Pumpkins and PARTY!

Pumpkin seeds... tiny leaves... bigger leaves... vines... little yellow flowers... green pumpkins... growing pumpkins... harvest time! Yes, it is pumpkin time and we've been learning about the life cycle of pumpkins. We read several books about pumpkins, drew and colored pumpkins, carved a pumpkin, and wrote about them in our journals. We also tasted some pumpkin seeds -- ooooh, were they salty! With help from I.P.'s mom we even painted our own little pumpkins (see picture above).

After learning about pumpkins we did a Venn diagram comparing pumpkins and apples. We found things they had in common (such as: they both have seeds, they both grow from flowers, they both make yummy pies, etc) and things that were different about them (i.e. growing on trees vs. growing on vines, different colors, different seed sizes, etc). We have found that author Gail Gibbons happens to have a lot of books that tell about teach us about scientific things. Two of Gibbons' books studied in class include: "Apples" and "The Pumpkin Book". Later, when our class pumpkin began to rot, we threw it outside over the fence and we visit it every once in a while to check out how it is decomposing. As of November 8 it is still orange on the outside but the inside is looking pretty black and gooey!


Of course we also had to have a little party before Halloween! We went outside for recess and when we returned our classroom had been transformed by the Moore Marvels party posse. The room was replete with jack-o-lanterns, games, snacks, and party favors. Some of the fun activities included mummy wrapping, cookie decorating, bag decorating, an acorn pick-up game, basketball toss, and deeeee-licious snacks. The kids had a blast and more than one said, "Ms. Moore this is the best day of school EVER!"

All in all, October has been a blast -- and a whirlwind -- of a month. Stay tuned for our next installment of the Moore Marvels blog. The first weeks of November we have been learning about bats... you won't want to miss it!

FALL FUN!

Fall is Here!

Well, it was a long, hot summer but finally fall is here. And Moore Marvels have been busy learning about all kinds of autumnal subjects!

First, we studied about the season of autumn and read books about how leave change colors. We looked for signs of fall in the trees around the school, made leaves for a "tree" on our classroom door, and even did leaf rubbing relief pictures with different sizes of fall leaves.
We also collected acorns and did several activities with them including sorting, counting, and using them in a math bingo game. Check out the pictures of some of our sorting activities.

In addition we read a cool book by Lois Ehlert called "Leaf Man". In this book she uses leaves to design pictures of animals and scences of fall. Check out some of the cool leaf pictures that were designed by our students!


In addition to learning about leaves and trees we also studied about apples. We learned about the life cycle of the apple tree, tasted apples, made apple prints, dissected apples and even voted for our favorite apples (from the taste test). The overwhelming vote was for..... Granny Smith apples! We had a few votes for Red Delicious and a handful for Honey Crisp apples, but those Marvels love their sour apples!

Stay tuned for the next installment, in which I'll review our pumpkin study and our PARTY!!

QUILTS!

So sorry for the long delay in posts, but we Moore Marvels have been VERY busy as of late! This past week we learned about quilts in a variety of ways. We read Tomie de Paola's book "A Quilt Story" and also a non-fiction text about how quilts are made. We then experimented in making paper quilt designs (using a grid and paper squares and triangles) and even had our resident quilt expert, Kelly T (JT's mom) come and do 9-patch quilt blocks with the students. The results were beautiful (and can be seen in the picture above). KT also brought some of her beautiful homemade quilts for the children to enjoy. We looked at the quilts, spread them out on the floor and played games on the quilts, and a few of us even rolled around a bit whilst wrapped up in the quilts.


After all this preparation we then went to see the Gee's Bend Quilts on exhibit at the Austin Museum of Art downtown. We got to ride the bus (an adventure in itself) and then see many beautiful quilts and even a few sculptures and paintings. When a museum assistant sat with us for a few minutes after our tour she asked a few questions about a quilt hanging on the wall behind her. When she asked what the students noticed about the two pieces behind her JG piped up, "THAT QUILT IS ASSYMETRICAL!" to which the museum assistant said, "We have to put that in our docent newsletter... a kindergartener remembering the word 'assymetrical'!"


After viewing the quilts we had the opportunity to do a little artwork ourselves in the kid-friendly art room. You may have already seen the masterpieces many made with graph squares and colorful architect's tape. When we got back to the classroom the students all said the art room was their favorite part! With a creative group like this I think we can all see why... Great job, Marvels!

Lucky Letters!

Ssss-ock, ssss-un, ssss-ushi. These are just a few of the words that our friends thought of in reference to our lucky letter this week, the letter "S". You may remember Sesame Street credits with children exclaiming, "Today Sesame Street was brought to you by the letter S. . .." Well, we do a similar thing in our class except we call it our lucky letter of the week. We sing songs, say rhymes, draw pictures, practice writing, and even paint things that begin with the lucky letter. We also make a book of our drawings and then begin sending those books home. Some of you may have already seen and read "Our Mm Book" and "Our Rr Book" and even a book of our favorite colors book.

Today we drew our Ss pictures for the latest book to be published by our class. After they draw their pictures they write the letter "s" for each picture and then share their picture with me. Together we decide if they would like to sound out the word, or copy the word from the picture words on the board, or have me write the word (sometimes in Kindergarten we share the pen between teacher and student). Students also used sss-ponges to paint seashells, stars, swirls, squares, snakes, and other "s" words. These creations were incredible (I'll send them home soon!).

In math we are practicing counting things and in using pattern blocks and color tiles to make designs. We also are practicing days of the week, and counting the number of days in each month and also the number of days we've been in school (23). Ask your child to say the S-E-P-T-E-M-B-E-R rhyme for you. And what do you know, it's another "S" word! Those things are everywhere!

Next week holds a whole new slew of activities and we'll be reviewing our letters for the last 3 weeks: M, R, and S. May you all have a sss-mashing SSSS-aturday and SSSS-unday!

Important September Dates

Just a reminder about some of the important dates this September:

September 14 -- Mills Directory Envelopes due (call or email if you need another one!)

September 15 -- Library (Have library books back by this date)

September 22 -- Picture Day (Tuesday Folders will have details)

September 29 -- Library (Have books back by this date)

As always, call or email if you have questions! :)

Goldfish, & Guppies, & Frogs, Oh My!

"It's on the LOG, IT'S ON THE LOG!!!" exclaimed H.P. dashing about the room hands waving. The other children excitedly zoomed to the terrarium to see our new tree frog nestled comfortably inside the little log. This is important, you see, because we've been singing a song about a log and a frog. "On a log, Mister Frog, sang his song the whole day long: Glump, Glump, Glump, Glump." While our frog doesn't sing (he's particularly quiet), we sing a LOT and the frog is just one of our musical topics. The little hopper in our classroom is a White's Tree Frog and we have him visiting us for the next two weeks.

But the frog isn't the only creature in our class right now. We've also been studying goldfish and guppies. We've observed both types of fish and discussed the parts of the fish -- eyes, fins, scales, tail, mouth, gills. One student, M.T., even reminded us that the top fin is called the dorsal fin. We've talked about the different sizes of the two types of fish, watched them swim, and even painted pictures of them.

Amidst all the excitement over the various creatures in room 106 we've also been working hard to practice our letters and numbers. Last week "Mm" was the featured letter -- we practiced writing it, named things that started with it, and even made a new class book, "Our Mm Book" to send home with different students each night. This week we studied "Rr" and created a book about things that begin with "r". We also read books including, "Mary Wore her Red Dress" (based on a folksong), and "Only Six More Days" by Marisabina Russo.

In math we've been counting fish, counting days of the week, talking about the calendar, and exploring with interlocking cubes. On the first day of the week little hands got tired and some friends were frustrated, "I can't make what I want to make..." The cubes have little holes on five sides and a connector on the remaining side. They do require some hand strength and determination to fit together, and sometimes they can be hard to pull apart. But each day the students worked a little more with the cubes and by Friday were making all kinds of spaceships, people, color patterns, and candy canes ("This one costs ten dollars" said O.H. to which N.B. replied, "Well, mine's 25 cents." ...Price wars in kindergarten... but I still bought both!). During this exploration they are having fun, but also working on important skills such as strengthening fine motor skills, improving problem solving strategies, and honing spatial awareness. Later in the year we will make patterns they have to visualize and copy, but for now it's all about exploring.

So with the frog, goldfish, guppies, letters, numbers, playground, painting, snacks, resting, singing, centers, computer labbing and such we have been very busy this week. So rest up, Moore's Marvels, because we have a whole new slew of activities and fun again next week. Rock on!!

Welcome!

Welcome to the Moore Marvels blog! Here you will find a bevy of juicy tidbits including important dates, listings of current class themes and topics, book recommendations, homework reminders, links to cool websites, and even memorable quotes from your kids! And because it is a blog, you can leave your comments as well and share your ideas. For the privacy of you and your children I will not be putting names on this blog, and any pictures will be uploaded only after I've received from you a signed district photo permission slip (sent home in the Tuesday Folder September 12).

As always, if you have school business to discuss please use my school email address and phone number rather than this blog. But if you want to share ideas with the class, by all means, blog away!

So happy reading & happy writing to all of Moore's Marvels!