Literary Character Parade

Dressing up is so much fun! I love that our school has students dress as their favorite book character. Every student had a costume and got to participate in the parade around the first floor of the school. Parents and other students clapped and cheered as we walked through. Later that evening our school hosted its annual Fall Carnival. I saw many faces trick or treating through the hallways at night! A HUGE thanks to Mariah's mom for organizing volunteers for our tattoo booth. Thank you to all of our wonderful volunteers that night. I appreciate the time you donated for helping with our class booth. Many thanks!

Our first field trip!

Our first field trip to Diamond D Ranch was great! In my ten years of teaching, I have never been to the Diamond D Ranch. I think I enjoyed it as much as the kids did! We were so fortunate to have wonderful parents help chaperone this trip! Students got to ride horses, learn about different animals, ride a little ferris wheel, jump in a bounce house, go on a hay ride, feed baby goats, feed catfish, have a picnic lunch, go on a nature trail, and even more! We have an excellent time! In trying to decide how to post the many, many pictures we received from parents as well as my camera, Mrs. Timmons, and Mrs. Cordoza, I am working on setting up a photo site in which any parent can log in with a username and password and then view and order any pictures they want. (Unfortunately putting a ton of pictures on a slideshow takes a long time and you aren't able to print the pictures out if you want). If you have any other suggestions for fielding this "great problem to have" :) please let me know! Take a look at their faces and you'll see how much they enjoyed this wonderful and educational field trip! Thanks again to our chaperones: Abby's mom, Mariah's mom, Charlotte's dad, Emma's dad, and Parker's mom!

Literary Pumpkin Project

I got a little behind in updating the blog because we have been having so much fun in our class! We had the awesome opportunity of choosing the book The Three Billy Goats Gruff and turning 3 pumpkins and a gourd into the characters. I love these types of projects because it allows kids to work together and really allows their creativity to shine through! Thankfully we also had amazing volunteers who helped the students create a plan for what materials they wanted to use to decorate and make the characters. Each group of students had completely different ideas. They all worked together and had to compromise a little here and there. It was a great project and the students were super proud of the end product! Pictures of the final pumpkins to come in just a little bit (I have them on my other camera!!)

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Our very sweet assistant, Mrs. Cordoza worked very hard to make adorable puppet pieces for the story The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We read the book last week as part of the campaign to have the most Kindergarten classes reading the same book on the same day. Students LOVED the reading and retelling of this book and were able to make their own flap books to take home.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar from dayle timmons on Vimeo.

Skills Centers

Students participate in Skills Centers as part of our Literacy Block. This time allows students to practice applying the skills that they are learning each day. It is also a great time for myself and Mrs. Timmons to assess the students to see if they are mastering the skills and ready to move on to new skills!

Partner Reading

This week students learned the basics of "Partner Reading." Students were assigned a partner and were allowed to choose a quiet spot around the room that they would like to sit at together. We reviewed the rules of Partner Reading: Each student chooses one book to bring down to the floor. You have to decide which book you are going to read first. Take turns retelling or reading the story. Use nice, quiet voices. Sit knee to knee, shoulder to shoulder. As the year progresses, students will learn other strategies such as questions to ask their partner about their book or sharing predictions about a book they haven't read yet. Ask your child who his/her reading partner is and what books they read together.