November Art Projects

Welcome to our gobblin' good classroom.  The boys and girls love to work on our projects.  Most of our art projects take two days to complete.  They LOVE to show off their work!

The pumpkins were "picked" and the turkeys came in to let us know turkey isn't the ONLY thing to eat on Thanksgiving!

Our turkey wind socks

This is our November quilt.  Each student did a turkey hand print and with some clever cutting and gluing a beautiful fall maple leaf.

PALS

New and exciting things are taking place in Kindergarten! I just love it!  This past week we began PALS in our classroom. PALS is a program that makes sure children are getting a solid foundation in early reading skills.  The game-like PALS activities double the amount of practice students get with phonemic awareness and alphabetic knowledge.  Students are paired for activities that teach pronunciation, letter knowledge and phonemic awareness. Our regular PALS time is scheduled for 20 minutes two or three times a week.  Each month the boys and girls will receive a new PALS partner to work with.



Happy Halloween!!!!

Halloween just doesn't seem the same unless you carve a jack-o-lantern - and that is just what we did this afternoon.  The boys and girls were split up into 2 groups and helped dig out the pulp and design a face for the jack-o-lanterns.  Not everyone was convinced the pulp digging would be fun.  Several thought it was too gooey and very smelly!  We still had a great time!  Afterwards we put together some ghostly Halloween snacks!  Trick or Treat everyone!!

A Visit With the Winside Fire Fighters

October is National Fire Safety Month.  We spend a lot of time in our classroom learning about being safe around fires, candles, stoves, grills and fireworks.  Learning how to be safe and stay safe if there is ever a fire can never be  talked about enough.  The boys and girls learned how to "Stay low, and Go!" also to "Stop, Drop and Roll".  The families of Kindergarten also planned a meeting place at their own homes in case of fire.  I hope these are lessons the boys and girls take with them but never have to use.  Despite the seriousness of our lessons, we ALWAYS enjoy our visit to the Winside Fire Station as a culminating activity to our unit on fire safety.  Chief Don Skokan visited with the boys and girls about fire safety, then it was time to explore the trucks and the equipment and answer questions. We really appreciated the time the Winside volunteers took to help educate our children but we also appreciate the time they take to help keep our community safe.  THANK YOU!!!

Don Skokan and Chris Olander talk to the Kindergarten and first grade students about fire safety.

 Kyle Skokan (and former Winside Kindergartner) shows the boys and girls all the gear a fire fighter must wear when he goes out to fight a fire.

Taking a look inside an ambulance.

Man - those trucks are BIG!

Yep, they ALL fit inside the truck!

Future Fire Fighters

Posing with Don Skokan, Kyle Skokan and Chris Olander
Thanks guys for a great afternoon!

October Art Work



October is a busy month as we learn about fire safety, pumpkins and bats.  Here is a sample of the boys and girls art work we did in the classroom.....

The boys and girls had fun creating their own pumpkins with finger paints....

No pumpkin patch is complete without a few ghosts lurking about...

Not to mention Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eaters wife...

This is our October quilt.  The boys and girls sponge painted their jack-o-lanterns and then we added our patchwork squares in Halloween colors!

 Our jack-o-lantern wind socks...

And last but not least - our handprint bats!