Gingerbread Project

In your child's Wednesday folder you will receive a paper gingerbread boy (or girl).  Please have fun decorating it with your kindergartner, and return to school the week of December 1st.  This should be a fun project for your family over the Thanksgiving break!

We Love Pumpkin Pie!

Today we used our 5 senses to investigate pumpkin pie.  We made a Popplet of our observations.  We ate pumpkin pie and graphed if we liked it or not.  We LOVE pumpkin pie!

Pumpkin pie #5senses. Yummy! pic.twitter.com/qw9VADYuR9
— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) November 21, 2014

Who Will Carve the Turkey This Thanksgiving? Book in iBooks

We used the Book Creator and Draw & Tell apps to create another book that students can read in iBooks.  This book was inspired by "Who Will Carve the Turkey This Thanksgiving?" by Jerry Pallotta and David Biedrzycki.  Parents, you received an email with an attachment.  To read the book, download the attachment on a device that supports iBooks.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Food Drive

Thanks to everyone who contributed food for our Food Drive!  We collected 36 items for the Food Drive.  Today we sorted them by their 3-D shape and added together all of the pieces of food we collected.  We collected a lot of cylinders!

New Centers

Playing and learning at two new centers, the QR code center (students scan a code and see a picture, then they have to find the letter that the picture begins with and color it on their recording sheet.  Great activity from The Kindergarten Smorgasboard blog.)  We also have been lucky enough to get two Osmo devices through grant funding.  This is an awesome tool for hands-on play and learning with the iPad!  Wish I would have gotten a picture of their faces the first time we used ... priceless!

Making Butter!

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Some Bread & Butter Tweets

We baked bread and made butter like the #pilgrims. I ate the butter off the stick! Jacob

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) November 18, 2014

We baked bread and made butter like the #pilgrims. I had fun hearing the marble and tasting the bread it was so good! Trenton

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) November 18, 2014

We baked bread and made butter like the #pilgrims. We used the snow to help make our butter more solid. Reese

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) November 18, 2014

Bread & Butter

We baked bread and made butter like the #pilgrims. Here are our observations while we watched our bread rise. pic.twitter.com/NuJTZn2RA3

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) November 18, 2014

Billings School District 2 Educator for a Day program sheds light on new projects | KTVQ.com | Q2 | Billings, Montana

Billings School District 2 Educator for a Day program sheds light on new projects | KTVQ.com | Q2 | Billings, Montana



KTVQ2 spent some time in our classroom this morning while the kids were blogging about Thanksgiving!

$1 Hat Day to Support Riverside Middle School Jazz Band

This Friday, November 21st, bring $1 to school and kids can wear their favorite hat throughout the day.  Donations will support the Riverside Middle School Jazz Band travel to Helena to play for the governor at the State Capitol!  What an exciting opportunity!

Roll & Color

Today we are using the Dice Roll app to Roll & Color this pilgrim.

Friendship Feast

Getting ready for our #friendshipfeast next week! Here is the menu: pic.twitter.com/KYzA2TT0nA

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) November 18, 2014

Student of the Month

#studentofthemonth pic.twitter.com/1qpCaB43Pg

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) November 18, 2014

Thankful Week

Thanks to the parents who joined us for Thankful Week lunch today!  After making a Padlet of our favorite iPad apps, we put together a brochure of our Top 5 and "taught" our parents how to use those apps today.  We also read to them the Owl Facts book we made together in Book Creator and uploaded into iBooks.  It was a fun and busy morning!

3D Shapes

We are busy learning about 3D shapes.  We learned this fun song from Harry's Kindergarten, then completed a chart describing 3D shapes. 



We practiced identifying objects in our classroom that are 3D shapes on a "shape hunt".  We took pictures of the shapes we found and posted onto our Kidblogs.

Star of the Week

#staroftheweek pic.twitter.com/r398Pbmfyq

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) November 17, 2014

Donors Choose Project: Halfway There!

Halfway there! @DonorsChoose http://t.co/oOSxm9K6KD

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) November 16, 2014

App Smash: Book Creator and Draw & Tell

On Friday, we used the Book Creator app to make a class eBook that can be read on each of our iPads in iBooks.  The book we made is called Owl Facts.  After learning about owls, the students each wrote a fact that they learned.  I typed these facts into the Book Creator app.  The students each illustrated their fact using the Draw & Tell app, then saved their illustration to their camera roll.  I was then able to import the illustrations from Google Drive and add them to our book in the Book Creator app.  The students then recorded their sentences.  I saved the book in Google Drive, and then was able to open the book in iBooks on each of our iPads.  (Whew!)  Sounds like a lot of work, but after the sentences were written, we were able to finish this project in about 40 minutes.   Here is a screen shot of two of the pages.

Parents, I will send you an email with the book attached.  To download the book, you will need to open on a device that supports iBooks (for example, I opened the email on my phone, clicked the attachment and "open in iBooks" and the book is now imported onto my phone).

4th Grade Recycling

Help the 4th graders by bringing cans to be recycled on Fridays!  This program runs until April.  Thanks for your help!

Have You Ever Seen a Real Owl?

More of us have seen a real #owl than have not. pic.twitter.com/92jKse032O

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) November 13, 2014

PTA Volunteers Needed

PTA will be doing "Penguin Patch" shopping on December 4th.  Volunteers are needed.  Please contact me or BeartoothPTA@gmail.com if you're available.  Also, PTA is still in need of a secretary!  Thank you!

Owl Facts and Craft

After learning owl facts, we wrote what we learned and then made this cute owl craft by Amy Lemons.

Learning about Owls & Homes

This week we are learning about homes in our Lead 21 curriculum, and investigating owls for science.  We are using a great unit from Deanna Jump to learn about owls.  Today, we read a story with owl facts, and then created a Popplet of the facts.   Tomorrow we will make an owl craft project, and each student will choose 1 or 2 facts that he has learned about owls and will write those facts.

We are also reading stories and learning about homes.  Today we Tweeted @MrsPiltzK what we learned about homes.  The kids used the Draw & Tell app to draw and write about homes, and then we posted on our Kidblog.  Most students got a chance to publish these.

Veteran's Day - November 11th

Thank you, #veterans! #VeteransDay pic.twitter.com/viW0T5d4oQ

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) November 10, 2014

Star of the Week

#staroftheweek pic.twitter.com/ITgBW0CjQr

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) November 10, 2014

Donors Choose Project

Hi Friends, I want to make sure my students have the materials they need to succeed, so I just created a request for my classroom at DonorsChoose.org:Comfy Space for Creative Learners Give to my classroom by November 16, 2014 and your donation will be doubled thanks to DonorsChoose.org. Just enter the code SPARK on the payment page and you'll be matched dollar for dollar (up to $100). If you chip in to help my students, you'll get awesome photos and our heartfelt thanks. Thanks so much, Traci P.S. If you know anyone who may want to help my classroom, please pass this along!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar play at Alberta Bair Theatre

Just saw The Very Hungry Caterpillar @MermaidTheatre @AlbertaBair! I liked when the butterfly turned beautiful & my mom was there. Reese

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) November 7, 2014

Just saw The Very Hungry Caterpillar @MermaidTheatre @AlbertaBair! I liked when the caterpillar ate through the apple. Brody

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) November 7, 2014

Just saw The Very Hungry Caterpillar @MermaidTheatre @AlbertaBair! I liked the cloud when the baby cloud turned into an airplane. Coen

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) November 7, 2014

Show is about to start! #fieldtrip #ABT pic.twitter.com/e4XXoGU9sz

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) November 7, 2014

Geoboard App

Today we used a FREE Geoboard App to explore making different shapes.  The kids practiced making the shapes, then taking screenshots and uploading the shapes they made onto their Kidblogs. 

Apps on our iPads

Please click the image below to see a list of apps that are on our class iPads.

Author Visit

Today we were lucky to have Susan W. Lyons visit our class.  Susan wrote and illustrated the story Sea Dogs (and a Cat).  She shared the first two chapters with our class, and then answered questions about the story, the characters, the illustrations, and the process of publishing a book.  It was very fun to visit with her!

Your kids have cards from Susan with her name and information if you'd like to order a copy of the book.  You can email her, or find the book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.