Measurement, solar teloscopes, and spelling words OH MY!!!

2 weeks until school is over and I have to say goodbye to my very first class.

TWO

WEEKS

Ok that's enough of that. Trust me there will plenty of sads being had.

This week we were studying Measurement in Math!!

We measured our friends!

Our room!

Our hallway!

We measured pretty much everything. We talked about standard vs. non standard measurements. Did you know that 22 of Simon's steps equal 16 of Miss Bailey's steps? WE DID!!!

Today we explored weight by becoming human balances.

Why is paper so light, but books are heavy?

Math is fun!

This week we also started practicing spelling words to prepare for FIRST GRADE!!!

Our spelling tests for the next few weeks aren't for a grade but that didn't stop these super spellers from knocking it out of the park. 

Something I learned this week is Spelling word practice is actually very fun! We played "Cherry Pie" (the Kentucky version of "Sparkle" brought to our school by the first grade teacher next door) and one of our reading groups got to write the spelling words in shaving cream (this was a big hit, we will be making sure to do this for all the reading groups next week). 

I even heard about some fun ways our friends were practicing at home like spelling the words with magnetic letters. All that fun and hard work really paid off because the spelling "tests" were fantastic! Even the words that some of the kids missed showed that they are really thinking and trying even when they aren't sure. I am so super proud of these smarties!!

On Tuesday we had Astronomy Day at school, we got to look at the sun through a solar telescope (it was pretty cloudy though and some of the kids couldn't really see the sun).

At the end of the day we learned about sunspots, flares, prominences, and what exactly that solar telescope did. (Spoiler alert: it was for locating sunspots)

Then it was sun cookie time!!

First a base layer of white.

Then some red and yellow sugar sprinkles.

Twizzlers flares and prominences; the flares on the sun shoot straight up and the prominences are like a bridge.

 Then some chocolate chip sunspots.












Finally time to eat that yummy sun.

***No suns were damaged during the making of this snack.

It was a fantastic week in Kindergarten and we aren't done with the fun yet!!

God Bless!

Genesis 1:16 - "And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he also made the stars."

SLIME TIME!!!

Today the world in our Classroom was back to normal NO MORE TESTS!!! Yay!! It was so nice to get back to teaching the way I love to teach, hands-on and feet moving!
This morning we got back into are small group seating arrangements and our normal routine. After finishing our Math, Bible, and Phonics work we headed to Music as usual. But, when I picked the class up from Music instead of returning to the room we went straight up to the Science Lab. Let me just say, telling the kids we were going to the Science lab got almost the same reaction as telling them we were going to the swimming pool, they were slightly excited. Once we got settled in the lab I pulled out my sparkly slime and we discussed germs and how they travel on objects that we touch. Each student had time to squeeze and stretch the slime only to find that they now had some of those glitter "germs" on their hands EWWW! After our talk it was time to get BUSY!!

We started by finding partners and agreeing on a color for our finished slime. Then I gave each group a cup and a bucket. One partner's job was to mix the cup mixture and the other the bucket mixture.

Into the cups we put 1 cup of water and 1 teaspoon of Borax laundry detergent. This got mixed up and I added some food coloring of that group's choice.

In the bucket we put 1/2 cup of Elmer's glue, 1/2 cup of water this got mixed together and more food coloring was added (because we used white glue instead of the clear our colors came out very pastel looking even with all the food coloring I added).

 

The final step was to combine the two mixtures and watch what happened!

As we added the borax solution to the bucket clumps formed and we could see the separation of the solid(ish) and liquid. Then we mixed it up really well and drained off the extra water.

 

Then I gave them time to explore with the slime before dividing it up equally with their partner and sealing it in a ziploc bag to keep it "fresh".

The best part of this experiment was seeing how much fun they had. In fact I got bombarded with "Thank you Miss Bailey" and Jace even told me I should be a Science teacher because "You're really good at Science stuff!" 

It was the perfect way to end a draining week and I can't wait to do even more fun "Science stuff" with my sweethearts!

Before I end this post I want to give the parents a heads up about and upcoming event. May 4th is "Free Comic Book Day" I don't know if there are any comic shops up here but in Fairmont  there is a small shop called Comic Paradise Plus and when I stopped in last night Jon showed me some of the kids comics that will be available absolutely free (spoiler alert there are a TON) everything from Strawberry Shortcake, Sesame Street, My Little Pony, Tinkerbell, Smurfs, The Avengers (I think it may actually be called HULK SMASH), Archie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and  many other ones I know I am forgetting as well as some I've never heard of. So if you have a reader who loves comics or maybe even a reader who isn't so big on the whole "book" thing be sure to check it out. 

Now as we sing every week in Kindergarten: "It's Friday, Friday God is great on Friday, and I'm looking forward to the weekend!" 

I hope everyone has a safe, fun, and restful weekend!