Ag In the Classroom

Ag in the classroom visited us this week and the students got to learn all about bees.  They had a lot of fun learning about bee keepers and trying honey!  They will be visiting again next week and the students will learn about pumpkins and gourds!

This is why you never give Mrs. Ballard the camera and put her in charge of taking pictures!!

We can't wait for them to come back soon!  

October's Here!

Can you believe that October is already here???

We have been super busy in kindergarten and have been working hard and having fun!

 Seriously, how cute are these two!?!?!  The rest of our shipment came in from the grants that we received for our classroom.  We got six more stools today and bouncy bands to go on 8 chairs.  The students were too cute as we opened them all.  Every thing I pulled out got firework worthy oooh's and aaah's.  Never in all my years of teaching have kids been so excited to sit down and do work!  I even got a few groans when I said it was time to clean up!!!  

We have been busy in kindergarten this week learning about decomposing numbers.  The students are really doing well at breaking about numbers and using their "math talk" to tell about what they did.  We will continue to work on that, as well as number formation, next week.  

We took a week to review the letters we have already learned, and really focused on letter formation this week.  It is super important that they are following the correct path of motion when they are making their letters, along with appropriate line usage.  This is a skill that we will continue to work on throughout the entire school year.  Please use the sheet that came home in this week's communicator to help them with the letters in there name first.  Once they have those mastered, they should practice the other letters as well.  You may see them come home with their name written multiple times on the back of their paper.  When I see they didn't write their name correctly, and they have a couple extra minutes, I tell them to practice on the back of their paper. 

We are also working on print concepts right now.  Today we focused on the difference between a letter, word and sentence.  I printed and cut apart letters, words, and sentences and then threw them under the parachute.  The kids took turns running under the parachute, getting a game piece and then sorting it into the correct pile.  They were really good at telling which was which, but we are working on being able to say why.  By the end, they were really good at remembering that sentences begin with a capital letter, end with a punctuation mark and have spaces between the words.  We will continue to work on print concepts over the next couple of weeks.  

You can check out our most recent Donor's Choose project here!

Exciting News!

This fall Target teamed up with Donor's Choose to fund teachers who created grant proposals for supplies and materials that encouraged health, fitness and movement in the classroom.  I created two separate grants with things that will help the students be active listeners and Target funded $1600 leaving about $98 dollars left!  A huge shout out to Kayla Nolen, my mom, and Tina Sundaram for funding the remaining $98.  The kids were super excited as our supplies started to come in this week.  We have received a trampoline with a handle bar for safety, a parachute for active learning games, and 5 hokki stools.  In a couple weeks, we will receive 6 more hokki stools and desk bands that allow students a place to bounce their feet while working!  Here are a few pictures of our new supplies in action!

We also had the Jog-a-Thon on Friday!  I can about imagine how well these kids slept Friday night!  Not one of them ever gave up or sat down for the entire hour!  Jennika and Adam were kindergarten lap winners with 11 and 15 laps respectively. 

Make sure you get your pledge sheets and money turned in by Friday in order to count for the drawings!

If you would like to see what Donor's Choose is all about, check out my teacher page by clicking here.  You can also search for other teacher's by zip code or name by clicking in the box that says find a classroom to support at the top of the page.