Monday, May 28, 2012

Open House Festivities!

Open House has come and gone and I am one tired teacher! Here are a few pictures of my classroom.























































































This is a fun project that I like to put up for Open House.  I ask each one of my students to dictate a story to me about anything they want.  The stories are hilarious!  Then I have them draw a picture of themselves.  The last step is for them to watercolor the environment to place their drawing on.  The parents love this art!

This is one of my favorite boards.  It's all about spring.  This kids made ants, butterflies, and ladybugs to put on it. 

Life cycle of a butterfly




In the picture above you can see the grass the kids planted as well as our vegetable garden. 


This is a picture of my BoardMath.  I found these great decals at the Dollar Store that I have been using to make the board more kinder friendly.

Miss H. 

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Field Trips and Insects


Hello friends! Take a look at what my class has been up to in the last few weeks.




Field Trips,  Field Trips,  Field Trips ... AHHHH!



Here are a few pictures of our field trip to the farm.  




We went to the beach to learn about the animals and plants of Lake Tahoe.  If you look closely at the picture of the meadow you will see a coyote.



We learned about insects.












Here are some of our favorite books about insects.  






My class used this chart to write about what they learned.
We graphed our favorite insect.





















Here is our butterfly diagram.
They observed the metamorphosis of a butterfly.



Here is our life cycle of a butterfly art.  Macaroni was used for each stage.







Monday, May 7, 2012

Plants Rock!

Hi friends! My kinders are in the process of learning about plants.  Check it out!

You and I both know how crucial it is to find good books that complement what our teaching.  I ordered these books from Scholastic with my bonus points. The pictures in the books are beautiful which is why my class loves them.  The content is meaningful but simple... perfect for kindergarten!







My kindergartners learned about the parts of a plant.  The picture below shows my large science notebook that came with the science curriculum.  


We made a diagram of the parts of a plant.  I know... it's not beautiful but it did the trick.  


Opps I cut off the word flowers.

They got to demonstrate what they learned by drawing and labeling their own diagram.



We planted a vegetable garden in the Root-VUE Farm.  I purchased this at LakeShore and I am so glad that I did.  It is a great way for the kids to observe how quickly roots grow.  



We planted carrots, radishes, and onions.  On the two ends we planted a radish and carrot seed. This picture was taken before the roots and seeds began to grow.  





Everyday we record our observations on this chart.  





Each student in my class planted their own grass.  It's their responsibility to take care of it.  I placed the grass under a grow light... fingers crossed hope it grows!



Here is a fun experiment to do with your class.  

1. Save an avocado pit
         2.  Put four toothpicks in it
     3.  Fill a cup full of water
                                                            4.  Place the pit inside the cup (it doesn't need to be fully submerged).  

                                                            Hopefully a plant we grow.

I asked my class to make a prediction whether or not a plant could or would grow out of these pits.  Most of my class doesn't believe it's possible.



I found these magnifying glasses at the dollar store.  The kids use them to observe all of the growth that has been occurring.

Don't forget to leave a comment I would love to hear what you think.  

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Measuring, Patterns, and Mrs. McNosh

Today I had my kinders practice measuring with paperclips.  First, they created a caterpillar by making a pattern using Bingo Markers.  Next, they measured their caterpillar to see how many paperclips long it was. 









 I love this art project it always turns out so cute!


Wait....

Before you go...



I  wanted to share a quick sequencing activity that I had my kinders do today.  



I read the book Mrs. McNosh Hangs Up Her Wash and afterwards I had them sequence the objects that she hung on her clothes line.  Afterwards I paired them up with a partner and they used their clothes line to retell the story.  The little pictures of Mrs. McNosh's wash came from the Houghtin Mifflin Language Arts Curriculum.  













 I gave each of my students a sentence strip to glue their pictures on.  The pictures above are one whole sentence strip.  




Thank you for dropping by!  Have a good night!
Miss Hood





















Sunday, April 29, 2012

One Lovely Blog Recipients


Hey there!  Something amazing happened to me last week... I received the One Lovely Blog Award from Maria at Kinder-Craze!  I am extremely excited about receiving this award... it's such an honor.  


Now it's my turn to pass this award along to 15 deserving bloggers.  I searched high and low and found these amazing blogs that I think you'll adore.  In random order here are my 15...


2. Deeanna at Golden Gang Kindergarten
3. Michele and Amber at C.E. Kindergarten Kids!
4.  Sarah at Yeehaw Teaching in Texas!
9.  Christine at My Not So Glamorous Life
10.  Miss Brown at Teaching is a work of Heart!!!
11. Danielle at Kroger's Kindergarten
13.  Ms. Thomas at The First Grade Jungle
14.  Mrs. Kerola at Happy Literacy!

Here are the rules for receiving this award: 
1) Follow the person who gave you the award
 2) Link back to the person who gave you the award
3) Pass the award on to 15 new bloggers





Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Miss Hood Had a Farm!


  Miss Hood had a farm Ee, I, Ee, I, Oh! And on that farm she had some...


We used different shapes to create our farm animals.  I enjoy doing art in this manner because it allows the students to be more creative with their art.  





We filled out this chart after we read a book about baby animals.  They learned about what baby belonged to what adult and the vocabulary words that went along with it.  


My class loved this book!  The animals in the book fold out which made this book extremely popular. 


I used this opportunity to teach my class about quotation marks.  After I taught the lesson I placed  it into the writing center for them to experiment with.  





Here are a couple of my farm themed centers.  Take a look...

This center required them to read the word and match it to the corresponding magnet. 



My class loves word searches.  I was thrilled when I found this farm word search on the blog Welcome to Room 36! 



I found this addition game at Kindergarten Hoppenings.  


Well friends I hope you enjoyed my farm unit.  Our next adventure is going to be to visit a real farm!  Boy are they excited!  Don't forget to leave me a comment as always I would love to hear from... anyone really!