Carnival Tonight!

Don't forget the Winter Carnival is tonight, 6:00-8:00pm.  A super fun time and great way to help Beartooth teachers earn money for their classes.  Thank you, PTA and Becky Middendorf, for all of your hard work on this fun event.  And a HUGE thank you to Miss Heather for all of her hard work putting together our Cosmic Bowling booth!  Tickets are 5/$1 after school and 4/$1 at the carnival. 

Happy Football Day!

We kicked off the day with a sight word football page! 

Reading Royalty

We will begin awarding a Reading King and Reading Queen each week, based on how many minutes they read at home using Raz-Kids.  The kids will need to logon and read from home.  I receive a report each Monday, and from that report I will determine who that week's Reading Royalty will be!  I will also give points to anyone who reads from home using Raz-Kids!  If you need help remembering how to login, let me know!

How to Wake a Groundhog?

The kindergartners had some great ideas for waking up a groundhog!  We used the writing paper from The First Grade Parade's blog, then illustrated using Draw & Tell and posted to our Kidblog.  Check out Kidblog to see more!

Bringing Spring--Peep's Groundhog Day episode

The kindergartners enjoyed watching this video about shadows and groundhogs!

Bringing Spring--Peep's Groundhog Day episode

Will the Groundhog See His Shadow?

Measurement

Using cubes to measure objects in the room. pic.twitter.com/R47gfFVtqP
— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) January 28, 2015

App Smash!

Today we completed a fun project using two new apps and an old favorite.  :)  I wanted the kids to make predictions about whether or not the groundhog will see his shadow on Groundhog Day.  I decided to have them record their predictions in a photo collage using the Pic Collage app.  However, I didn't want them to have to spend too much time finding or making a picture of a groundhog, so I uploaded a stock photo of a groundhog into a shared folder using the Showbie app.  The kids were able to download the photo onto their camera rolls, then insert into their photo collage.  They added stickers (a sun or clouds) and words to show their predictions.  The students posted their finished projects onto their Kidblog.  Fun!

Winter Carnival

The Winter Carnival is this Friday from 6-8pm.  Tickets are available for purchase before and after school, and the evening of the carnival.  This is always a very fun family event.  Miss Heather has a fun Cosmic Bowling booth planned for our class, along with Miss Ash's first grade.  Please stop by our booth for some fun and to help us raise money for our classrooms and students!

Donations are still needed for some of the booths.  If you can supply any of the following, please let me know: cakes, cupcakes, stuffed animals and books.  Thanks!

Hundredth Day Superheroes!

I found this awesome idea on Mrs. Miner's blog about making 100th Day Superhero capes!  I love it.  Your child will be bringing home a plastic "cape" and note explaining that you need to decorate it with 100 things and bring it back to school by the 100th day, which is February 3rd.  The superheroes will wear their capes all day, as we do fun 100th day activities! I hope this will be a fun counting activity to do at home.  Tip: it is easier to make 100 if you create 10 groups of 10!

Football Day - January 30th

We are having a special Football Day at school on Friday! Kids are encouraged to wear football shirts or jerseys. All of our activities will be football-themed. We will graph our SuperBowl predictions and make a fun craft project. If anyone has a fun idea for a snack they'd like to bring, let me know.

Star of the Week

#staroftheweek pic.twitter.com/3E8DGDE49S

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) January 26, 2015

Letter of the Week - Ll

All About Letters from @LakeshoreLM Practicing letter #Ll pic.twitter.com/nPecSUc1J2

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) January 26, 2015

Books on Kidblog - Weekend "Homework" :)

Over the past couple of days we have been working on making our own books about arctic animals using the Book Creator app.  Today our 3rd grade buddies helped us finish them up.  We made the books into a video so the kids could post on their Kidblogs.  Their "homework" is to logon to Kidblog and show you their books.  You can login using this link.  From the login screen, the kids should select their name and enter their password.  If they don't remember it, email me.  :) It would be awesome if they could show you theirs and look at one of their classmates' books and leave the classmate a comment!

Some of you have created your own accounts.  You can login and comment, if you'd like.  If you haven't created a parent account and would like to, let me know. The code was sent home at parent-teacher conferences, but I can email it to you if you need.  Have a great weekend! 

100th Day of School

We will celebrate our 100th day of kindergarten on Tuesday, February 3rd.  This should be a fun day - please remind students it is not the end of kindergarten.  :) 

Groundhog Cupcakes Supplies Needed

     

On February 2^nd we will be making some groundhog pudding to celebrate Groundhog Day!  If you can provide any of the following, please let me know: 18 chocolate pudding cups, Nilla wafers (the circle cookies, not the rectangular ones), chocolate chips and butterscotch chips.

Playing Alphabet Mystery Box

Today we practiced letters and sounds using the Alphabet Mystery Box game from Lakeshore. The kindergartners absolutely loved this fun game!

Snow Fun Online Learning

This site has a wonderful collection of learning games involving snow, snowmen and snowflakes.

Polar Bears

Using Deanna Jump's awesome unit on arctic animals, we have been studying penguins and polar bears this week.  Yesterday, we made a really cute art project with polar bears.  Today we each wrote a fact or two that we learned about polar bears.  After the kindergartners wrote, I typed up the sentences and we glued them to our art projects.  They turned out cute and the kids did such a great job recalling facts about polar bears!

Spirit Days

January 30-  Favorite Color Day
February 27- Movie Character Day
March 27- Twin Day
April 24- PJ Day
May 29- Crazy Clothes Day
(No makeup or hair dying)

Showing our Work on Kidblog

Today during our Letter of the Day instruction, students were given their normal iPad routine with 5 tasks.  However, I asked them to take screen shots of some of their work, and choose what they wanted to share on Kidblog.  Some of them took pictures of the Dds they made, and some chose to share screenshots of the words they made using the Word Wizard app.  When we moved to math, some of them chose to continue sharing their word by taking screenshots of the BINGOs they were making using Base 10 BINGO.  I am excited to see them curating and sharing their own work!

Star of the Week and Student of the Month

New App - Epic!

Today we used an awesome new app for reading.  It is called Epic!, and it's like Netflix for eBooks.  With a monthly subscription fee (around $5 a month), kids have access to tons of great literature books and informative texts.  Some books can be read to them, others they need to read themselves. They really loved exploring this app today.  I will send home information on purchasing Epic! for your home, if you're interested.  You can find out more on their site www.getepic.com.

Marshmallow Science

#marshmallowscience @poppletny pic.twitter.com/LGeCyxZmw4

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) January 16, 2015

We Do Listen Foundation

This website has lots of great activities, animated books and songs.  The kindergartners were anxious to check it out after Skyping with the author of the Howard B. Wigglebottom books on Wednesday.

Howard B. Wigglebottom Skype

Today we Skyped with the author of the Howard B. Wigglebottom books.  These are wonderful books for learning about being good listeners, good friends and good citizens.  The kids had a great time Skyping and listening to Howard's special song.  They are anxious to check out the activities on the We Do Listen website!

Project Lead the Way - Structure & Function

Brainstorming about #structureandfunction after reading Jack & the Beanstalk. @PLTWorg pic.twitter.com/MgqTXjXIzp

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) January 14, 2015

New App

Today we used the app Base 10 BINGO to practice counting tens and extra ones.  This is a fun game that reinforces a lot of great skills!

How to Make Hot Cocoa

We sequenced the steps for making hot cocoa. pic.twitter.com/3TTz0vkvoR

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) January 12, 2015

Star of the Week

#staroftheweek pic.twitter.com/6B6ljEzn9F
— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) January 12, 2015

Thank You, Donors Choose!

Thank you again to our donors from Donors Choose!  We continue to use and love the new cushions and couch.  It has given students choice and freedom in our classroom.  I love watching them find a quiet little nook to read or work.  And the couch is their new favorite spot in our room!

Our Snowman Glyphs

I found this cute snowman art project at Mrs. Jump's blog.  The kids made their snowmen, and we talked about some different data collected from the glyphs.  The hats showed the kids' favorite colors, the arms showed whether or not they had ever built a snowman, and the buttons show how many people (and animals) live in their houses.

#snowmanglyph 14 people have made a snowman, 2 have not, 1 person made a half. Most of us have made a snowman. @MrsJumpsClass
— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) January 7, 2015

#snowmanglyph 5 like blue, 5 like red, 3 like green and 4 like pink. We like red and blue the most, green the least. @MrsJumpsClass
— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) January 7, 2015

Fun in the Snow!

#snow pic.twitter.com/kGX6Mfrcnd

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) January 7, 2015

Star of the Week

#staroftheweek pic.twitter.com/NhN56SuOdC

— Mrs.Piltz' Kinders (@MrsPiltzK) January 6, 2015