A Visit to the Queens Botanical Gardens & Our Growing Seeds Museum

 Our class recently took a walking trip to the Queens Botanical Gardens. We have been learning a lot about trees and observing how they change in the Fall. On our walk through the garden, students observed many kinds of deciduous and coniferous trees in the garden. We collected leaves from the ground and observed the many colors and shapes we found. Using these leaves, students create their own Fall bookmarks as a craft.

We have also been continuing our study of seeds in the science center. At the garden we learned about how trees spread their seeds around through cones and pods, and were able to take some seeds back for our "Seeds Museum". We have been finding seeds all around in nature around our school, in our food and inside our pumpkin! What a fun mess!

Fun on the Farm!

Our class had some Fall fun at the Queens Farm Museum! We learned about many different farm animals and how they help people. We saw chickens, cows, pigs and sheep. We even got to feed the goats!

We also learned about how pumpkins grow and got to pick our own pumpkins from a big pumpkin patch. 

Last we went on a fun and very bumpy hayride! You can visit the Queens Farm Museum again with your family soon. Check the website at http://www.queensfarm.org/
for information on the many family activities and programs they have. 

Signs in our World

Our class has been working on exploring the many signs that are in our world. We are learning to read and recognize environmental print through exciting explorations of our classroom, school and neighborhood! We learned about how signs are helpful to people and can help them be safe and follow rules.

 Our class took a neighborhood walk around our school. Using a visual checklist, we marked the signs we noticed along the way. We noticed many "No Parking" signs, crosswalk signs and even signs at the playground.

We also visited the New York Transit Museum and noticed may signs that help people get from one place to another in our city. We noticed subway signs, maps and bus stop signs. We even got to make buses to take home! Next time you are walking in the neighborhood with your child, look out for signs together!

Building Shapes and Exploring Nature in October

This week we have begun our unit on shapes and have been exploring shapes in a variety of ways. Students have been using our many math materials, as well as craft materials to create shapes. We are also working on sharing and explaining how we used our materials. Below, students are using cubes, wikki sticks and Popsicle sticks to make squares.. Look how many different ways we can make squares!! In the light box center, students are using shapes of different colors to create pictures and tell stories with them. We also noticed how some colors mix together to make others. 

 In our Science center this week, many students began bringing in items from nature to share in our "Nature Basket".  We have found acorns, leaves, bean pods and pine cones. The students love touching and exploring these items hands on and can learn so much from them. We learned about all the different places seeds can be found in nature.

In Ms. Kim's music class students have been working on using their singing voices to sing high and low. Here students use a piece of string to represent their voices going high and low. There are so many ways we can use our voices to make music!

Exploring our Playground & More!

The first month of school continues to be all about exploration for our Kindergarten class. 

First stop: The playground at our school! Students have been observing and drawing the different kinds of playground equipment we have and discussing what we can do on this equipment. We looked at our jungle gym, monkey bars, walked over a bridge, and practiced safety on the slides.

 We have been exploring our Five Senses in Science class. Students were able to experience their senses in hands- on centers for sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. Here, students look at kaleidoscopes with their eyes and smell different scents with their noses! 

 In our choice time centers, students have been exploring ways to use blocks in the block center. Here, students decided we would build a castle together, with each student adding on one block. We worked on communicating with our friends when we play.

Welcome to Kindergarten!

Welcome to Kindergarten!!! The first two weeks of Kindergarten we have been getting to know our classmates and our school. We are reading many books about school and are learning about materials in our classroom. We have explored and sorted many materials in our writing center and math center.
    

 We have Language Through Music, Language Through Movement ( Gym) and Science every week. We are doing many fun activities every day and learning the routines and rules of our school. In this picture we are learning about and playing drums with Ms. Kim, our music teacher.

All About Animals!

 We started off the spring learning all about animals. The first thing we did was observe caterpillars changing into butterflies. We asked many questions about them.

 We looked at many real pictures of animals in our books and shared what we can learn just by looking at the pictures.

 Then, we learned about the names of different animal features; such as scales, hooves and horns. We made a visual tree map to organize animal pictures.

At our school Earth Day Symposium we learned even more about animals and their habitats. We learned that some animals are endangered. We can help take care of the Earth to help animals!

Springtime Activites in K-205

Spring has finally sprung.. and we have got a spring in our step here in K-205!
This month we are beginning to learn about animals through observing and reading non-fiction books together. We are also learning how to ask questions and thinking about what we wonder.  In this picture - students observe a picture of a tadpole and did detailed drawings of it. We thought about questions we had about tadpoles - "How do they grow into frogs?" , "What do they eat?" and "Where do they live?" are a few of the questions we asked!

We also have been observing different kinds of flowers blooming and learning about them. In class this week we planted our very own marigold seeds. We will have to be patient and take care of them while we wait for them to grow. 

 During literacy centers we played a fun game by making words with colorful eggs. We can mix and match word beginnings and endings.  We can make real words and nonsense words!

Exploring Sculptures & 3D Shapes

This week we have begun an exploration connecting math, art and natural materials through a study of sculptures. We started our week learning about 3D shapes in our world. We went on a  "shape hunt" at home and at school.


Then we made a visual tree map showing the spheres, rectangular prisms, cubes, cones, and cylinders we found!

Then we visited the Noguchi Sculpture museum and observed sculptures made of volcanic rock, marble, and metal. We learned about what kind of tools Mr. Noguchi used to make his sculptures.

 We observed many 3D shapes in the sculptures we saw; as well as patterns made of natural color tones of marble and rock.

After that, we made our own sculptures using natural materials such as paper, wood, and cotton. We folded and twisted our papers to make many interesting shapes!

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

 Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss! Today we celebrated the birthday of one of our favorite authors. Our class has been enjoying listening to and reading our favorite Dr. Seuss books and listening for the rhyming words we hear. We love using rhymes to help us spell word family words, too!
Today we made "at" word family "Cat in the Hat" hats.

After reading the Dr Seuss classic Green Eggs and Ham, We made green eggs and tried them to see if we like them. Many of us did like green eggs! We love trying new things!












During centers we did Dr. puzzles featuring rhyming words from The Cat in the Hat and Hop on Pop. We also played some games at the Seussville website.

100 Days of Learning Fun!

Can you believe we have been in school for 100 days? It has gone by so fast! Here are some ways we celebrated the 100th day in school today: We counted 100 cheerios and made necklaces with them, we decorated 100th day crowns, we wrote about what we would buy if we had 100 dollars, we sang a 100th day song and read a poem with 100 words!












During our special 100th day centers, students count 100 cubes on a 100s chart and built something with 100 cubes!

 Here, students wrote 100 words from around our classroom!

We shared our 100th day projects...what great projects! I hope everyone enjoyed all the fun surprises we had today!