Congratulations!

We would like to extend our congratulations to the Carlisle family.  They had a brand new baby boy added to their family this morning named Oswald.

Letting Kindergarteners be Kindergarteners

Happy Thanksgiving

Today's Experiment

The children decided to try balancing different items in the classroom on their heads.  They decided that hard cover books were the easiest.  Then they decided they would try to move and keep the book on their head.  Then soft cover books became more popular!

Art Adventure

Our first round of Art Adventure lessons has begun.  This is a wonderful opportunity our students have thanks to come very dedicated adults who go to the Minneapolis Institute of Art to learn and study about the pieces being presented.

The children are looking at a picture of a ceremonial drum used many years ago.

Writers Share

Writing in the classroom has started very early this year!!! 

 

Madden sharing a story about Halloween

As students write stories, they have to learn or reinforce their understanding of letter sounds and how they go together and make words.  Many children find their way to reading through their writing.  I was so excited they were interested in sharing their writing! 

 

Harlow sharing a story about friends

Each child has a day of the week when they can share something they wrote or a favorite book they have practiced. 

                                                      Cameron sharing a favorite book

At this point most of them are sharing their writing as they are not as confident with books.  That tends to change over the year. 

Christmas Idea??

If you would like to get your child a shirt or sweatshirt that has Discovery Elementary stitched on it, there is an opportunity to do that between now and November 26th.  This specialization is being offered by J&J Athletics.  Click on TeamStores and then on Discovery Elementary!

Discovery does not receive any portion of these sales.

http://www.jjathletics.com/team-stores/

Pumpkin Math

We used our 15 pumpkins to count and also to measure.  The children started by putting the pumpkins into order from smallest to biggest and soon realized that the different pumpkin shapes made it a challenge!  So then they decided to order them from shortest to tallest.  Then they decided to do skinniest to fattest.

Today students predicted which pumpkins were the heaviest and then we weighed them.  There were some surprises!

The pumpkins will be moving on to Ms. Grams' class for a few days so they can do pumpkin math, too!

Our 15 pumpkins

Pumpkins in the Circle Area

We are ready to organize!

Pumpkins from shortest to tallest.

Pumpkins from skinniest to fattest.

Pumpkins from heaviest to lightest.  The heaviest pumpkin was 13 lbs.  The lightest was 1/4 lb.

Fun Raiser

This year the Student Representatives at Discovery are introducing dress up days as "Fun Raiser Days".  The first such day is Nov 14th.   Students are asked to wear sports related clothing:  a sport jersey, uniform, etc. They are also asked to bring in a "noisy" donation of coins.  The representatives will collect the money over the school year and it will be used for the school.  The money may be used for playground balls, homeroom books or other ideas that the children decide.

Boots and Mittens and Hats, OH MY!

Mother nature certainly sprang winter on us without much warning!  Some things to know for the snowy season...

The children go outside every day unless the temp/windchill is dangerous.  In order to play while they are out they need to have the 5 basic things:

1.  boots
2.  snow pants
3.  hat
4.  mittens
5.  jacket

Would you please make sure your child can manage each of these items independently.  Sometimes zippers on coats need to be replaced.  If the boots are too hard to get on or off or having gloves instead of mittens is frustrating, it really gets difficult to get all 21 children ready to go outside.  It can also make getting on the home bus on time a bit stressful.

All the children can be successful and independent with their winter gear!  They have already grown up so much since the start of the school year.  I am sure you are as proud of them as I am!!

Pumpkins!

Thank you to Claire's and Madden's family for some wonderful pumpkins we can use for our pumpkin study this month.  We will talk about how bees are important to the life cycle of pumpkins.  We will sort them by color and size.  We will measure circumferences and weigh the pumpkins.  In the end, we will cut them up and harvest the seeds.  Some will be planted.  Some will be cooked and eaten!  We will keep you posted on all our activities.  Thank you again for your donations!!!

New Toys

I rotate the toys available for free-choice time.  This week I put out the Lincoln Logs and Unifix Cubes.  Many of the children did not know what the Lincoln Logs were!  But they needed no help figuring out what to do with either new toy!

Lincoln Logs

Click here to see

Unifix Cubes

CONTRIBUTE!

This month's 5C word is CONTRIBUTE.  This one is a little tougher for Kindies to understand.  As they raise their hands to share ideas or teach another student how to tie their shoes, we talk about how they CONTRIBUTE to the class.  We will keep working on it all month.

Today my Town Square groups tried to CONTRIBUTE by making posters that might help explain.  They will finish them tomorrow.  I love seeing all ages working together.  They each CONTRIBUTE their own unique talents and understanding!

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins!

Everything is coming up pumpkins!  We are going to be looking at harvest, size, seeds, stories and all things pumpkins.  It gives us a great way to use real math and literacy skills as we go through the harvest season
.

I am hoping that a few of you would be willing 

to donate a small pumpkin 

for our class to weigh, measure, etc.  In the end we even cook the seeds!

Thank you for considering!