Growing in a Kinder"garden"

Rainforest Collaborative Projects

2014-07-22T18:44:00.000-04:00

Our class did a study about rainforest animals. The children were divided into small groups. Each group selected an animal to research and write about. They then worked together to create the animal. I think they did a great job!

Back To School!

2013-08-27T18:17:00.000-04:00

I know that it has been quite some time since my last post, but I thought that I would post some new pictures of my classroom. :)

Kindergarten Fun!

2012-02-02T17:09:00.001-05:00

Try our video maker at Animoto.

Until We Meet Again....

2011-12-01T19:00:00.000-05:00

We were so sad to say "Good-bye" to our student intern, Miss Acuff. We have loved having her and will miss her greatly! We wanted to send her off prepared to start her very own classroom so the students worked together in a top secret way to bring in gifts for her. Since we refuse to say "goodbye", we'll just say "Until we meet again". Thank you for being our teacher, thank you for being our friend!

We are Thankful

2011-12-01T18:51:00.001-05:00

Every year, as part of our study about Thanksgiving Traditions, the kindergarten students participate in a Native American parade. All of the other classes stand outside of their rooms to clap and cheer for us. We are thankful for our school and for the love that we are shown by the older students! The above pictures were taken as we prepared for our parade.

"Down on Grandpa's Farm"

2011-12-01T18:43:00.000-05:00

We have been learning all about farms and farm animals. We concluded our unit by having some animal friends visit us. A special thanks to Brandon G.'s family for bringing a goat, a bunny, and a chicken to school!

As part of our unit of study, we divided the children into small groups to work on animal research projects. Each group worked together to select, and make an animal of interest. Each group visited our learning commons to do research on their animal with Mrs. Merrit. Thank you Mrs. Merrit for your help!

Each student painted a pictue of their favorite farm animal. We then used wooden cubes to measure the animal's height. We also used phonetic spelling to write about our animal.

"Squirrel Scientist" Voicethread

2011-10-06T16:56:00.001-04:00

Be sure to visit our voice thread about squirrels! We had a great time reading about and researching on the internet to learn squirrel facts. We even had a special squirrel visitor "Petey Girl"!http://voicethread.com/share/2298145/

Moring Centers (Beginning of School)

2011-10-01T16:24:00.002-04:00

Practicing letter formation with "Letter Roads".

Stamping the alphabet

Letter Arcs

"Read to Self"

Reading with a partner

Guided reading

Making shape posters

Sorting with tongs

Matching keys

Apples

2011-10-01T16:00:00.000-04:00

We worked together to make apple trees for each season of the year. This group is working together to make a winter tree.

We made apple pies.

Painting our tree trunk.

Decorating our "Spring" tree.

Our Apple Pie Recipe

Our beautiful trees on display

We used real apples to make apple prints!

Math Number Hunt

2011-09-18T15:34:00.000-04:00

We went on a hunt for numbers in our environment. The kids had a GREAT time using construction paper "spy glasses" to look for numbers. We took pictures of each number we found to make a class book.

Zoom, Zoom, We're off to the Moon!

2011-09-03T18:27:00.002-04:00

Our school theme this year is a "Global Connections" theme. Each grade level has an adopted cause and will be collaborating with students in another country via Skype and other technologies to work on our cause. Our school is decorated with space items as part of our theme. We thought, what better way to kick off our school year than by doing our first collaborative project by using recyclables to make rocket ships? We introduced researching by looking up rockets on the internet with our smart board. We checked out books from our library for reference. Four small groups worked together to make 4 very unique rockets. Each group proudly made a sign for their rocket. We concluded our project by drawing / writing about our rockets. The children had a GREAT time and worked so hard! I think we have a room full of little "inventors" and "scientists"! I can not wait to see what future collaborative projects hold after this great start!

Everybody Read!

2011-09-03T18:07:00.001-04:00

We have had an exciting start to our brand new school year. Already, our kids are on their way to becoming great readers! We have learned that there are 3 ways to read a book. We have learned how to look at books and are well on our way to becoming amazing "book detectives". Check out these great kinder-readers!

Welcome to Kindergarten!

2011-09-03T17:56:00.000-04:00

"Kindergartener, kindergartener come on in. Learn about the world with brand new friends!"

We are so excited to have a chance to work with your child this year. My name is Karissa Cockrell and my assistant's name is Miriam Henzler. We are so fortunate to have a student intern with us for the fall semester named Miss Acuff. We are looking forward to an exciting year full of possibilities and fun!

Kindergarten Literacy (in progress)...

2010-10-17T18:13:00.000-04:00

We make our own class alphabet every year with words generated by the students. We post this alphabet in our room and then use it to make a class book for the following year's class to see.

One of our first writing experiences this year as a whole group. During our "All About Me" unit we labeled a person using phonetic spelling.

We do several cooking activities throughout the year. On this particular day we made a "Friendship Fruit Salad". We used phonetic spelling to list the ingredients as we added them. The children drew pictures to illustrate our recipe chart. We hung it in the housekeeping area for students to reference when they pretended to "cook".

Another class alphabet. Though we wrote several words, we only illustrated and posted one on our final chart.

Writing about snowman adventures using a combination of phonetic spelling and sight words / early January.

"I would invite my friends over to catch my snowman and I would have my snowman."

Making predictions: The children came up with and wrote the title of the chart. Each child got a post-it note during to record their prediction on.

After working on word patterns the previous week with clothespin word clips, this child made up her own word patterns during literacy centers.

These girls used some flannel word pieces to make sentences that they read to each other during morning literacy center time.

A retelling of The Gingerbread Girl done on the smart board as a group and then printed for a class book. We used a combination of letter sounds and sight words to write this story. Teacher simply acted as a recorder to type the letters / phrases that the students dictated into Smart Notebook.

Some of our class books~

Our January Collaborative Project. The children had to work together in small groups to make a life sized penguin. Each child had to sign up for a "job" as part of the penguin project. When the project was complete, we used the same smart board writing method to record the steps in completing the project. We posted our writing above our penguin display.

At the beginning of the year the children work on their cutting and color matching skills to make a "Color Poster". We display half of these in our room for our color chart and we use the other half to make a class book with basic sight words.

What's Inside the Egg?

2010-04-09T14:51:00.001-04:00

The children were so excited to learn that we had duck eggs in the incubator! We set up an "Incubation Station" over in our dramatic play area for the two week period needed to hatch. We have had a GREAT time teasing Miss Carroll as well as taking care of the eggs. Be sure to take a look of our "Candled egg"...