pair of shoes for all 25 of her students.  That's 50 shoes!!! Sandra's costume was my class's favorite!

Each year our adopters judge our costumes and a Pre-K and Kinder winner get a pizza party!  Here are the winners for this year!

 The pre-k winner was Piggie Pie by Mrs. Aguayo's class and the kinder winner was "The Lorax" by Miss Barajas' class.  Congrats ladies!

November:
I've always said that I was born during the wrong era.  I love 50's music, therefore I love the 50th Day!  Every year we make Root beer floats.  The top is mine and he second one is Sandra's, her's looks so pretty!  Also below is Sandra's flow map for how to make a root beer or coke float (that's for you Sandra).  Now we make a book about how to make a coke float book that we got from a TPT unit and I can't remember what it is at the moment, but it very possibly may be Deanna Jump.  Sadly this year I didn't get to it, I need to make sure and ask Sandra if she did.

 Here are some of my kids busting a move to some oldies jams as well as me and some of the bilingual gals dressed up for the 50th day!

 Field Trip!!! This year the Pumpkin Patch field trip that we usually take in October was postponed until November.  We didn't get pumpkins to take home, but we still had a blast and had perfect weather!  I was lucky to have as one of my chaperons Mrs. Hamilton our P.E. teacher! The kids love her and she is great with them.  My second was my aunt.  My parent chaperon got sick and couldn't make it.  My aunt saved me and had a blast with us!  That's her on the hay ride we get to go on and me and Jayden, he's family so adorable!

 This is Mrs. Colodney and me on this awesome stand up see-saw, oh my gosh, so fun!  They my some of my students racing to build a scarecrow!  The last station we go to go to was the giant sandbox!  There was sand EVERYWHERE especially on the bus floor on our way home!

 Don't let Miss Flores catch you snoozing, lol!

For thanksgiving we made a list of things we are thankful for and these cute little turkeys out of cut paper.  They used the list to write what they were thankful for on the turkey feathers.  No matter what I tried I could not get this picture of the list to turn!  Apologies...Here are a few samples.

December:
Four days of the gingerbread man and north Texas get hit by "Ice"magedon.  No school Friday and Monday!  I used this time to rest up, clean house and put my tree up, the mantel is in progress.  It was truly awful outside, so slippery and dangerous and I'm not just talking about to drive in.  I fell about 3 times just walking to the jeep!  The pictures from my porch are from Tuesday night!  Solid ice!  My front yard is a glacier!

We're hoping to finish some gingerbread man activities in this short week!  Until then...stay warm!
-Cindy :)