Winter centers , Zero the Hero, and our first guest speaker

We had a great week back!  It was so great seeing everyone- they really did change over the two weeks!  We had some kids come back with less teeth, some kids come back with shorter hair, and some kids come back a little taller!  The kids were pretty excited when they heard that Santa left a present for them under my tree... our new listening center!  The listening center is a WONDERFUL way for the kids to practice holding books, turning pages, following along with some of the words we recognize, and using pictures to help tell a story.  It also keeps them very quiet engaged for ten minutes at a time! Bonus!  I think it is now one of the most popular centers during centers! Thank you, Santa! Here are some photos of the kids enjoying the center:

Speaking of centers, thank you to everyone who volunteered at our centers this week! I know it is rough getting back into the swing of things, but without your help, centers really can't happen the way they should!  Thank you!  I'd also like to thank those of you who always help out at our morning recesses- without you, I'd miss my morning break, and, well, I do appreciate the chance to eat a quick snack and prep for the rest of the day! You are soooo appreciated!!!!!! And, for those of you that haven't had the pleasure of volunteering at our centers or recess, we hope to see you give it a try sometime (if you have the time and VIRTUS training!)
I know we are still looking for some volunteers for our Kinder Club this Friday.  I believe Mrs. Victoria will be leading this one, so if you have questions, please contact Mrs. Victoria.  We have sign-ups on Shutterfly, so don't be shy!  Come on by!  

Here are some other photos from our centers.  We've been working on our reading, writing, and counting skills- things are moving along nicely in Kinder! 

A little sentence writing and sight word practice at Ms. Hudson's center

They loved sentence writing!

 

The kids playing a math game with dice and clothespins!

Another math/reading/writing center to learn our number words

 

Mrs. Frawley helping the kiddos with their Tens Frames and counting skills

Wednesday brought along our friend Luci and a playdate with our Study Buddies.  The kids are always so excited to see Luci, and they get extra excited when Study Buddies are involved!  We practiced some directed draw activities that day- these kiddos are fantastic artists! Here they are with some of their masterpieces:

We learned how to draw two different types of bears: a real-life bear, and a fantasy bear

We also have to have some free-draw time, of course!

Check out those realistic bears!

 Thursday was our 80th day of school, so you know what that means... Zero the Hero stopped by and delivered another gift to our class! This time he left our gift in the classroom while we were enjoying our lunch outside- sneaky!  We each received our own bottle of bubbles.  The kids figured out that bubbles kind of look like 0's, so that's probably why he or she picked bubbles. Here is a photo of our delivery!

Zero even left the number 80 in our basket commemorating this special day!

Finally, we ended our week with a special guest speaker from Heal the Bay.  This was our first guest speaker, and the kids behaved very nicely!  She taught us why we need to put trash in the trash can, pick up trash we find on the street or at the beach, and how trash affects our animals and our oceans!  Here are some photos from her visit:

We played toss-the-globe to show that the world is covered with more water than land.

She read a story to us about being responsible with our trash

She called up a few volunteers to place some "junk" into a clean bowl of water as a demonstration of how dirty our oceans are when we don't take care of trash properly.

The kids were pretty grossed out!

ewwwww!

She also had some puppet friends show us which trash is extra harmful to animals- such as plastic bags and plastic soda rings

Thank you to Mrs. Hitch and Mrs. Davis for setting up our beach clean up and our visit from our guest speaker! I'm not sure who was able to join the class at our first beach clean up, but please e-mail me any pictures you may have taken so we can post them on the blog and our Shutterfly account!  Thank you for volunteering- our goal is for everyone to have a chance to join a beach clean up so we can officially say that the Kindergarten class from 2013-2014 adopted that beach!  Check out the Shutterfly account for more chances to help clean up our beach!  

This week will be another full week, but it will lead up to a nice three-day weekend in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  We will have no school on Monday the 20th.  I will be teaching the children about MLK jr, but we will definitely keep everything at a Kindergarten-friendly level!  

This month I will be leaving the classroom at different periods of time to go visit our local preschools!  Time for some future kinder kiddos recruiting!  Mrs. Frawley will be with the kiddos whenever I am gone, so not to worry! I'm looking forward to meeting various preschool teachers, as well as visiting my alma mater, Cal Lutheran, and checking out their recently renovated preschool! Speaking of recruiting, please look in your homework packet this week for a special Parent Homework assignment (optional, of course).  

This week's share topic will be things that begin with M.

Take care and enjoy the beautiful weekend! I'm off to two different baby showers today- fun, fun!

~Ms. Hudson