Special Days

Hello Turtle Team Families!

It's been an emotional week! I've cherished every minute that I've been able to spend with my kindergartners, and I thank you for trusting me to keep them safe and help them learn! 

They are special kids! 

We've been working hard to do random acts of kindness, and this week we found one that we do well! We went caroling!! On Monday, we made the long journey out to the annex where Mrs. Beckley's 2nd grade classroom is. We loved knocking on her door and singing to her class when they opened it! 

Today, we walked through the neighborhood to our friend Mrs. Palin's house. Mrs. Palin volunteers in our classroom every week. She is a retired teacher and she takes very good care of us! She was very touched that the kids thought of her. 

Singing for Mrs. Palin

We found out that simple acts can fill buckets and make people very happy!

I've decided we should be the Russell Neighborhood Kindergarten Carolers!

This week the kids had fun during free choice time! I was pleasantly surprised to find them choosing to play - in learning ways!

Some of use liked using the big chart paper to write lists, draw pictures, and even write number sentences! Surprise Ms. Molloy... we are listening and learning!

Some of us had fun working together to build puzzles and read books! Teamwork is fun work!

I am looking forward to a great ending to our week - the last week of 2012 for us! I'll be sure to take pictures and share! If I'm not able to visit with you face to face... enjoy the holidays, hug your kids, and take good care of you!

Ms. Molloy

It's December!

Can you believe that it is already December? Time flies when you are having fun!

This week we'll have some fun starting our "Random Acts of Kindness" countdown to holiday vacation. Today, our "RAK" was to play with someone new on the playground. Lots of us said that we did! Be sure to check with your child each night to find out what kind things they tried to do at school.

Here's some pictures of our ABC Workshops this week!



Listening Center: Karma Wilson Books!



Pokey Pin: Popcorn words!



Poetry Center



Buddy Reading





Beginning Sound Games











Catching Up!

Happy Thanksgiving... a little late! I hope that you were all able to enjoy time with family and friends!

Since it's been so long since we've had a real post, I figured that I'd just post some pictures from the last month to catch you up to speed! And then we'll set a goal for weekly blog posts! (Can I do it?? I think I can, I think I can!)

We celebrated our 50th day of school with lots of fun! We practiced blowing bubbles with bubble gum and made a graph to compare how many kids could and how many were still working on it.

Ms. Kim is can blow a giant bubble!

Dressed for the 1950's!

This is our special handprint flag, and some of the soldiers we made to honor Veteran's Day. We wrote thank you letters to Veteran's and learned about the Pledge of Allegiance, and learned a patriotic song!

Some days you just have to cheer about all of your hard work!

Reading with a buddy!

Working on building patterns with lots of different tools!

Building shapes with clay and toothpicks.

Using the Ipad during ABC Workstations

Pokey pin sight word maker!

Saving the best for last... Last week we finally got to meet with our 5th Grade Buddy Class!

Ms. Judge's 5th graders will be our big buddies this year. We will get together at least once a month to do some fun learning together. This month, we just spent time chatting, and the 5th graders helped us design our awesome turkey gobbler hats! 

Looking forward to more frequent blog posting to keep you in the loop! Thanks for checking in - the kids talk about it when you look at the blog together, and I appreciate that!

Are you ready for December? It's right around the corner!
Ms. Molloy

Long time no update!

Yes... it's been a long time since we've updated the blog! We had a trip to the fire station, and we celebrated a crazy Halloween with our costume parade! (And some crazy dancing teachers!)

We'll be sure to update this week, as tomorrow we are celebrating our 50th day of school!

Happy Veteran's Day - I am very thankful for your service!

Check back soon!

Ms. Molloy

FIELD TRIP

DON'T FORGET! TOMORROW...WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24TH IS OUR FIELD TRIP!

DRESS WARM! BE READY FOR A GREAT WALK! WE WILL POST PICTURES OF OUR FUN SOON!

THANK YOU!

Wow! I was so impressed to see so many of you for lunch today! Thank you for making/taking the time to be here. Your kids loved showing off for you, and I appreciated that we got to!

Here's some pictures from our week. Yes - we work hard... but when we play, we play! Check it out!

Today in math we had to explore the room to find sets and groups that matched a number. There were no wrong or right answers, we just had to be able to explain why we drew what we did for each number! The kids worked so hard. It was fun to see them spread out around the room, helping each other, finding comfortable places to work. Who said math isn't fun??

After we drew, we shared our work with a partner! Taking turns and listening to our buddies is something we are learning to do!

Earlier this week we rocked the "Number Rock!" Thanks to our friend Mrs. Schendel, we had props to make us feel like real rock stars! We are so cool!!

 

Thanks again for coming to lunch! Enjoy the long weekend. Remember, our field trip to the fire station is Wednesday, October 24th! Permission slips are due on Monday the 22nd!

Puppet Show

What fun we had today! The firefighters brought a puppet show to help us learn some fire safety tips!

We learned these big ideas:

• We should all check our smoke detector batteries, and make sure that we have a fire drill at school AND at home!
• Matches are not toys, they are tools. If we find them we should give them to an adult.
• If there is smoke, it will rise. That means we should stay low and crawl out if there is lots of smoke.
• If ever your clothes catch on fire, you shouldn't run! You should stop, drop and roll! Don't forget to cover your face too!

We had a great time. Sparky even came to surprise us! We are looking forward to a visit to the fire station to learn even more!

Here's some pictures from the day!

Date Change

Whoops! I wrote down the wrong date for the Turtle Team's trip to the fire station! We will go on Wednesday, October 24th! Permission slips are coming home this week. Remember if you'd like to help chaperone our field trip (or any in the future,) you'll need to have your volunteer paper work submitted! You can fill it out online or return the forms I sent home. Thanks for helping out! We appreciate it!

Firefighter Writing

Greetings Turtle Team Families!
This has been a great week so far! We've been reading about community helpers, and especially thinking about firefighters!

We started by thinking about what we knew about firefighters:

We used a fire truck and a firefighter to learn about labeling:

On Thursday, we'll learn about fire safety when the firefighters bring a puppet show to Russell School! We can't wait!

Here are some more pictures from our week!

We are learning about our 5 senses. We used mirrors to check out our taste buds and our eyes. 

We checked out our buddies eyes too!

During learning centers this week, we are "writing the room." We have to find pictures, count them and write down how many. We are having a good time helping each other out!

We are working on "collecting data" using a spinner. Then we have to show our data with a graph. Big ideas!

Oh how we have changed in a month... working on October self portraits.

We are learning a lot about beginning sounds! We can sort pictures by the first sound we hear.

Watch for updates later this week! Ask your child about learning centers this week! 

We are working hard and learning a lot!

And... mark your calendars! We'll be walking to the fire station on Friday, October 26th! We'll need chaperones! Watch for permission slips to come home soon!!

Thanks for checking in!

Ms. Molloy