Music Masters: J.S. Bach

This year I created a new program that I call Music Masters. Each month we learn about a new composer. This month we are learning about J.S. Bach. I teach the students about the composer, then we do a writing activity about the composer, and finally we fill in the notes on one of the composer's songs.

I gave the students a paper with the outlines of the notes, I projected the same paper onto the board and we filled in the notes together. They did an awesome job!

This is a sample of the writing that we did.

We listen to music by the composer of the month everyday during handwriting time. The students love it!

Class Auction

In the spring, my school has an auction. Each class makes something to sell at the auction. This year I thought of a cute idea. My class is going to make a four piece art project on canvas. Each canvas will have a tree painted on it (there will be one tree for each season) and the students will decorate the tree with their fingerprints. I painted the background blue and used the overhead projector to trace the tree onto the canvas. Next, I am going to use a paint pen to fill in the tree.

Religion Lesson: God Made Me Special

This week our religion lesson was about how God made each of us special. We talked about how each person has different talents that God gave us. We also discussed that God made us unique; there is no one else exactly like us. We might look like our brother, sister, mom, or dad, but we are each unique. We made a craft using our fingerprints because no one else has fingerprints like us. The kids made plants, bugs, and animals with their fingerprints.

This student made bugs out of his fingerprints.

This student made bugs, butterflies, and a bird.

The students did an awesome job on their craft!

Art Masters: Jackson Pollock

Each month, we learn about two artists. Our first artist of the year was Jackson Pollock. During the first week of the month we read a book about Jackson Pollock and then did some writing to help us remember who he was. During the next week, we did action painting. I lined the kids up on the grass and they made their creations.  Here is a picture of some of the students' artwork.They did a great job!

This is the writing that we did together. I created a summary of what we learned about Jackson Pollock and the students filled in the blanks.

This is how I lined up the students to create their masterpieces. I was able to have ten kids working at the same time which helped us to complete our artwork quickly.

Apple Labeling and Apple Graphing

This month our theme is apples. We are doing many fun activities using apples. We did an apple labeling activity to learn about the anatomy of an apple.

 The students had to draw seeds on the apple's flesh.

 The students' apples came out so cute!

This is a graph of our favorite apples. First, the students tried a slice of a green, red, and yellow apple and decided which one was their favorite. Next, they  put an apple cutout on the graph that was the same color as the apple that they liked the best. Last, we analyzed the graph and figured out which apple most of the students liked the best.

Patriot Day Craft

Yesterday was Patriot Day. We made the adorable craft created by A Cupcake for the Teacher. It was extremely easy and we also got a chance to review AB patterns! When the students were done with their craft, we hung them up on our clothesline with clothes pins.

 The student's did a superb job!

We will never forget September 11, 2001.

Kinder Cooking

Last Friday, we made school buses out of graham crackers. We followed the recipe out of the Mailbox book called Kids in the Kitchen. I ordered this book off of the Mailbox Magazine website. It is awesome; I use it every week.

Here is the finished product made by one of my kindergarten students. It turned out great!

We do cooking during our center time on Fridays. I pull a small group of 5-6 kids at a time and they follow the recipe to make our cooking treat. It takes about 10 minutes per group. The students practice reading, following directions, measuring, and counting.

First Week of School

During the first week of school we did many fun activities. We did a lot of writing, counting, and reciting practice. We looked at our eyes and made a graph of the color eyes we have. So many of the students had brown eyes that we ran out of room on our graph!

I also got a chance to add some more decorations to my classroom. I reused the name labels on my welcome sign and added each student's name and picture to the word wall. It turned out really cute! Now the students can learn how to spell their friends' names.

Religion Lesson: God Created All Things

Last week, in religion, we talked about things that God created. We read the creation story out of The Beginner's Bible, learned The Butterfly Song, and did an art project where the students colored pictures of things that God made. They used their best coloring skills to complete the pictures. The pictures turned out beautifully!

Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom

Every year before school starts I have a day where the incoming kindergarten students can come visit their classroom and spend a morning doing the activities we do on a daily basis. The students get to sit at their desk, locate their cubbies, and figure out where to put their backpacks. They also get to do journal, go to centers, do music, listen to some stories, and play outside. This year at Kinder Camp we read Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom. Then the students made this cute craft.

It allowed me to see if the students could write their name, identify letters, and count the number of letters in their name.

Last Friday, we made this treat during our Kindergarten cooking lesson. I got the idea out of a Mailbox book called Kids in the Kitchen. We do cooking every Friday and we use the recipes out of this book for ninety percent of our cooking lessons. This is a tree that one of my students made. He did a great job!