Preparing for Pow Wow

We have been busy busy busy preparing for Friday's Pow Wow celebration! We have learned about the Hopi Indians, made our own Hopi costumes, and made Kachina Dolls! Thank you to everyone who has sent in items and those who came in to help us! We hope that everyone will be able to attend our Pow Wow this Friday to help us celebrate the completion of our integrated unit on Native Americans. See you at our Make-and-Take Night tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. in our classroom!

This week's homework is based on the book Knots On A Counting Rope by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault. You can listen to the story read online at http://storylineonline.net/index2.html. Enjoy!

Literary Parade and Fall Centers

Enjoy the pictures from our exciting day! Thank you to everyone who helped make this day so much fun!

Native American Unit

It is a Kindergarten tradition at Chets Creek for each class to study and research different Native American tribes through an integrated unit on Native Americans. Our class will be the Hopi tribe. This week we will begin this integrated unit where we will learn all about our Native American Tribe. On Friday, November 21st, we will conclude our unit by participating in a Native American Pow Wow celebration and various centers. The homework for this coming week is to research the Hopi tribe. The following are great sites to check out:

Searchme

View in searchme: full lite

To learn more about the Southwestern Indians, check out this charity site that helps real-life Native Americans, such as the Hopi tribe, with basic life needs:

https://webmail.duvalschools.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.nrcprograms.org/site/PageServer?pagename=cin_index

Our First Field Trip

After weeks of anticipation, the big day finally arrived: FIELD TRIP DAY!! We started the day at the Metro Park Kids Campus, where we played and ate lunch. We then headed to the Florida Theatre to see one of our favorite "star" books: Harry the Dirty Dog! It was amusing during the show when the students heard one of our vocabulary words, "furiously," and immediately almost all 36 thumbs shot up in the air! The students really get into their vocabulary! Thank you to all the parents who chaperoned! The day was flawless and so much fun! Enjoy the pictures from our special day!

My Hero

One of our "Star" book vocabulary words for Little Red Riding Hood was "hero." The hunter was a "hero" at the end of the story because he saved Little Red Riding Hood and her granny from the wolf. The students were asked to draw a picture of their hero. It was interesting to see their perspective of a hero:

Sydni said her heroes are her parents!


Mia said her heroes are the people in the Army and Navy!


Markis said his hero was his dad because he is in the Army!


Emma said that her hero was her daddy because he is a firefighter and he saves people!

Ask your child who their hero is!

Our Shining Stars

Today our class was video streamed live to the Shultz Center, which is where all of the county's professional development takes place! The Literacy 101 class, which is a course that gives teachers more background in Reader's and Writer's Workshops, dropped in to watch the stars in our classroom. They were able to see the transitions students make from Reader's Workshop share time into our Writer's Workshop mini-lesson. We already know how brilliant our little stars are, but today they showed the world how hard they have been working. While Miss Lewis and Miss Thomson debriefed with the Literacy 101 class, students were able to show some of the Literacy and Math Coaches from our school their wonderful small moment writing. Ask your little writer what they wrote about and what strategies they used!

LOLA ON THE LOOSE!

Many of you may have heard about our class pet, Lola the hamster. Well, on Monday during Literacy Stations, a student informed us that Lola's cage door was open and she was not in her cage. We discretely checked the cage and realized he was right, she was GONE! We had cleaned her cage on Friday after school and must have forgotten to lock the cage door. We frantically searched the classroom while the students were at lunch, but Lola was no where to be found! After still not finding her on Tuesday, we started to think that she may have been gone for good. As the students were returning to their seats during Skills Block, a student shouted, "THERES A MOUSE IN OUR CLASSROOM!" Of course, we were delighted to realize that it was just Lola running into the math manipulatives! Lola is now safe and sound back in her home!