With tomorrow being the first day of February, we made our February calendars. My kinders LOVE making these calendars because they love learning about all the fun things that are happening at Olive during the month and seeing whose birthdays occur in that month in our class. They also LOVE showing me how great they are with writing their numbers and using their creativity to decorate the top of their calendars so they look like mine but theirs always turn out better than the one I made! I LOVE seeing their finished calendars when they are done with them. Below you will see some of my kindergarten friends with their February calendars:

We had another fun day in kindergarten filled with math, a Schoolwide lesson and reading groups. In reader's workshop today using our Schoolwide curriculum, I did a lesson with the class where we learned how readers infer characters' feelings and traits by thinking about what is happening in the story, studying their facial and body language, and listening to what they think. The Elephant and Piggie books are perfect for learning this important skill. Today I used the story called, I Broke My Trunk! This story was about how Gerald, the elephant, broke his trunk and how he explained how it happened to his best friend, Piggie. During the lesson today, I paired up the class and at certain points of the story they had to turn and talk to their partner about what was happening in the story. They "turned and talked" sitting "knee-to-knee-eye-to-eye." I was amazed with how well they all worked with their partners and how well they did sharing their ideas with one another. Way to go, K-1 and K-3! In math, I did a hands-on lesson with the class where we learned and practiced how to add two numbers together within 10. They did a FANTASTIC job and to help them learn this new skill, I had them use two different colored block trains where they used one color to represent the first number in the addition sentence and another color to represent the other number. When they added them together, it helped them to get the correct total and to understand the concept of adding two numbers together to get a total amount. When I was finished teaching them the lesson as a class, I had them open up their Ipads and do an addition activity on Seesaw using their colored block trains at their "table spots." I was amazed how well they all did building the addition sentences with their blocks and filling in the addition sentences all on their own on the Seesaw App. My kindergarten friends amaze me everyday! They are like little sponges soaking in everything we are learning each day and having so much fun showing me what they know. I couldn't be more proud of ALL of them!

With it being the month of January and the weather getting colder and snow beginning to fall, we have been doing a lot of activities in the classroom with snowmen. I am absolutely amazed with all they are learning in my classroom and each time I hear them read or write in their journals, I tear up with so much joy! I can't believe what wonderful readers and writers they are becoming! Today, we made the CUTEST snowman project with their names. They each received a piece of paper with a snowman face and circles on it. In each circle they wrote a letter of their name ensuring that their name began with a capital letter and the ones that followed were lowercase. Next, they cut out all the circles and they glued them on a blue piece of paper to create a snowman with their name. Their favorite part was adding all the fun detail to their snowman and the background. They had so much fun making their snowmen today and it was fun walking around the classroom to see all the smiles and joy they were having in their learning today! Here are some pictures that I took of the finished snowmen. I hung them up in our kindergarten hallway for all of Olive to enjoy! Each time we walk in and out of the classroom, my kindergarten friends have so much fun finding their snowman and looking at all the ones their classmates made. It was such a fun project to make today!