Kindergarten Around the World

I'm so thankful that our media specialist told me about this project! Our class has a partner class with a Kindergarten in Canada. We have had a lot of fun learning about Canada. Students can tell you what the flag looks like in Canada, that they don't have a president but instead have a Prime Minister. They can also tell you that Canadians like to play hockey and their national song is O Canada.

Today we sent our first Tweet to the class from Canada to answer. We told them that we say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning- we asked if they say any kind of a pledge. We also made a video to send them of us doing the pledge- Unfortunately it didn't upload to my youtube account.... so my goal is to get that figured out by Friday- if it doesn't upload, I may just attach the file to an email to the classroom teacher.

Students are sad to see our friend Cole Cougar leave the classroom, but we are sending it to Canada. they are sending us a wolf. I'm excited for students to take turns taking the wolf home and writing a sentence about what they did with the wolf. We will use this as a journal for the project and I'm not sure if we will add this to a blog or how to share with the other class. I'm still trying to work some parts of my ideas out-

We are also graphing weather in Toronto, Canada and comparing it to our weather- we were a little surprised that it was  warmer in Canada than it was in Iowa the other day.

I know I'm going to need a lot of support with this project, but I'm very excited to get it rolling!

Thanksgiving

Well, I am very proud to say that I "recycled" something my daughter did in school about Thanksgiving. We made bracelets to help us tell the story of the first Thanksgiving. I first read the book The Very First Thanksgiving Day. The story was great because it would tell a little about the first Thanksgiving and then it would repeat during the story. We took that information and made story bracelets. We took a pipe cleaner and added 8 beads to the pipe cleaner. They went in this order and for these reasons:

White: represents the pilgrims coming over on the Mayflower
Blue: represents the ocean the pilgrims sailed on.
Black: The storms endured during the trip
Green: Celebrating a new land
Brown: eating Turkey
Corn: Indians helped them to grow corn
Red: Red berries they found together to eat
Orange: Pumpkin Pie

The best part of this project- is students could repeat the story and tell their parents the story of the first Thanksgiving.- This is definitely something I want to remember to do  next year!!

Reading:

We are really picking up on words when we are doing our independent reading. This week we starting writing all the words we recognize as we read on post it notes. Students stick them on the door when they are done to showcase what we found. Later in the day we read our words to the class. They are very proud of showing other students what they found. Some students are writing letters they recognize because they are not quite ready for words- But I'm glad they are showing what they know and can transfer reading/writing!! :)

Changes

The first trimester of our school year is wrapping up. I can't believe we have been in school for 12 weeks already. Where did the time go? Someone told me that there are 26 school days left until Christmas break- WOW! I can't believe it.

I'm going to be making changes to my blog. Since I feel that I have some experience and my toes are at least wet with the new change and new grade level, I'm going to start dedicating this blog to what is happening in room 111. I'm going to start showing projects that students are working on and making it more usable this way. I'm hoping by doing this that people will respond to some of my ideas and give me some feedback/suggestions--- that of course would mean I need more followers- so I'm going to work on promoting my blog to get more followers in turn getting more support and more ideas to help me on my journy.

One change that is being made in the classroom is I'm taking out the behavior chart that I originally started. I started the year thinking I had to have one in order to keep some structure in my classroom. Well, with trial and error of the chart, I'm going to take it away- I'm not sure how to completely remove it- but let's face it when a child isn't sitting on his/her bottom- is he/she really misbehaving? Or is that just something that annoys me? Should a child really be moved to yellow for this? How about the boy in my room that doesn't like lining up. Should he be moved? Or how does he handle being given a choice- "You can either line up in line or you can walk with me." Not all students enjoy doing the same thing. They all learn different and like different things. They also all respond differently in many situations. SO- instead of a one size fits all model it's going to be a model for 23 individuals and what they need to be successful.

So please feel free to give me any feedback on your thoughts about this.... more to come with more of what is really happening in the classroom.