Run, Run as Fast as You Can, You Can't Catch Me, I'm the Gingerbread Man

During the week of December 10th - 14th, our class enjoyed reading different versions of the story, "The Gingerbread Boy".  We compared the different stories and discussed the differences in characters, setting and how the stories ended!  We read the "The Gingerbread Cowboy", "The Gingerbread Girl", "The Gingerbread Boy in the Library" and many more.  The children were excited to talk about how the stories were the same and different!

Well, you can't read all those stories about Gingerbread boys without baking your very own.  So, of course, Mrs. Allan, our wonderful baker, helped the students bake gingerbread cookies.  We baked a tray of little gingerbread cookies and one big gingerbread boy.  

Mrs. Allan and Mrs. Ducharme baked the cookies after school.  The next day, when we walked down to the kitchen to get our gingerbread cookies, we discovered the big gingerbread boy was missing!!!  We found rhyming clues next to the oven and then the excitement began!

Our hunt lead us to the office, where Mrs. Vickerd and Mr. Arundine helped us look.  We found more clues and we continued our hunt to the library!

After the library, the clues lead us to Mr. Klassen's grade eight classroom, but guess what?  The gingerbread boy had tricked us again.  Next we were off to the music room!

Finally, in the music room, we found the big gingerbread boy cookie.  Guess who else we found?  Our class "elf on the shelf" Jessie!  So, how did our gingerbread boy cookie get to the music room?  Was it like the story and he ran away?  Did Jessie trick us and hide the cookie?  

Even though the hunt was over, the children were still so very excited!  Many of the students drew pictures and wrote words to tell about our adventures.  As a class, we made a map to show where our hunt took us throughout the school.  We used our "best guess spelling" to label our map.  Some of the students went on to make their very own maps about the hunt!  What a great adventure in kindergarten!

Santa's Workshop Opens!

After lots of preparations, finally our Santa's Workshop center has opened!  The children have been playing very cooperatively in this center as they wrap, write names on gift tags, give presents, dress up like elves and just have a lot of fun!  It is great to observe the conservations that the children have in this center.  This center is sparking lots of conversations about how the holidays are celebrated in our different homes.  Do you recognize any of Santa's little helpers?

At the art center, the children used branches from evergreen trees to paint.  It was interesting to observe the effect that this painting tool made on our paper and how it felt different than using a paintbrush!  

All This In One Day!

Today was one of those days when Mrs. Allan and I just can't believe all the things that happen in one day!  Check out the photos below to find out what happened at school today!

We wrote some observations and conclusions to our "bread" experiment.  Two weeks ago, we put pieces of bread in a ziploc bag.  Bag #1 contained bread that was only touched by the teacher with plastic gloves on.  Bag #2 contained bread that was touched by children who had dirty/sandy hands.  Bag #3 contained bread that was passed around our circle and touched by all our hands.  After days and day of  waiting, we observed that Bag #2 (dirty, sandy hands) got moldy first.  We also noticed that Bag #3 started to develop some mold too.  We made the conclusion that we need to wash our hands very very carefully, even if we think our hands look clean because germs can be everywhere!

 

 We read another story by Robert Munsch.  Today's story was called "Stephanie's Ponytail".  What a funny story!  We used paper, crayons, markers and yarn to create our very own hairstyles for Stephanie.  

 Have you heard that we use iPads in kindergarten?  The children have become very skilled at using the iPads to explore a variety of educational programs that focus on letters, sounds and numeracy activities!

Hanging out with magnetic letters, exploring letters and words.  Can you see what word this friend made?

Many of the students worked together to build this unique block structure.  We call this cooperation!  What happened next was really great!  Mrs. Ducharme wrote down some of the children's words about this block creations.  Everyone was so excited to share their input and ideas about this building.  After seeing the their words being put down on paper, a small group of boys got very excited and decided they wanted to do some of their own writing about what they had built.  Using some best guess spelling and by copying some print, these boys set to work on printing letters all by themselves!  Fantastic!  That's what we call a great day of learning.  Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Reading the stories of Robert Munsch

This week, our class is enjoying the stories of Canadian author, Robert Munsch.  We have been talking about what an author and illustrator do.  Each morning, we are beginning our day by listening to Robert Munsch read us a story that we watch on the Smart Board.  We are noticing that Robert Munsch reads his stories with lots of "expression".  I've attached a link to Robert Munsch's website to this blog entry. On the website you can listen to many silly stories, told by Robert Munsch himself.

After reading a story, we are using our "Question Clown" to retell information about the story.  Using the question clown we answer the following:

WHO is in the story?

WHERE  did the story take place?

WHAT happened?

WHY did this happen?

WHEN did the story happen?

Robert Munsch Website

The Scrubbing Machine

After the children showed such an interest in Mrs. Wishy-Washy, we decided to continue on our learning about this special character.  We went on to read the story "The Scrubbing Machine".  In this story, Mrs. Wishy-Washy has a machine that just will not stop scrubbing!  After lots of discussion about machines, we decided to build our very own kindergarten machine! 

 Mrs. Ducharme and Mrs. Allan collected a variety of materials (e.g., hose, tubing, boxes, pipes, paintbrushes, pop bottles, etc.).  We simply laid these materials on the floor and asked the children to work cooperatively as a whole group to build our very own kindergarten machine.  It was really wonderful to see how the students cooperated together (even though everyone wanted to share their idea)!  So, with some duct tape, string and scissors, we assembled a machine.  The children decided that we should paint the machine and add a face to it.  We talked about what our machine could do.  The children gave a range of answers from cleaning, painting and spraying.  Take a look at our inventors in action!

The final product!  

Mrs. Wishy-Washy

Over the past week, we have been enjoying the story of "Mrs. Wishy-Washy".  This simple story tells the story of a lady who finds her farm animals have gotten dirty in the mud.  This week, your child brought home their very own stick puppets of the characters in this story.  We hope your child has the opportunity to retell this story to you.

Here are some photos of some of the activities the children have participated in related to this story.  The children enjoyed dressing up as Mrs. Wishy-Washy, using puppets to retell the story, fingerpainting with our very own mud and "wishy-washing" some play animals at the water center.  

WORKING ON THE KINDER"GARDEN"!

Today a small group of our kindergarten children put on their garden gloves and dressed warmly to head outside to work on the garden.  With some unfortunate weather recently, we haven't been out to the garden area in a little while, so it was nice to take the opportunity to get outside today.  A very very BIG thanks to Mr. St. Louis for helping out today and helping our students learn about gardening.  

After planting a shrub, we learned about planting tulip bulbs.  We are excited to see the colours of our tulips in the spring time!

Later in the afternoon, our entire class went out to visit the kinder"garden".  We talked about how our garden area has changed.  The children who worked in the garden earlier in the day, shared their experiences with the class.  We talked about what the new shrub needs to grow.  Mrs. Allan gave our new shrub some water.  We look forward to the spring when we can continue to add to our garden!