Our Thankful Class!

For the week and a half prior to Thanksgiving Break, we did a lot of neat Thanksgiving activities.  Most of these activities were focused on helping us learn why we celebrate Thanksgiving to help us meet our Georgia Performance Standard.  We also did some activities to help us focus on being grateful and thankful, too!  We made cute Thanksgiving turkeys, wrote thank you notes to people at CPS who've helped us, made a Thankful Tree with leaves for all the things we're thankful for, and did much more!  Click the Smilebox below to view a slideshow of our class creating some Thanksgiving crafts!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Miss Hamby's Last Day!

Our class has greatly enjoyed getting to know Kaley Hamby, a Kennesaw State University student that's spent 20 hours volunteering in our classroom over the past three weeks.  Miss Hamby has been observing and helping out in our classroom as part of her Early Childhood Education program.  Miss Hamby has done a wonderful job working with the kids and helping Ms. Gina and Mrs. Jones.  She's helped a lot with literacy and math centers while in the classroom, and the students have really enjoyed getting to know her.  We greatly appreciated her chaperoning on our recent Tellus Field Trip, too! 

On Miss Hamby's last day, the class presented her with a big stack of cards they'd made for her.  She loved them!  Mrs. Jones and Ms. Gina gave Miss Hamby some teacher supplies from The Teacher's Trunk as a goodbye present.  We wish Miss Hamby lots of luck as she continues the rest of her ECE program at Kennesaw State and hope she comes back to visit us!

Our First Canes Medal Winners!

Congratulations to our first Canes Cap Medal Winners!
Ben: Math Award

Quinten: Computer Whiz Award

Aeris: Teacher's Award

Nyla: Character Kid Award

Janie: Writing Award

At CPS, each student gets a special Little Canes cap.  Each Friday is Canes Cap Day, and all the students love wearing their special hats!  However, the hats are more than just a fun Friday treat... they are the place where students pin CPS medals that they are awarded.  Our medals have been a little late in arriving this year, so we just recently got our first batch!

Students can win medals in various ways, including:

*Character Kids: Any child chosen as the Character Education Student of the Month earns a medal.

*The Writing Award: Two students per nine weeks are chosen by Mrs. Jones and Ms. Gina as our best writers. 

*The Math Award: Two students per nine weeks are chosen by Mrs. Jones and Ms. Gina as our most talented mathematicians.

*The Teacher's Award: Two students per nine weeks are chosen by Mrs. Jones and Ms. Gina for demonstrating the best behavior.

*Special Areas Medals: Students can be awarded medals by special areas teachers (art, music, physical education, computer lab).

*Other Medals: Students can be awarded medals by the administrators, media center staff, lunchroom staff, etc.

More award medal winners to come soon!

The Leaves are Falling!

The leaves falling off the oak trees outside the 100 Hall were so beautiful, we just had to go out and play in them!  We've learned all about trees and their leaves in our Science class, so today's beautiful fall weather was the perfect time to go out and explore.  Mrs. Jones took her camera outside, and we got lots and lots of cute pictures of our class playing, rolling around, and having a great time enjoying the gorgeous fall weather!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our First Tellus Field Trip!

On Monday, November 9, our class traveled to the Tellus Northwest Georgia Science Museum for a field trip!  We learned a lot about bugs, including their differences and similarities, habitats, and roles in their environments.  There were three stations to the trip.  In one station, the students listened to a lesson about the three body parts of bugs - head, thorax, and abdomen.  Then, they made their own spider clips to take home.  In the second station, the students went into the theater for an interactive lesson about bees.  They learned the role of the queen, workers, and drones.  They also learned about the life cycle of the bee.  In the final station, the students had a lesson in the giant tree in the My Big Backyard section of the museum, where they learned about comparing and contrasting bees and moths.  Then, they got some time to free play and explore in the My Big Backyard section - what fun!

Because our class was the largest class from CPS on the trip, and because we had three teachers with Mrs. Jones, Ms. Gina, and our KSU student assistant Ms. Hamby in attendance, our class volunteered to split into three groups to make our Tellus tour groups even.  So, we don't have as many pictures as normal this trip because Mrs. Jones, Ms. Gina, and Ms. Hamby were passing the camera around between the groups, trying to make sure we had a picture of everyone.  Here is a Smilebox Slideshow of the fun pictures we got of our students on this trip!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Book Character Day & Our Fall Party!

On Friday, October 30, our class had the best time dressing up as our favorite characters for Book Character Dress Up Day!  We had all sorts of wonderful costumes from all sorts of great books.  The students had a great time marching around the school grounds, showing off our costumes and books to parents, grandparents, friends, and students from CES in the Book Character Parade.  Then, we did fun fall activities all day long.  We finished the day with our Fall Party!  We played several fun games - Monster Mash, the Gross Candy Grab, and Hot Pumpkin - and had a delicious snack, too!  What a fun day!

Click on the image below to watch a Smilebox slideshow of pictures from our Book Character Dress Up Day and Fall Party.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Writer's Workshop

One of the students' favorite subjects is Writer's Workshop.  We are Writer's Workshop stars!  Our class has been observed many times by everyone from Mr. Gordon and Ms. Nelson to Central Office staff, academic coaches from several schools, and even an America's Choice expert!  We've gotten lots of praise and positive feedback for the way we conduct our workshop.

Mrs. Jones is so proud of the class - and the students should be so proud of themselves - because carrying out the workshop model to this extent can be a challenge in Kindergarten, but our class rises to the occasion!  Our students can state the Georgia Performance Standard in their own words, identify the genre and purpose of their writing piece, and implement many effective writing strategies.  We're even creating our own assessment rubrics as a class - that's wonderful!

One of the best things about our workshop is our closing.  Each day, several students who did a great job of exemplifying the focus GPS element during worktime are chosen to share.  The rest of the students listen to the writing, and then they provide feedback.  The student-led feedback session includes many compliments for our chosen authors as well as next steps that they could work on the following day.  It is incredible to hear kindergartners giving each other's work such compliments and suggestions for improvement!

Here are some pictures from a recent share time in Writer's Workshop.  Janie is in the Share Chair, reading a selection from her personal realistic narrative.  She wrote about the time she and her sister got their portraits taken outside.

Here, Ethan reads the latest exciting installment from his fictional narrative, The Great Bear Chase!

 

 Finally, the students give Quinten feedback on his personal realistic narrative.  He wrote a suspenseful tale about a time when his little sister was being naughty!

We're kindergarten authors in Writer's Workshop!

Read for the Record Day

... and Mr. Saunders's birthday!

Today was Read for the Record Day. That means that, all across the country, schoolchildren would be listening to the same book being read aloud in hopes of breaking the world record.  This year, the book chosen was The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.  Our media specialist, Dr. Hart, had asked Mrs. Jones's husband - Mr. Saunders as the students call him - to come in and read to a few classes.  Of course, he read to us!

 

After he read the book aloud, the students hurried back to the classroom because we'd planned a little surprise party!  It just so happened that Read Across America Day fell on Mr. Saunders's 29th birthday.  So, Mrs. Jones and the students decided that a surprise party was in order, complete with cupcakes, balloons, and a festive crown for Mr. Saunders!  The kids were so excited and could not wait to scream, "Surprise!"

Mr. Saunders was very shocked by the celebration, and everyone had a great time at the little party.  Mr. Saunders was a very good sport and wore his crown the whole time!

Sizzie's birthday is October 9, so we celebrated her as well.  Here are both birthday guests of honor!

All the students loved reading their cards to Mr. Saunders and showing him their drawings.

It was a wonderful birthday celebration!

Farm Life Fun!

For our next field trip, our class traveled to the Bartow History Center for a lesson on Farm Life!   Here are some cute pictures of the kids on the bus with their friends ...

 

 

 

 

 

Once we arrived, it was time for a little lesson on a child's life on a farm in the museum.

Then, we got an opportunity to practice some of the common chores for children on the farm.  First, all the students got a chance to milk the "cow"...

 

 

 

 

 

 

After our milking experience, we got to spend time doing other traditional children's chores.  These included gathering eggs...

and washing clothes.

We also got a chance to experience some of the free time activities children enjoyed over 100 years ago, including playing with traditional wooden toys...

competing in a game of bean bag toss...

and even playing "Drop the Clothespin".

Guess which two "farm kids" were the ultimate "Drop the Clothespin" champions?

Mrs. Jones and Jose!

What a fun trip!