100th Day of School

Last Thursday was the 100th day of school. We did a lot of fun activities. Normally, our class has a party with food and treats for the kids to eat. This time we decided to bring in soup cans and donate them to our local soup pantry. Our goal was to collect 100 cans of soup for the 100th day of school. We collected 205 cans of soup!

St. Martin de Porres

This week, the fifth grade class had chapel mass. While they were at mass, the other students got into their family groups (two kids from each grade level) and learned about St. Martin de Porres. Here is a little craft that the kids did. The first one is my sample.

The eighth grade students wrote a summary for the younger kids. This is what one Kindergarten student copied off the board.

Here is the same summary that one of the older kids wrote down for another Kindergarten student.

Catholic Schools Week

Last week was Catholic Schools Week. The kids had a lot of fun. Sunday was parent appreciation day and open house. The students decorated clay pots with their fingerprints. Here are a few samples of how they turned out:

Monday was spirit day. Each class chose a color shirt to wear to show that they belonged to a certain class. My Kindergarteners wore white shirts. The school had a spirit assembly where each class presented a cheer that they wrote for their class. Then the whole school danced the Cupid Shuffle. Since we had the Scholastic Book Fair at our school all week, Clifford joined us in the Cupid Shuffle. It was a lot of fun!

Tuesday was sports day. The students wore their favorite sports team's jersey.

Wednesday was student appreciation day. The kids got to wear crazy socks and crazy hair. They also enjoyed a Popsicle at the end of the day. The teachers were not allowed to give the students homework that day either!

Thursday was teacher appreciation day. My kids brought me many flowers that I put into a big vase. They also made me cards. It was so sweet. My son made cute flower vases for his teachers (I got the idea off Pinterest).

Friday was grandparent's day. We had many grandparents join us for Mass. Then they were invited to stay at school and visit their grandchild's classroom, have refreshments, visit the book fair, and take photo booth pictures with their grandchild.

Igloo Estimation

We have been working on estimation. Since it is winter, I made an igloo out of blue paper and taped it to the board. I put one square "ice block" on the igloo and asked the kids to estimate how many ice blocks it would take to fill up the whole igloo.

The kids made some estimations and then they helped me fill the igloo with ice blocks. It took 24 whole ice blocks and 6 half ice blocks to fill up the igloo (27 ice blocks altogether). The closest estimate was 21 ice blocks.

Try this activity using small ice blocks, medium ice blocks, and then large ice blocks and discuss why the kids' estimates change for each size.

Advent Wreath

This past Sunday was the first week of Advent so we made paper Advent wreaths. The kids are going to add a flame to one candle each week until all the candles are lit.

The kids' Advent wreaths will look like this at the end of Advent.

I think next year I will have the kids add leaves to their wreaths.

Jesus Fish Craft

We have been learning about how Jesus is God's only son. We did a cute craft that I found online. First, I took black paper and used glue to draw a Jesus fish on the paper. Next, I let the glue dry. Last, the students colored the paper with chalk. It made a beautiful Jesus fish picture. The pictures were a little messy so I sent them home right away. If you zoom in on this picture, you can see the fish outline.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Activities

Each year I have one day when the incoming kindergarten students come to class and see what kindergarten is like. They spend four hours in class. This kids do journal, a religion activity, centers and small group time, snack and recess, read aloud and calendar, centers and small group time again, recess again and then they go home. I call this day Kinder Camp. The parents are welcome to stay and watch or they may drop their students off and pick them up at noon. During Kinder Camp we do activities centered around the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. The kids make Chicka Chicka Boom Boom trees.

This is a sample of one of the trees. The kids put their coconut tree together and fill out the information on the paper below the tree. Then the kids put the letters in their name on the tree using stickers. They are allowed to put the letters anywhere on the tree. This child chose to put his name in the correct order instead of randomly putting the letters all over the tree.

I created activities for my centers that had a palm tree or jungle theme. This is from the math center. The kid had to match the top piece of the palm frond to the bottom piece of the palm frond. The top part had stickers on it and the bottom had a corresponding number.

In this activity, the kids had to put the coconuts in number order.

The frogs were used to make patterns.

I created this palm tree labeling activity for the science center. The kids had to use the picture on the left to label the picture on the right. They used the words outlined in black and taped them onto the palm tree on the right.

 I created this coconut labeling activity for the science center as well.

I made this alphabet matching activity for the language arts center. The kids had to match the capital letter to the lowercase letter.

 I found this cute activity on Teachers Pay Teachers for free. It was a coconut tree rhyming pack. The kids had to match the picture on the tree to a picture on the coconut that rhymed with it.

I had coconut painting set up at the art center, but I forgot to take a picture of it. I just put a coconut in a tray of paint and the kids dipped the coconut in the paint and dabbed it on white paper. 

I also created a coconut labeling activity that the kids did for a science lesson. Here is our anchor chart.

This is my sample.

Here are some samples of what the students made. They did an awesome job!