November

Voting Time!

The students participated in a mock election in which they were able to secretly vote for the presidential candidate of their choice. Here the students are in front of the media center dropping their ballots in the boxes. Obama won as the choice in our class.

AYP Celebration!

Here we are all in a large group outside the front of the school. Mrs. Thomas, the teacher of the year, gave a speech and then we released the balloons up in the sky as we shouted AYP! Each class was given one balloon to release.

Here is a picture of all of the balloons up in the sky. Aren't they beautiful? They made a lovely picture.

Here is a picture of all of the students outside during the AYP Carnival. We all went from booth to booth and did activities all day long.

Here is me loving on and petting Colorado the horse, Mr. Quimbley's horse. Colorado came to the AYP celebration for everyone to meet and pet. Colorado is a sweet horse.

A student feeding Colorado some hay. He ate and ate hay all day. Every student and teacher in the entire school fed him some hay. Maybe he was full by the end of the day.

Ms. Rice's Toe!

I had toe surgery the beginning of the month due to an infected ingrown toenail. I had it the Thursday afternoon before the big AYP Celebration the next day. So I walked around all day Friday in brown sandals screaming do not step on my toe. I told my students first thing Friday morning that if they even thought about touching my toe they were going to be expelled from school permanently. I guess it worked. No one came near my foot ever since then. About a week later the bandage came off of my foot and students wanted to see how it looked. They all gathered around me to see and one student decided it would be neat to take a picture. Yeah Thanks! So here is a picture of my toe.

Math Activities - Counting and Graphing

The students tasted of some chocolate chip cookies and some Oreo cookies and picked the one they liked the best. They wrote their names on sticky notes and placed them on the graph under the type of cookie they liked the best. When all of the sticky notes had be placed on the graph we talked about the graph and figured out which one had more which one had fewer.

The students practiced their counting skills by counting out 30 marsh mellows out loud to an adult. Then they wrote the numbers 1-30 in the grid. The students got to eat the marsh mellows afterwards. What a yummy way to teach counting and numbers!

Operation Christmas Child

Every year in November all of the classes go together to help sponsor some children and give them gifts for Christmas. Here is a picture of all of the shoeboxes after they were placed in the middle of the gym floor during the dedication ceremony. The picture did not come out very good since I did not have my good camera. I had to use a cheaper, smaller one I have had for years.

Centers

Here some students are taking a blue Expo marker coloring on the easel. My easel has a blue permanent marker stain on it and the man who works at the store where I purchased the easel from said to color all over it with an Expo marker and then clean it off with the Expo cleaner. It helped it some. I was testing students that morning so while I tested the students had centers. One of the centers was Scribbling on the Dry Erase Board. The students seemed to like it the best. I think I will start letting that become a regular center and have the students practice writing words, letters, and sentences on the board.

Reading Tubs

Name Spelling and Writing - Some students still needed to work on spelling and writing their names so for this tub I had the students find the sentence strip with their name written on it. They had to spell their first and last name using the plastic letters. Then they had to write their name 5 times each on paper.

Writing sight words. Here the students are practicing the white sight words. The students pick a card, say the word, and then write it on a dry erase marker. I keep several sets of all three sight word lists in zip-loc bags for the students to practice with in the classroom. I have white dry erase boards that I keep in the Language Arts area in the classroom. I have a basket with markers and short white ankle socks in. I place a marker inside a sock. The students get a sock and a board. They can use the sock as an eraser. When they finish writing they close the marker and put it back inside the sock. They then place the sock back in the marker basket. This is a great way to save space and ensure that every student will have a marker and an eraser.

These students are using a set called Bits 'n Pieces to make the letters of the alphabet. In Bits 'n Pieces the students have to construct upper and lower case letters of the alphabet using plastic pieces.

Writing sentences! In this tub I have simple sentences written on sentence strips. The students pull one sentence strip out at the time and read the sentence. They have to identify the punctuation mark at the end and then they copy the sentence onto another sentence strip. This activity helps students learn sight words, how to read and write sentences, and how to identify and use the correct ending punctuation. All these skills are important language arts skills for kindergarteners to master.

The Playground!

Here are some students swinging on the swings on the playground.

Some of the boys enjoying the slide and bridge on the playground. This piece of play equipment is the favorite for everyone, especially the boys.

The tire swing! This is the most favorite play thing of all. Students rush out to the playground to see who will get on the tire swing first.

Thanksgiving Feast!

The students are having Thanksgiving lunch in the classroom. We had a good meal of turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes, biscuits, green beans, and cranberries.

The students were so busy eating they did not stop long enough to talk. The food was so good! I wish we could eat like this every day.