On Tuesday, December 14th, our students listened to The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie dePaola. This is a lovely story of how the poinsettia came to be thought of as a Christmas flower. After we discussed the story, students created their own poinsettias out of red and green paper. We pinned them up on the curtains to decorate our classroom.
Thank you to Austin, Kylani, Antonio, Ethan, Khenedi, Amariah, Jakob, and Rory. They brought in cans for our "Canned Food Graph". This was a part of our "Every Day Counts" Math curriculum. The twelve cans collected were donated to the Second Harvest Food Bank. Thank you for your generosity!
These five students each earned a FREE pizza from "Pizza Hut" as a part of the "BOOK-IT" program in November. In order to earn a free pizza each month, students in Mrs. Doiron's class are required to keep a list of ten books they have read (or someone has read to them) at home. Students return that list to Mrs. Doiron at the end of the month and they receive a coupon for a free pizza. Wouldn't it be great if even more students earned a free pizza in December?
Students in our class are learning to play handbells, in preparation for our December 2nd PTA program. The boys and girls are learning to ring their handbells in a circular motion and dampen the sound on their chest. As musicians, they will have to work together and pay close attention to their director. They will play several Nursery Rhyme songs at the program, plus they will sing "Feliz Navidad" in Spanish, accompanied by rhythm instruments (tambourines, maracas, jingle bells, and so forth). Be sure to attend the December 2nd PTA meeting at 7:00 p.m. to see our performance!
Learning about patterns - identifying them, repeating and extending them, and creating our own - is an important Math skill, which is a prerequisite skill for much more difficult Math concepts. We often make patterns with "pattern blocks" like you see in these photos.
We would like to introduce "Jack". Mrs. Doiron carved this jack-o-lantern on Wednesday with the children's help. Students helped pull the "guts" out of the pumpkin and separated the seeds, so we could toast them later. The class determined which shape we should use for the eyes and nose, and suggested the eyebrows. "Jack" has battery-operated candles inside, so we can all enjoy his glow. Mrs. Doiron toasted the seeds with salt in a toaster oven. Yummy ~ they were good!! Thank you to Rory and Sara, who brought some little friends for "Jack".
On Tuesday, October 26th, three firefighters from JFRD visited the Merrill Road Elementary School kindergarten classes. Students were able to go inside the fire truck, and see what a firefighter looks like in full protective gear. The firefighters explained that they have to learn many things in fire school, so they are able to do this important job. They encouraged our students to do their best in school and always follow the rules. Did you know that firefighters have rules that they have to follow, just like kindergartners do? Thank you to JFRD for sending these firefighters to our school!
We are doing the "Happy Dance". Mrs. Doiron is proud of us for doing so well on our Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA). Please contact Mrs. Doiron if you wish to set up a parent conference to learn how your youngster did on the DRA. We are VERY pleased at the progress our class is making !!
On Friday, October 22nd, we "Pictured Ourselves Being Drug Free". Here is a picture of our whole class on the playground, right outside our back door.
Ms. Cox, an intern from the University of North Florida (UNF) taught a lesson using our STAR book, The Gingerbread Man. The lesson focused on the characters in the story. After listening to the book being read aloud, and a discussion of the characters, students drew their favorite character from the story. The children were delighted when Ms. Cox gave them each a real gingerbead man cookie. Yum, yum, they were good !!
On Thursday, October 21, we "Said NO by Wearing Red". Twelve students, plus Ms. Cox and Mrs. Doiron, wore red clothing to school.
On Wednesday, October 20th, we wore our team clothes to "Go for the Goal and Be Drug Free". Seven children and Mrs. Doiron represented the Tampa Bay Rays, Marshall University Thundering Herd, University of Florida Gators, Florida State University Seminoles, Jacksonville Suns, Minnesota Twins, New Orleans Saints, and Jacksonville Jaguars.
On Tuesday, October 19, 2010, we wore slippers to school to "Give Drugs the Slip". Nine students joined Mrs. Doiron in wearing slippers. We all enjoyed our comfortable feet!
Did you know that our students write in their Reading Logs every day after Independent Reading? The children in our class sit in their "Work Spaces" and read for 8 minutes, then they go to their tables and write the title of one of the books they read in their Reading Logs. (This Reading Log is from a student who was in Mrs. Doiron's class last year.) Children might want to keep a Reading Log at home, too.
During Science, we have been learning about our five senses: hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch. To better understand our sense of taste, we had a Tasting Party. Students tasted foods that were sweet (Starbursts and grapes), salty (pretzels and potato chips), and sour (dill pickles and lemons). They tasted foods that are flowers (broccoli), leaves (lettuce and parsley), seeds (sunflower seeds and peanuts), roots (carrots), fruit (apples and bananas), dairy (cheese, milk, and yogurt), and meat (bologna). We were happy to have our principal, Mrs. Gray, and our assistant principal, Miss Bartley, join us for the Tasting Party. Don't you wish you could come to kindergarten to learn about your sense of taste?
