What a fun week of learning! We began our week with the Robinson Halloween Parade and Classroom Parties. Then we had Imagination Station come do some fun activities to promote dental hygiene. We ended our week early to make time for Parent-Teacher Conferences. Thank you to all those parents who came! Imagination Station comes every Wednesday to do a hands on, literacy based Science lesson with the students. Stay tuned for next week's blog!
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I am so happy to be back with my Kindergarten students! Spending the last 5 weeks with 6th, 7th, and 8th graders was quite an adventure. They actually aren't much different than 5 year olds, besides size. I now know 90 more smiling faces and have ample volunteers who are willing to be a Buddy for my Kindergarteners. This first week back was a review of my procedures and a jump right into learning. Mrs. Omey did a wonderful job with over 30 kids. It has been a relatively smooth transition. For Reading we read My Five Senses by Aliki. We spent the week learning about our senses in Science as part of cross-curricular learning. We added newspaper clippings to our interactive word wall. Students cut out pictures, placed it on the wall and had to explain their thinking. We will be adding tangible objects this week. Center work involves "Must-Do's" Students complete an assignment that goes with the lesson. Then once their work has been approved they may go to a "free choice" center. In the slideshow, I added the fun stuff!! I gave the students Halloween activities to get us in the spirit. Also included is the Robinson Trunk or Treat event. My theme was Día de los Muertos, Day of the Dead. Paxton showed off the cool trophy all of us were competing for. My trunk didn't win but it was a ton of fun!!
I am so excited to begin another fantastic school year with a new batch of little learners! I will update this blog all school year and invite parents to get a snapshot into all the learning and fun we do in room 154. If you'd like to see your child in this blog, please make sure to sign and return the TPS district approved consent form I sent home specifically written for this site. The 1st blog for the 2016-2017 school year will be posted next Friday, 9/2/16. For now, please check out my archived blogs.
This blog will cover that past few weeks of learning. We finished learning about our 5 senses, Day and Night and shadows science lessons. I also added pics of some of the wonderful programs that come to our school. Highlighted in this blog are the Toledo Opera and Imagination Station. Students have Science Vocabulary Journals. We add drawings, pictures, and tape or glue in artifacts to help students better understand science. I added notes to help children select artifacts if needed. They did a great job picking objects and explaining their thinking. Dylan described his feather using the sense of sight and touch. He decided to add the feather in his Science Vocabulary Journal on the hand for the sense of touch. He described it as being soft. Students get creative during free time. Rodney offered bus service to his friends, Skyler and Journey. Notice the creative use of pencil boxes for the gas pedal and a paper circle for the steering wheel. Next stop...Disney! Mrs. Madanski engages the students in a cool demonstration for her lesson on Day and Night. She used a lamp as a model of the sun to illustrate how it can be morning in Toledo but night time in another part of the world. Small group math intervention. This group was working on ordering numbers and showing sets. Imagination Station comes to our school every Wednesday for 30-45 minutes to do literature and hands on science based activities with our Kindergarteners. Skyler listened to a funny story about spiders and then made her own spider using her thumbprint. Lots of spiders! Each student had to make sure their spider had 8 legs. The Toledo Opera performed the Barber of Seville for the entire school. This was such a great experience for our students! It was funny and easy for the kids to follow! After the performance, the director and actors took time to answer the many questions of our students about the performance. Later in the week, the students made their own observations and predictions of the movement of the sun. Here they observed where the morning sun was located in the sky using a tree as an anchor. We went outside at 10, 12:10, and 2:30 for 2 days and recorded the sun's position. Mrs. Madanski then recorded the class results on a class recording sheet and we discussed our findings. ![]() Rodney works on his Science Vocabulary journal. He was cutting and pasting items from the newspaper that he could "see." Rodney was showing another student that he had 2 glue sticks with no caps-not about to throw them:) Hard at work!
I apologize for the delay in posting, technical difficulties. After some troubleshooting, I'm back in action. These photos are of our Monarch Release STEAM Day and classroom data collection. Skyler feeds a butterfly using a Q-Tip dipped in Gateraid. Kei'Chon was afraid of the butterfly. I helped him open the parafin envelope to release the Monarch. Kamryn and AaRon carefully and patiently waited for the Monarch to fly away. Afterwards, kids in K-2 were given icecream treats. Back in the classroom, we began our Wildcat Data Binders. We collect and graph monthly weather data, student birthdays, lost teeth, and individual student daily attendance. Here, I'm teaching students how to graph. Dylan completed his graph to Mrs. Hamilton's satisfaction and could prove which weather days were greatest and which were the least. Putting our data sheets in order. All done for September!
We have exciting news! Our caterpillars have turned into butterflies!! The students were very excited to journal their findings in Science Lab. I also included some pics of songs and Math activities. On a separate but equally important note, our TFT (Toledo Federation of Teachers) Union has agreed to "Work to the Rule." This means teachers will only do school work within the school day. Unfortunately, the bulk of what I do is on my own time. This blog has only been done after school and on weekends. I love doing it! However, I will try to complete the blog during the school day in order to still offer it for parents to see. However, may not be able to post weekly or the content may be less. So much to share this week! Students harvested some delicious veggies from our Robinson Community Garden, showed they are learning school procedures, and worked hard on learning goals. I took a ton of pics this week too! ![]() In Science Lab, students watched a video of The Very Hungry Caterpillar read aloud by Eric Carle. Students then explained parts of the story that were fiction (i.e., the caterpillar ate through all that human food) and retold those parts using their science learning of caterpillars (I.e., monarch caterpillars only eat milkweed)! We enjoyed a Labor Day Holiday weekend to start our 4 day week. We continued observations on our monarch caterpillars in Science Lab with Mrs. Madanski. We also continued to focus on classroom procedures, working in centers, working cooperatively, name practice, and coloring and cutting skills. Welcome to the 2015-2016 school year at Robinson Academy! I'm so excited to teach my newest batch of little minds. For my first blog, I included some before and after photos of setting up our room, Reading activities, Math Tubbing, Free Choice Center activities, and photos of students having fun! I welcome all comments so please share your thoughts. ![]() After reading the story, we talked and recorded our first day feelings. The next day, we used this chart to make a class book. The pic above only shows part of our class. We had to take a little break before finishing. I snapped a quick shot of our in-progress work as students got ready for recess. We have 17 students growing every day! ![]() We discussed ways to work cooperatively in centers. I was unhappy about my blue marker running dry and not having another blue one handy. I didn't throw this one away and start over though. I modeled for the students that in Kindergarten oftentimes our work is not perfect. At Robinson Academy we are mindful of our earth's resources as well. Two- toned chart it is! Student photos are posted with written permission from parents. If you have enjoyed this blog and would like to see your child included in future weekly posts, please sign and return the permission slip sent home in your child's folder or you can request another copy.
Share your thoughts in the comment box:) We have done a ton of hands on learning over these past 2 weeks. The focus of this blog is Science learning that took place in the STEM Lab. These lessons were taught by Mrs. Madanski. We had an eye safety program called Wise About Eyes. Students learned about parts and function of the eye. They also saw a preserved cow eye. Students experimented on small gel filled globes that represented the eye and ways it can be easily damaged or hurt. They each had 2 globes in a dish. The first globe they were asked to gently squeeze. It didn't take too much force to pop/break that globe. In this photo, students added a small amount of sand to their globe and discussed their observations. Then students learned about certain eye diseases. Goggles were used to represent vision with each eye disease. Mrs. Julie Campbell visited our Science support teacher and offered to teach our students about the benefits of wetlands in reducing pollution in our water supply. She used this Enviroscape to demonstrate rain runoff. Students collected relatively clear run off in this pic. But then she added common pollutants such as oil (brown gel), fertilizer (green gel) and litter (oatmeal). Students made rain once again and gathered a different result! Laila observed the runoff was very green from the fertilizer. She observed the wetlands couldn't clean all the pollution. She also asked if this was bad because "Don't we get some of the water that we drink from here?" Can you see the connections our littlest scientists can make? After discussing all the homes, farms, and businesses that inhabit the Enviroscape, students each had turns providing "rain" for the community. Moving on to last week...We learned about The Three Sisters. This was the Native American way to plant corn, squash, and beans so that all would thrive. Students made a representation of the three sisters. They used a block of clay for soil, a stick for corn, a string for beans, and chenille stick for squash. Then the following session, they were able to plant all three plant seeds in our Robinson Community Garden. We are so excited for our garden to grow! We can harvest next school year when they are First Graders!! |
AuthorMrs. Rebecca Hamilton has been a member of the Robinson Wildcat Family for 5 years and TPS teacher for 17 years. Archives
August 2016
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