Gingerbread House Engineering

Last Friday the engineers of room 134 got to build gingerbread houses. It was such a fun afternoon!

Students were given materials and asked to build a house that could withstand an earthquake and a snowstorm. 

After building they brought there houses over for testing.

Snowstorm testing: 

Earthquake testing:

After they tested their house, they got paid! (3 small pieces or 1 big piece of candy from the bowl-- sorry mom & dad!)

Here are a few of the fabulous houses!

Thank you to our volunteers for helping to make it all happen! 

~Mrs. C

Migration

Today our class talked about migration. After reading about migration and viewing some videos of animals migrating, we took a journey as a class to experience migration ourselves. Here are some photos of us traveling from the north to the south:

After finding food back in the south (classroom), we created a poster of our learning:

~Mrs. C

PBL in K- Hibernation

Today learned about hibernation. We talked about different animals that hibernate and where they hibernate. We did our research by reading several books and using pebble go (an online research website for students). 

After doing some research we pretended to be animals that were hibernating for winter. It was so much fun! 

Afterward we created a poster to show our learning about animals that hibernate.

~Mrs. C

December is here!

Can you believe it?!? And wow, have we been busy in Room 134! 

Today at our Monday Morning Meeting the school got to see the jump rope club show off their skills. Some of our very own friends were their as turners and jumpers. It was so fun to see how far they've come with jump roping. 

Later that morning we voted on our favorite gingerbread story out of the ones we read last week. Here are the results:

This week we are also starting our mini PBL on winter animals. We are trying to answer the question: what do animals do during the winter to survive? Before we try to find the answers, we did a quick sort of some animals to see what we thought they do during winter. 

I can't wait to see what we learn and if any of our answers change. 

We are still in search of volunteers for two of our upcoming events. 

*This Friday, Dec 11, we will be building gingerbread houses from 2:15-3:35.

*Next Monday, Dec 14, we will be learning about animal adaptations that will be taught in a rotation station style from 2:15-3:35. 

If you would like to volunteer please see volunteer spot or send me an email.

~Mrs. C

Class post back-up

My apologizes that there has been a bit of a posting back-up! My goal is to get caught up in between conferences next week. Thanks for understanding! Here's a photo to hold you over in the mean time: 

Pumpkin Jack

Woah! Pumpkin Jack changed a LOT over the weekend! Here are some pictures from Day 11.

Unfortunately, Punkin' Chunkin' has been canceled this year due to lack of a coordinator for the event. HOWEVER, you can come see Pumpkin Jack tomorrow during our PTA Harvest Pot Luck event! Pumpkin Jack will be on display and our observations and predictions will also be available for viewing. This would also be the perfect time to come check out your student's work down by the classroom.

Hope to see you there!
Mrs. C

Student-Led Conferences

If you have not already signed up for a conference, please use the link below to sign up!

Student Led Conferences


We're using VolunteerSpot (the leading online Sign-up and reminder tool) to organize our upcoming Sign-ups.


Here's how it works in 3 easy steps:

1) Click this link to see our Sign-Up on VolunteerSpot: http://vols.pt/C6W77j
2) Review the options listed and choose the spot(s) you like.
3) Sign up! It's Easy - you will NOT need to register an account or keep a password on VolunteerSpot.

Note: VolunteerSpot does not share your email address with anyone. If you prefer not to use your email address, please contact me and I can sign you up manually.

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins

In preparation for our first field trip to the pumpkin patch, our class has been doing some work with pumpkins.

We have read many books about pumpkins, including one called "Pumpkin Jack." This book introduced the idea that once you carve a pumpkin it eventually starts to decompose, which inspired our investigation to see how long it will take for our own pumpkin Jack to decompose. We carved a pumpkin, put it in some soil, and we have been waiting.

After the first 6 days we immediately started to see a change. There is already mold growing inside Jack and it is growing out of his face holes!

Come see what pumpkin Jack looks like on day 17 at the Punkin' Chunkin' hosted by the PTA on November 1st up on the play fields next to our school. See the PTA website for more information.

We also did some investigations with a pumpkin including seeing if a pumpkin would travel straight or not when rolled.

In non-pumpkin related news, last week Mrs. C got to watch the class as they performed "Where The Wild Things Are" in Performing Arts with Ms. Nelson. Make sure to come to the Fall Harvest PTA Potluck this coming Wednesday, October 28th to K-2 students perform something they have been working on from Performing Arts too!

We are so excited for our field trip on Tuesday to Carpitino Brothers Farm! Check back for pictures from our adventures.

~Mrs. C

Learning to work together

As we continue to build our community in Room 134, we have been enjoying getting to know one another, learning how to share our work, and how be friends with others. Here are some ways we have been working together!

We have been working hard in our writing journals. It is so fun to share stories with friends!

When we are working hard, we often need to give our brains a break. Here we are scooping friendship onto our heads with Maximo from GoNoodle!

We love doing science investigations together. Did you know that raisins can dance?!?

Kindergarten is so much fun!

~Mrs. C

We Love Apples!

In honor of the start of fall, we put on our scientist hats last week to do some work with apples!

Monday, we looked at the life cycle of an apple. We even acted out with our bodies what it would be like to complete the apple life cycle. In order to share our learning we made a life cycle to bring home.

Tuesday, we looked at whether various objects from the classroom would sink or float in water. We then took our learnings to create a prediction (our best guess) about what would happen with apples. We graphed our class predictions and then found out that apples DO FLOAT! We drew a picture to show what happened and to share with our families.

Wednesday, we explored the question "How can we keep apple slices from turning brown?" We use 5 different liquids (water, soda water, lemon juice, soda, and vinegar) and a control to try and find a solution. We observed the apples right when we put them in the liquids, 3 hours later and then the next day. We found that water and lemon juice kept the apples from turning brown best. 

Thursday, we made apple sauce! Students got to help prepare the apple sauce by cutting the apples into small bits and then after cooking it in the crockpot, we smashed the apples. Then we got to eat it and it was delicious! Mr. O even came and had a try!

Friday, we discussed how in the world there can be physical and chemical changes. We then created a chemical change of our own by making Apple-Canos!

What a great week!

~Mrs. C