Thanksgiving Activities, Friendship Feast & More!

Of course we had another busy week here in Kindergarten! We read lots of turkey books, wrote about what they were thankful for, got decorations ready for and enjoyed our Friendship Feast with Mrs. Myers class.

In literacy lab, we worked on the letters Z & H. We read books about each letter and their sound, sorted pictures by beginning sounds, and practiced writing each letter.

They students also listened to the story "The Gingerbread Boy" and completed a coloring paper related to the story.

They also played a matching game with beginning sounds, glued hearts onto the letter H & made zig zags on the letter Z.

We wrote about what we were thankful for. The students came up with things like family, love, their teacher, school, food, pets, etc.

 We worked on many different turkey related books for the students to take home and practice their reading skills. Here you can see "Turkey, Turkey What Do You See?" Ask your child to read you the various books we worked on throughout the week.

Here is "Turkey Colors" & "Look at the Turkey!". They worked on reading their color words and coloring the turkey based on what each page said. 

The book "Thanksgiving is Here!" introduced the sight word 'here' and we practiced reading about various Thanksgiving foods. 

Here is "Turkey Feathers" & "My Hungry Turkey".

For the book "Hide Turkey Hide" we worked on directional words and glued the turkey on the page according to the words on each page. On the page you can see below we glued the turkey under the leaves, you can see his feet sticking out!

The students worked with their groups to finish their table runners for our Friendship Feast. You can see this group below working on their handprint turkeys for theirs.

The groups below worked on representing friendships & leaves. You can see Tommy (top right) working on his turkey for our class thankful wreath. You can see the finished product farther down.

The groups below worked on making leaves on their table runners. All of the table runners turned out amazing and looked great on the tables at our Friendship Feast with Mrs. Myers class.

The students made thankful turkeys to represent what they are thankful for. They turned out very cute and made great decorations for the walls at our Friendship Feast.

Mrs. Boxley came to visit again this week and helped the students make turkeys out of pinecones, feathers & googly eyes! They turned out so cute!

We had a great turnout for our Friendship Feast on Thursday. Thank you to everyone who came to support us and celebrate Friendships, Community, & Food!! Everyone had such a great time.

Here you can see all 6 of our completed table runners.

Here is the table set up with our decorations as well as Mrs. Myers and it looks awesome.

We made a friendship chain with all of our names on strips and connected it to Mrs. Myers class friendship chain. You can see it hanging on the wall above our class thankful wreath on the right and Mrs. Myers on the left.

We had so much great food. Thank you to everyone who contributed, it was so yummy! Everyone enjoyed their evening of food and friends.

After the feast, our classes got together to sing our Thankful Song along with their sign language. They did such a great job with it, we had been practicing all week!

Here is the video of their song.

 After the feast, we made thank you notes to show our appreciation. We made them for the school custodians, Ms. Juda & Mr. Dwaine who helped set up and clean up as well as Ms. Tina who donated and cooked the turkey for us.

 We had enough left overs that we were able to have another feast during the school day on Friday in order for the students who were unable to make it on Thursday were able to participate as well. As they were eating, we watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and they all really enjoyed it.

We worked on making a list of words that began with Z, Y, & H as well as drew pictures for our letter cards.

The students finished our green mosaic and are now working on orange. They are turning out great so far!

 I hope you all have a great break and holiday! I look forward to seeing your children on Monday and hearing all about their week off. 

Mrs. Brittany Garrabrant

Election, Mr. Garrabrant Visit, Friendship Feast Decorations, Etc.

Even though this week was a short one for the students, it was a very busy one!! We discussed the current election, had a visit from Mr. Garrabrant who discussed being an engineer, a visit from our Preschool Reading Buddies, began working on decorations for our friendship feast, and much more! Take a look below to see what we were up to. 

We worked on reading books for W & J in literacy lab and making our letter cards for the word wall for W & E. 

Since Tuesday was the election, the students worked on the writing prompt "If I were President of the United States, I would...". I really enjoyed hearing what they all responded with, if only we all had the heart and compassion of a Kindergartener!! Take a look at some of their different responses below. These papers will be going in their portfolios so you can save them as well.

We discussed what the election was and what it meant to vote. We read many books and watched lots of videos about this topic! The video below on the left is a video of kids explaining what voting meant to them and the video on the right was of the "celebrity" Kid President meeting President Obama. He got to visit the White House and ask questions about the President's job. 

Here you can see our voting booth for our class election. The students voted on their favorite food (pizza, hamburger, or macaroni & cheese), if we wanted Duck or Farmer Brown for President (from the book "Duck For President", and the current election candidates. 

My mom, Mrs. Boxley helped the students vote in our voting booth one at a time. They really enjoyed this and it was fun to see them taking part in this process. 

Here are the results from our classroom election. Their favorite food was a close call but Macaroni & Cheese won, they voted Duck for President from the story & Donald Trump for President.

My husband, Mr. Garrabrant is a mechanical engineer at AK Steel and came to talk to the students about what it means to be an engineer. He explained the Engineering Design Process and they learned that it is something they can use as well. They asked lots of good questions and learned a lot!

On Friday, our preschool reading buddies from Mrs. Vogt's class came to visit our classroom. The students shared their election writing prompt, stories that they have drawn, and our color white book with their reading buddy. Afterwards, we sang some songs with them.

We began working on our table runners as decoration for our Friendship Feast next week. The students split into 6 groups of four students. We decided on 3 different themes for groups to choose from for decorating: turkeys, trees, and friendship. Two groups were able to choose each theme. I can't wait to see what the different groups do with each theme. The first thing the groups did was get together to make a plan on how they wanted to decorate their table runner. Each team member gave their input and added something to the group's design. 

All of the table runners are turning out beautifully so far. We will continue to work on them next week! Take a look below for a sneak peak at some of our table runners so far. 

This group was working on showing the theme of friendship and was inspired by the handprint rainbow in the top picture and decided to make their own. 

On the right you can see their finished table runner. They included their handprint rainbow, clouds, pictures of themselves, and fingerprint hearts.

You can see the groups below working on the theme turkey (top picture) and friendship (bottom picture). 

They were inspired by the turkey in the bottom left and tried to make their own versions.

The students have been working very hard towards our whole class reward. Since we have 24 students in our class, the students have to earn 24 buckeyes and then we can have a reward as a class. They can earn a buckeye by receiving a compliment from another staff member in art, music, another special, or in the hallway for making good choices as a class. They can also earn a buckeye by receiving a compliment from me if they are making good choices, again as a class. We are only 7 buckeyes away from earning a reward so we discussed what they would like as their whole class reward. The students voted and it was very close but as soon as they have earned the last 7 buckeyes, we will be having a hot chocolate party.

They also earned their white book this week.

The students finished the yellow mosaic to add to our color documentation wall. 

Thanks for checking in to see what we have been up to. Check back next week to see what we are up on our busy week ahead! I hope to see you all at our Friendship Feast on Thursday, November 17th at 6:00 pm.