Thanksgiving is coming... and so are a lot of photos!

Hi everyone! We've had another great week in Kindergarten.  These past four days have really flown by!  Yesterday was filled with Kinder Club excitement, and this week will fly by since we have a week of half-days!  I'm really looking forward to our Parent Teacher conferences- please put those conferences into your smartphones so you won't miss any of our precious time together- fifteen minutes is not a lot! My classroom door will be closed, but I will have my conference schedule posted on the door so you'll know if someone is in the room meeting with me.  See you then!

Our school is participating in the wonderful Adopt-a-Family program once again this year. I will be speaking with you about this program during our conferences, so if you were wondering about your involvement in this charitable project, wonder no further! 
 
Today's blog posting will be a journey of photos from this week.  Before I start out on that journey, I'll just give everyone a head's up that this week's share will not be the one expected.  Instead, your child has a WIDE choice of share topics- share this week can be anything that starts with the letters we have already covered- A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H, or I.  Please don't jump ahead to J just yet... Homework this week will also be review of letters and numbers we've already covered.  We've got to keep this information fresh in their heads! A little teacher tip- when you and your Kindergartner are out and about, ask them if they can tell you what certain items you see begin with. Better yet, they love to play "I spy". Tell them, "I spy with my little eye something that begins with the letter ____" and see if they can guess it!  

Ok, here are some photos from our week- enjoy!

Here they are with their study buddies making some adorable paper bag turkeys! They are on display in the school library right now, but they will make their way home for the holiday!

 
 Here they are reading right after they went to the library- they love spending time with their new books!

Here are the Kinder Kiddos practicing some printing and alphabet skills with some dry erase sheets during centers:

In this snapshot, the kiddos are playing an exciting new game I made for centers called " Tower of Power!" I did not make up the concept of the game, but basically the kids pull a cup from the cup holder and they must correctly name the letter on the cup, along with the sound the letter makes.  If they do this correctly, they get to add the cup to a tower of cups on the table.  They loved it!  At the end of the center, if the tower is still standing, they each earn a sticker.  If they had great behavior, they get to blow the tower down!  Later this year we will be playing other versions of Tower of Power.

 Here are the kiddos at a following directions center:

This week started a new unit in our Language Arts series that answers the question: How are Plants and Animals unique?  We are starting to learn about the parts of a basic flower.  Here are the kiddos labeling the parts of a flower:

  We read our first non-fiction, informational text this week titled, Flowers.  Through out the year, Kindergartners will hear various types of text, not all of which will be fictional or fantasy.  At this age, many children are highly interested in learning facts about real things, so we want to take advantage of that fact and help them learn as much as possible!  

Now, onto photos from our Kinder Club!  

We'll start with the class making their own place mats for Thanksgiving:

Then they had their hands painted like turkeys to place onto the decorated mats!

After that, they moved onto making their own little owl or turkey ornaments:

Gotta love those smiling faces!!!

Then it was onto the games!  And boy were they excited!  They participated in some festive dress-up:

If I didn't get a snapshot of your kiddo dressing up, I'm sure someone else did because the cameras were busy!

There were other games,too, like bowling, puzzle time, and who can memorize all of the Thanksgiving items on the serving tray!

Finally, we all sat down to enjoy some Thanksgiving turkey! No, not the traditional turkey, but this fruity version created so cleverly by one of our talented moms! 

The kids were each given plastic forks, spoons, and knives, and we used our best table manners to enjoy our feast! 

A fun time was had by every Kinder Kiddo!  Our volunteers are saints- thank you so much for helping out at our wonderful Kinder Club!  And a big thank you to our room mom for coordinating this!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend, and see you at conferences!

Take care!