Kim's Kinderkids

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

NEAEC Conference

Today our school held our 4th annual North East Alabama Early Childhood Conference. It was GREAT as always. For the past two years I have worked on the conference committee but this year I had planned on just going and enjoying the conference as a participant. Then.....my friend LaShae Henderson who teaches next door said the committee had asked her to present and would I like to help? I knew she was a great teacher with super ideas so I agreed to help. It was such a fun experience!! (Other than being a bit nervous about speaking in front of a group of teachers of course.) The presentation was called Inquiring Minds Want To Know and covered many of the science, literacy, and math activities we use each year. We used lots of ideas that we learned from a one of the greatest kindergarten teachers ever... Suzan Estes who has moved up to third grade. I am posting a few pictures of the activities we did during the conference as well as a few pictures from my classroom ready for the 2012-13 school year.

Using scent to identify our "family members" just like bats!

Using water in eyedroppers to melt sugar cubes to practice eating like a spider

Making TP tube cars

Using balloons to demonstrate force and motion

Sewing with plastic needles to discover how difficult to was for the pilgrims to make clothes.

My door ready for school! I love Pete the Cat!

My new curtains- Made from fabric kites!

I made new shapes with my cricut

Numbered vinyl circles on the floor to help learning to make a line

I painted the back of this shelf to display my writing center

Monday, May 7, 2012

Week 33 & 34 Plants, Muffins for Mom and Cinco de Mayo!

We have been very busy learning in our classroom. We have watched as five little caterpillars became butterflies. We have had muffins for mom and we celebrated Cinco de Mayo. We have also learned about plants and insects!

Our caterpillars are making a chrysalis

The chrysalis are inside our butterfly net.

Close up view of the chrysalis inside the net.

One of the butterflies emerging!

Our ant farm.

Will and his mom.

Caden and his mom.

Emma and her mom.

Kaleigha and mom.

Hunter and mom.

Jorge with his mom, dad and sister.

Eidan and mom.

Jordy with mom, brother, sister, and cousin.

Making our pinata

The pinata is drying on the shelf

Goodies for the pinata

Everyone had their own bag!

Finished pinata!!

Getting ready to break the pinata

It is broken!!

Checking out the broken pinata

Our broken pinata!

Our yummy Cinco de Mayo fiesta snack!!

Friday, April 20, 2012

Week 31 & 32 Zoo and Insects!

Our class has had a busy month! Week 31 learned about zoo animals and we took a fun trip to the Birmingham zoo! Week 32 we have been learning about insects and we have watched our ants build tunnels in our new ant farm and we got our caterpillars in the mail too! The caterpillars are already growing and shedding their skins to get bigger. We are making a journal entry each day and recording the progress of the caterpillars. We have made estimates about how long it will take for the caterpillars to form a chrysalis and how long it will take for them to hatch out from the chrysalis into butterflies. We are learning so much!