Our First Field Trip

We went to the Holland Farmer's Market on Wednesday.  The weather was perfect and every thing went smoothly.  Several parents and grandparents volunteered to help which was great. The students were able to experience the goods and services we have been learning about in Social Studies first hand. They have a better understanding of the producer-consumer relationship now, as well.

After our field trip, we returned to school and tasted the fruits and vegetables we purchased.  The students recorded what they thought of each food item.  I was surprised by the amount of students who liked green tomatoes! This slideshow captures our Wednesday together. Enjoy!

Farmer's Market Slide Show

A Sweet Monday

I spent the majority of this weekend not feeling well.  My husband and I were supposed to go up north with a bunch of our friends and although I went, I wasn't too much fun to be around.  When we came home Sunday afternoon I immediately went to bed.  When I woke up today, I still wasn't feeling great but I definitely felt better and well enough to go to school.  When I arrived at school I was greeted with cake pop treats from one of my students.  It immediately made me feel good.  I love how things like this happen just when you're feeling down.  I want to take a moment to say 'thank you' to my amazing Owl Room family and friends for making today and every day a great day.  I appreciate all you do for your child and our classroom!

Love, Mrs. DeYoung

Yellow Labs and Humpty Dumpty

I know I've said it before, but my little owl students continue to impress me.   This morning, we learned about the letter 'R r'. Throughout the day the students would say, "Mrs. DeYoung, my dad's name has the letter 'R' in it", "Hey, there is an 'R' in September".  It may seem small but I love the way that they continue to make connections and learn about the world around them.

Last week we learned that addition means putting things together and subtraction means taking things apart. After I modeled how these yellow chips can represent addition and subtraction, Brady volunteered to show us an example of subtraction.  You can't see it in the video, but everything Brady is doing on the document camera was projected onto the Smart Board for the whole class to see.  Brady came up with this example of subtracting yellow lab's on his own. Way to go Brady!

After our scavenger hunt around the classroom searching for circles, rectangles and squares, the students sorted a pile of shapes independently.

We have been learning about the letters "Bb" and "Rr". During one of our literacy centers, the students sorted these lowercase letters.

We've been working on writing our names with a capital letter in the front and lowercase letters in the middle and end.  We've also been working on making our names sit on a line and forming our letters from top to bottom. At this literacy center, the students were cutting, pasting, rainbow tracing and writing their first names.

Last week we spent some time reading Humpty Dumpty and retelling what happened with props (ie: my younger sister's My Little Pony dolls, Ken dolls and Lego's - thanks Maryanah!). Needless to say, the kids really seemed to enjoy it!

Noah did a great job making his Humpty Dumpty craft.

Working Hard

Today, during our calendar time it hit me that we are over half way through September. I can't believe how quickly time is flying by! These are some of the activities we have been working on over the past few days.

The students have been learning about one-to-one correspondence in math. We have been implementing this during our snack time, too. Kylie did a great job counting out her pretzels here. She almost had enough to finish the page.

We have been learning our Zoo-Phonics letters and finding the "twin" or the matching uppercase and lower case letters. During center time, some of the students had the chance to make letters with Play-doh.

We've also been learning songs and chants. Hickory Dickory Dock has been stuck in my head all day today. Yesterday we practiced singing "Happy Birthday" with our names in the song. The students were able to practice following along with their pointer finger and recognizing their names in the song.

Julia did a great job coloring her picture I just had to show you!

I'm so proud of them. Look how hard they're working. Way to go Owl Room!

Today was the first day the students worked in pairs. They were assigned as Peanut Butter and Jelly partners. Together, each pair had to sort through a bag of letters and find the "twin" letters or matching upper and lowercase letters.

Throughout the day we take brain breaks or sensory breaks where we take a few minutes to put whatever we are working on aside and move our bodies. This helps us re-focus and it helps us re-energize for the rest of the day. This week I introduced the video/song "If You're a Kid" by Harry Kindergarten to the class. It requires active listening and following directions but the students LOVED it. Check out the song by clicking on the link below: 

If You're a Kid by Harry Kindergarten

Look Whoooooo's Counting!

This week we are working on counting, recognizing and ordering numbers. The students did a great job counting and putting these fish into their fish bowls using our classroom's SMART board.

Our First Days Together

We had a great first week together. Check out some of the things we have been doing in the Owl Room.

After reading The Kissing Hand we talked about how we were feeling on the first day of school. Please ignore the shape of the hand on the anchor chart - clearly I am not an artist!

After talking about our first day feelings we read this poem and painted our hands.

Throughout the week the students had the opportunity to explore some of the centers we have around the classroom. The girls in the home living center were busy "cooking" as you can see here.

The kids did a great job building blocks and sharing materials together.

Relaxing with a good book in the reading nest. The students have been learning how to look at the words and pictures on a page. They've also been learning how to pick out books that they are interested in.

Working on our fine motor skills in the writing center. The students above are coloring a picture of their first day of school.

Building shapes, sharing and taking turns with the Play-Doh. Who doesn't love Play-Doh?!

One of the things we learned this week is the importance of cleaning up after ourselves. After reading Max Cleans Up we practiced writing our names in shaving cream and cleaning up after ourselves. This was good practice because we all know shaving cream on 25 desks can be messy!

Writing their names.

Getting our fingers messy.

Ta-Dah! We know how to clean up! Now you can have your child clear the table at home (parents) because they should remember how.

 Investigating our names and discovering how many letters we have in our first names. Brooklyn and Kierstin had the most!

Our School Shoes

Today was a great first day of school! My students and I learned so much together. One of my teaching partners suggested reading Pete the Cat with my students as a way of introducing them to the building. I'm so glad I listened because the kids and I loved it!

After I read Pete the Cat to my students we went on a scavenger hunt around the building searching for Pete and following his clues. We didn't have any luck finding him but one of my students said he saw Pete's tail slip out the door! :)
 On our hunt for Pete we discovered where the media center, music room, gymnasium, art room, cafeteria, play ground and lunch room are and what those giant rooms are called.

After our search for Pete we came back into our classroom and rocked out to this song. The kids and I had this song stuck in our heads for the rest of the day.
Enjoy!

Pete The Cat short video

http://harpercollinschildrens.com/feature/petethecat/audio/Pete-the-Cat-Rocking-in-My-School-Shoes.mp3

Our first day of school shoes.

We sing in our school shoes...

We read in our school shoes...

We eat in our school shoes...

We play in our school shoes...

We are having a great time in the Owl Room in our school shoes.

Can't wait to see these little feet at school again tomorrow!