Another crazy class photo

I get by with a little help from my friends

It's moments like this that make me so proud as a teacher. Ketan needed help with his shoes after yoga and was getting impatient as I was helping tie another students shoe. Max and Colin went over and helped him with his shoes. Then when he stood up the fixed the collar on his shirt. How proud can one teacher and two parents be?

This week's Star is . . .

ALEC

Blue Angels

WHAT A DAY! Today at lunch the Blue Angels flew right over our school! What an exciting day we are having.

Great quotes from Pre-K

"I can cut all the way to New Jersey and under the water." ~ Gabby
"If I look up at the rain my face will melt!" ~ Jack
"How can this rain rains on dinosaurs, they are dead?" ~ Max
"If I have 3 bears and 3 pigs at a party, the bears will eat the pigs!" ~ Cole

You can tell what we have been talking about today.

Rainy day excitment

This morning I woke up very excited to hear the sound of thunder, I love stormy days (must be from growing up on the east coast). We had to come in early from P.E. today, because the thunder started up again, but we did get to finish inside our classroom. We went outside later to eat snack and it began to rain. Everyone was hoping we would have lots of puddles to jump in. While they were waiting for the puddles they tried to catch the rain in their mouths. How much fun it is to lean your head back and let the rain drops hit your face. I love these moment with our class!

My Rosarito bike race

Thank you to all of you who were thinking about me this weekend before I went on my 50 mile bike ride from Rosarito to Ensanada. I didn't get to ride but 100 yards because my girlfriends husband crashed, fell off his bike and broke his collar bone, and had to be rushed back to the states to the hospital. I will try it again next year, the 6,000 people down there really energized me. (yes, I did put on my helmet after the picture.)

Apple Day

Apple Pattern
Apple Prints
Us with our apples
sour green apple

Today was apple day in our class. We tasted different color apples, RED was the favorite, while GREEN was way to sour! We also made apple prints with real apples. The kids wanted to be sure that when I cut the apple that I made a star for them. Of course we went apple bobbing.

Thank you Mrs. Mun

Thanks to the generosity of Mrs. Mun (aka Lauren's mom) I now have a video camera for our class. I have never been a fan of video, I don't know why I just love taking photo's. I realized the other day that I am missing so many of your wonderful children's moments (cute ones, funny times and silly things) that go on in our class. As I record things I will add them to our blog. Of course I will still take millions of pictures.

Apple sauce

Yesterday for science we made our own applesauce, it came out really good. Most of the kids liked it but a few didn't, I think it is a texture thing. We discussed how apples are hard and crunchy, round and sweet. Then we talked about how we could change the apple I got great comments

"Throw it on the ground to mash it" said Cole

"We can make applesauce with cold water" said Liam

Everyone agreed that our classroom smelled so yummy while it was cooking. I sent home the "cook book" with each child so they can make it at home.

Sundae Monday

Today instead of an all school assembly we got to have Sundae Monday. YUMMMMM!

Share schedule

Share Schedule

Tuesday – Alec, Colin, Cole, Gabby
Wednesday – Julian, Jake, Kanvar, Liam
Thursday – Ketan, Lauren, Max

And this weeks star of the week. . .

Gabby!

Pictures from the playground

Today I got up to the playground today and took a few pictures. They have a such a great time running around the playground.

Should I skip that 20 minutes of reading to my child tonight?

Did you know one of the most prominent indicators of a successful reader is the amount of time spent actually reading?

Student A reads 20 minutes 5 nights of every week.

Student B reads only 4 minutes a night or not at all!

Step 1: Multiply minutes a night x 5 times each week

Student A reads 100 minutes a week. Student B reads 20 minutes a week.

Step 2: Multiply minutes a week x 4 weeks each month.

Student A reads 400 minutes a month. Student B reads 80 minutes a month.

Step 3: Multiply minutes a month x 9 months for the school year Student A reads 3600 minutes in a school year. Student B reads 720 minutes in a school year. Student A practices reading the equivalent of ten whole school days a year. Student B gets the equivalent of only two school days of reading practice. By the end of 6th grade if Student A and Student B maintain these same reading habits, Student A will have read the equivalent of 60 whole school days. Student B will have read the equivalent of only 12 school days.Which do you think will be the more successful reader?

Welcome Max

Beginning Monday Max will be rejoining our class. He was with me last year and went to try out another school but he and his family miss our school (and me as well). We are very excited to have Max returning to our class.

Happy Birthday Jack!

Music class and Bunnies!

Today we got to have music class with Mr. Matthews. Gabby got to get up and play guitar and sing the "ABC song" . All the kids were super happy for her and clapped and cheered for her. They all love music!

We went our first visit to the bunny cages and sat very quietly, yes sat quietly and waited for a bunny to come eat our carrots. Ketan got to feed blackie. What a time we had.

Our new friend Jake

Today we began our science unit on our body, beginning with our bones. I grabbed the life size skeleton from the middle school science teacher. The kids thought it was so much fun to have a visitor in our class all day. We also created our own skeleton to bring home today.

2nd week of school

We survived our first week of Pre-k and are settling into a routine very nicely. We did a little with with a friend time and started doing centers, the kids enjoyed them. Naturally they all wanted to be at the play dough and didn't want to leave it but they did and are learning to transition very nicely.

All School Assembly

This afternoon we got to attend the first all school assembly. We went down to the middle school class and sat very quietly and respectfully to watch and learn about physics.

Happy Birthday Lauren!

Apples, apples every where. . .

I love September! Back to school and apples every where, it reminds me of when I was a kids growing up on the east coast and every year my family would go to pick apples together, it is such a found memory from my childhood. We have kept that tradition up here in California, every fall my own family goes to Julian to pick apples, if you get a chance to get up there your children will love it and have their own wonderful memories of climbing a tree to pick apples, then eat it right off the tree.

Fresh faces

I am sitting here in the classroom getting ready for Back to School Night on Tuesday and I keep hearing little voices asking when are you putting "our heads" on the wall. So I stopped my planning and copying and printed out off the computer "our heads". I have done this every year I have taught and several kids from last year asked me every day where they were. They are going to be so happy when they come in tomorrow, I have moved them from last year. Now as soon as they walk in the class they will see them.

Back to school picnic

We had our all school back to school picnic on Friday after school and it was a lot of fun. I saw several kids from our class at the park and they looked like they were enjoying themselves. I believe I heard that this was the biggest turn out at the picnic yet.

Happy Birthday Gabby

Another great day

The kids had another great day. We started the day off by having music they after lunch our 4th and 5th grade reading buddies came in to read to us. They enjoyed both activities very much. We are continuing to get adjusted to our class rules and personal space is a big issue with the kids so we are talking alot about respecting our friends words.

WE ARE SPECIAL!

Today we were talking about our likes and differences and how special each one of us is. We made miniature stick puppets of ourselves. They came out really cute.

Official class picture

Self portraits

We got all our permission slips back and we can officially post all kids pictures. Her we are.

Great 1st day!

We had a great first day of school today. We started off by having P.E. with Ms. Deven then we introduced ourselves to each other in the class. We went on a tour of the school and got to go in many of the classes even some of the middle school classes. We wrote our name and drew a portrait of ourselves. As soon as all the permission slips come back then I can start posting actual pictures of the kids on the blog. Thank you parents for sharing your most precious gift with Beverly and myself.