Balloon Party!

This Friday was AWESOME, FUN, FABULOUS because we had a balloon party! The smarties filled up their class pom pom jar to the top! We have a reward system in our class. It works when the whole class is listening, working their best, and attentive, then a handful of pom pom are put into the jar. When the jar is filed with all the pom pom, then we discuss on theme for the classroom party. I take 5 suggestions such as a pirate, super hero, star, etc. party and we then vote to narrow it down to 2 themes. As you can see, the balloon party won! I went to party city to have 24 balloons filled with helium. We all had a talk to not play with the balloon until their parents came to pick them up! At the end of the day we did a science activity of blowing up a balloon with a water bottle, baking soda, and vinegar!

President's Week!

Washington, Lincoln, Obama! In honor of President's Day, we studied about our 1st and 16th president.

George Washington Craft

We talked about George Washington being the first president. The smarties know that presidents lived in the White House. I told them all the president's lived in the White House except Washington because it was being built back then! Using cotton balls, a paper plate, and a dye was all that was needed for the project. Each number on the dye represented creating a part of Washington. Rolling a 1 is making his eyes, 2 is his nose, 3 mouth, 4 wig, 5 hat, and 6 writing his name on the back.

Abraham Lincoln Craft

Honest Abe was the 16th president! I showed the kids a penny and told him his face was on it! He was known for his tall black hat and inside our hat, we wrote some facts about Abe!

Log Cabin Project

Finished Cabin

Valentine's Day

Happy "love" day! (That's what the kiddies call it!) I was super excited to have my first Valentine's Day celebration in kindergarten! Our school had a huge Valentine's Day part for the whole school. So the kids were hyped up with plenty of pizza and sweets!

I found this cute Valentine's Day card online the kids could make their parents. It requires some white paint and getting their hands dirty :) I hope the parents enjoyed these cards!

Here is one of my smarties getting their creativity on in making their V-Day mailboxes! Thank you parents that donated stickers and glue sticks for this project! This project was used by using a giant piece of construction paper and shoe box! It was super easy and such a cute idea!

This is the finished mailboxes!

We also made cookies on Valentine's Day! We all went into the kitchen to mix up the cookie batter. We then rolled them into balls and pushed them into the oven! After the cooled each child was able to frost their cookie and add some decoration on top!

Chinese New Year!

 Gung Hay Fat Choy! I was very excited to teach my kids about Chinese New Year for I am Chinese American. I remembered when I was in kindergarten, we made a Chinese dragon. I wanted to recreate that for my students and we did! I started off by reading Nicks' Chinese New Year. It is about a Chinese American boy who shares the inside scoop of Chinese New Year! Some things consisted of cleaning the house, the color red as being good luck, dim sum, and the Chinese dragon dancing. Throughout the week we made fire crackers, lantern, and a dragon. I also handed out a red envelope with a golden chocolate coin inside! It was a hit!

Fire crackers are used during the Chinese dragon dance to scare away the evil spirits. We recreated the firecrackers with red paper and glitter! Parents donated glitter glue (thanks!) for the kids to decorate on red paper for the fire crackers. I then took empty toilet paper rolls and wrapped their creations around it and hung it by gold string.

The lantern is created with a large piece of construction paper. Fold it in half hot dog style and create lines on the folded part half way. Kids will practice fine motor skills by cutting the lines. Wrap around and attach a paper handle!

Kids painting the lion head red. (cardboard box)

Students decorated the dragon body (made out of a table cloth) with felt shapes they made. 

The completed Chinese dragon! We walked around each classroom with the dragon, lanterns, and firecrackers to start off the year of the snake!

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

100 Days in Kindergarten

We made it to 100 days of school = 100 days smarter!!! WOOOOHOOOOOOO! One of my kids told me at the end of the day that this was the BEST day ever! Here is why...

We made crazy 100 day hats! 10 colorful paper strips with 10 stamps on each! 100 stamps! Finished it off by gluing them on a sentence strip.

Crazy kiddos!

Placed 100 pennies on a 100 chart. We learned that 100 pennies is $1.00

Valentine table making $1.00

I got the idea from Deanna Jump of what we would look like in 100 years! It was fun and super easy to make! Just needed cotton balls, googly eyes, and construction paper!

I love how he made a beard!

We made trail mix of 100 pieces of snack! 10 different snacks were laid on the table and they each had to pick 10 pieces of each. I bough gold fishes, mini marshmallows, Angry Bird graham crackers, pretzels, popcorn, animal crackers, m&ms, and more! Of course we washed our hands before this activity :)

Mini marshmallows were a hit! Kids made mini smores with the graham cracker Angry birds, m&m, and mini marshmallow! Genius!

We entered the classroom in the morning by walking through the "0" in 100! Found this idea on pinterest! The kids loved it!!!

Groundhog Day!

Today we talked about Groundhog day! If the groundhog came out of his hole and saw his shadow, he would be scared and run back into his hole! My kids were able to predict whether tomorrow the groundhog would see his shadow (6 more weeks of winter) or not see his shadow (an early spring). Many of my kids wanted the groundhog to stay out of his hole to play so they decided he wouldn't see his shadow! LOL!

One of my students making her prediction about Groundhog Day!

Onto the fun part! We made groundhog day hats!!! You can find a free upload to this here!

Having fun coloring the groundhog! (Notice she is still wearing her "find" watch from yesterday! LOL)

Great job! No white spots when coloring :D

Happy Groundhog Day!