I am just having too much fun!

This made me laugh out loud! Try Elf Yourself, it is a blast!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Another very fun site for the little ones...

Thanks to Mrs. Coutts who found this great little site, that is sponsored by SPRINT, and shared it with our Kindergarten kids in the computer lab with her Gr.3 class. This was our first visit to the computer lab and by the end of January we will all be logging in by ourselves. This site is just fun, give it a shot...who doesn't like to decorate a gingerbread cookie!

How many days until Santa comes?

As always, Christmas is huge with the Kindergarten set and this year is no exception. Just knowing it is the Christmas month is very exciting. So today, with the help of our Grade 3 buddies we made 23 paper chains and hooked them onto a paper bell with a poem that read:
How many days till Christmas?
It's pretty hard to count!
So these little chains of paper,
Will show you the exact amount!

Take one of the links off every night...
When the sandman casts his spell
And Christmas Eve will be here
By the time you reach the bell!

Things like this make me so giddy!

Honestly, when I find sites like this I get all excited! Crayola is keeping up with the technology demands of the younger demographic! Crayola Digi-Color is an amazing site that we will be playing with on our Smartboard and on the computers in the computer lab when we start visiting once a week after Christmas. Thanks to Kevin from NCS-Tech for posting this on his blog. This is a cool site...check it out!
P.S. You know you are a Kindergarten teacher when one of your favorite smells is Crayola crayons!

Our December newsletter and calendar are now available by clicking on the link on the side bar.

Our Rescue Heroes....

I have to say, our local Rescue Heroes (aka, our firemen, EMT's and RCMP officers) always go above and beyond when we come to visit. Constable Mayer came and told us all about being an Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman and had a look at our RCMP station we created. Colby's Dad is a fireman! He let us try on all his gear and spray the big water hose. Tara and the other EMT's let us climb all over the ambulance, ride on the stretcher and take care of sick stuffed animals. While you watch the video below, take a moment to be thankful for the people in your community who keep us safe!

Our Visit to our local Rescue Heroes!

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Operation Christmas Child...

How lucky we were today in Kindergarten to get to participate in the Operation Christmas Child Shoebox program. Our whole elementary school took part. We have 14 multiage groups that do various character education activities throughout the year and today each of these groups packed a shoebox destined for a child less fortunate then the children at our school. The concept of poverty is something so hard to grasp at five years old. We had alot of discussion about the shoeboxes and why we were sending them and after packing them we talked about how we felt doing something kind for children we did not even know. One child said it made him fell "happy" another said, "good" and one little one told us it made her "feel good on the inside." We watched a video on our Smartboard before we went to the "Packing Party," you can watch it below. I would like to thank Samaritan's Purse for providing us with such a wonderful opportunity to practice empathy with our youngest students.

We learn about remembering...

Thursday morning was busy, we needed to do a poppy count in our whole school! Who was wearing a poppy? Why were they wearing it? Why were we not wearing a poppy? Oh, the questions we needed to answer, so what did we do, we gathered our clipboards and went off to gather data. First, we needed cash. We had to buy a poppy for each one of us, thank goodness we recycle our juiceboxes, so we have some cash. Off we went to the office to buy poppies and discuss why people wear them on Remembrance Day. Next, we dropped in on every classroom in our school and guess how many poppies we found? SEVEN. We were not impressed! We could not believe that we only got to put 7 tally marks on our data sheets! We are going to do another poppy count on Tuesday morning and we certainly expect to find more than 7 poppies! Our schools Remembrance Day Ceremony is Tuesday at 10:30 all families are welcome to attend, it will be in the big gym.

The Grade 1 Wild Things visit Kindergarten

We love having visitors in Kindergarten and today we got a double visit from the Grade 1 class and the Grade 1/2 class. They both read us great stories. The Grade 1's shared their love the Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak. Mrs. Adams, their teacher shared the story with us and then the children read to us from books they had created and those Gr.1's can READ! HOW EXCITING....
We also explored a very cool website called BuiLD YouR WiLD SeLF, the kids thought it was a hoot. Take some time to read this book to your little one and then play around on that site, it is sure to bring about some giggles. Enjoy a glimpse of our time with the Grade 1's.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

From the witches...

Mrs. McMahon and Mrs. Sveahun wish you a Spooktacular Halloween!

Grandparents Day was a hit....

We held our annual Grandparents Day in Kindergarten and it turned out very well. We had 21 Kindergarten kids and about 35 Grandmas and Grandpas, our room was packed. We had Grandparents from as far away as Saskatchewan, many had to take the day off and we appreciate them spending their precious time with us! Our morning was filled with preparations, we made Thank You poems with our handprints and jar candle holders, an idea I found on one of the blogs I follow, Best Bites. These were made with tissue paper, jars and huge amounts of a glue and water solution. Was it a huge mess? YES, but they loved it and they looked so cute when they were done as you can see above. Enjoy our little show and have a Happy Halloween!

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The "horrible hair" of Mr. H

We got to meet Mr. H last week. All our our "Letter People" have something special about them and our Mr. H has some "horrible hair!" We can also tell you the sound that letter h makes and show you sign language for that letter. We worked on printing upper and lower case h's and we all know that you ALWAYS START YOUR LETTERS AT THE TOP! Take a moment to watch below and see just how hard these little ones were working! These five year olds are engaged and completing the task at hand, of course 15 minutes earlier they had been singing "5 Little Pumpkins" at the top of their lungs! How can you not love Kindergarten!

On Thursday, we travelled to Grosse Ile, Quebec!

We were all thrilled to visit with Ms. Anderson and her Kindergarten kids. I could tell you lots but instead I will let you visit Ms. Anderson's blog, she and her classes voice thread can tell you. Just click on "Ms. Anderson's blog" in the red letters above and see what the kids in Grosse Ile thought about our unique experience. Thanks again to our cyperpals in Grosse Ile, we will be seeing you again soon.

Hello out there!

Here is a big "Welcome to our school" to the Kindergarten kids from Grosse Ile, Quebec. They and their teacher, Ms. Anderson will be joining our little flock of students by video conference on Thursday morning. We have plans to introduce ourselves, sing some apple songs, read a book and dicuss our class mascots Melvin the Moose (ours) and Larry the Lobster (theirs). This will be the first video conference our two classes will participate in this year. We will see them on the large video screen and they will see us. This certainly does make our world seem just a bit smaller when we have the opportunity to participate in activities like this. Have a look at the map below if you don't know where Grosse Ile is. It is an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

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You just have no idea!

Today was a huge day for Mrs. McMahon...I finally got my adjustable Smartboard installed in my classroom. This may be the coolest teaching tool I have ever seen and it is in MY classroom. I really have not stopped giggling. The beauty of the Smartboard is that it is adjustable, with one hand I can lower it so even my shortest Kindergarten student can reach the top of the board. The Smartboard is interactive, meaning with just a touch of a finger we can move things around the screen, write on it (with our finger), play learning games without a mouse, with just our finger.

I could go on about the million other things it will do, but honestly, at this point I really don't know what all it is capable of, but I am going to find out. I knew from the moment the topic of a Smartboard came up that I did not want it to be only a teacher tool, I wanted the kids to utilize it in every way. So today, our first day with it, we just jumped in. Was I nervous about letting 5 year olds around it....yep. We started with some simple rules:
1) You do not write on it with ANYTHING except your finger! We do have Smartboard pens, but I though we should stick to our fingers for now.
2) You must be over 30 years old to move the board up and down. We had a Dad come in at lunch and although he could move things around the screen, he could not move it up and down because he was only 28 years old.
The kids were super excited and as you can see from the pictures having a Smartboard in Kindergarten is nothing but a good thing!

A bit of house keeping....

Hey parents, our class newsletters and calendars are available on the sidebar of this blog. Remember to send the web permission forms back to school ASAP, so we can get some great pictures of the kids up. It is fun to get a glimpse of them in their world.
Don't forget to listen to Melvin the Moose who is looking at you to your right, he has a message for you.

Also, at the bottom of the blog page is a google calendar that is updated regularly to show parent helpers and major events in our Kindergarten world.

Our friends across the country....

We are very excited to have the opportunity to become cyber-pals with the Kindergarten kids in Grosse Ile, Quebec. We will be doing a number of activities with them this year. We have already started correspondence with them via our blog sites. On our blog, we posted our apple graph with the results of our apple taste test, they did the same on their class blog.
We are very excited to be sending two stuffed animals back and forth between the two classrooms, we send them Melvin Moose and they send us Larry Lobster. They don't have moose on their island and we certainly don't have lobsters anywhere near our little prairie town.
We look forward to actually seeing the kids from Grosse Ile by using video conferencing. We will be able to see each other and have a little visit, technology can be just grand.
We did our first scientific experiment, we wondered what would happen to apples if we heated them? As you can see below, we made some hypotheses'(educated guesses), we then cooked our apples in a crock pot and got applesauce. The kids who like the applesauce signed their names.
We had a great week!

And we're off!

It feels good to be back! Our first week of Kindergarten went totally as expected. We were busy, busy, busy and tired, tired, tired, that certainly includes me! We always start things off with the easy theme of apples because everybody knows something about apples. Today we brainstormed about apples, read about apples, counted pretend apples, matched a number with the proper set of apples, made an apple craft, tasted apples and graphed which color of apple we liked best.
We had a great day in Kindergarten. I wrote a little note in each Bluebook about some of the learning outcomes we are working on. Any help you can provide from home will be a bonus for the little ones. I have posted some pictures below of our apple craft, our graphing activity, and our bulletin board with all the apples the students did for me before school even started.

Here we go...

"Twas the night before Kindergarten,
and as they prepared,
the kids were excited
and a little bit scared.

I think everyone is feeling a bit like the first part of this great book. Tomorrow is a big day for 20 families. Take some time to have an extra snuggle with your babies tonight and enjoy the excitement that tomorrow will bring.

The phone calls have started...

I have received my first few phone calls from eager parents looking for the Kindergarten supply list for the 2009-2010 school year so I will post it here for all to see, also it is listed on our school website . I am in the process of getting packages ready to send out to my new students, they should be receiving them by the end of the second week in August. I was in working in my classroom a few days ago and felt that familiar excitement that tells me it is time to go back to school and I am looking forward to the school year and all the challenges, excitement and learning it will bring.
Our Kindergarten Supply list:
1 white eraser
5 pencils
5 large glue sticks
wax crayons (box of 24)
1 HILROY Studio Scrap Book (20pgs, 35.6 by 27.9 cm)
Back pack big enough to fit a binder
inside shoes with non marking soles
Paint shirt (can be an old large shirt)
Set of extra clothes (pants, shirt, underwear, socks)
If last name begins A-N...1 box large Ziplock bags
O-Z...1 box small Ziplock bags
Scissors and Pencil Cases are supplied.
PLEASE LABEL EVERYTHING!

Hello, Summer...

Our year has come to an end. This time of the year is always so bittersweet. The babies have left my nest and will continue on and become one of the "big" kids next year. They will each be missed for different reasons. I always look forward to the start of the next school year because they always peak their heads in and say "Hi" and tell me how much they love Grade 1.
This was the first year for my classroom blog and I loved it. It was minimal work, most of the time and I felt I was able to share my classroom in a way that was never possible before. We do amazing things in Kindergarten and I want our parents to see this.
I would love to hear your opinion about the blog. Are there ways that you could see it improved? Should I have more of this or less of that? Basically, I would like some feedback to set my direction for next year. Thank you for your time.

I wish each of my Kindergarten families and fellow teachers who follow this blog a wonderful, relaxing summer. I have enjoyed sharing with each of your this year...

Thank you,
Mrs. McMahon

Hello Grosse Ile, Quebec Kindergarten kids

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We were thrilled to receive a very special delivery from our friends in Grosse Ile, Quebec. Mrs. Anderson and her Kindergarten kids sent us a lobster! A stuffed lobster that is and his name is Larry. We also received numerous hand drawn pictures of Larry. The children included photos of each of them on actual lobster boats. This is amazing for my little land locked prairie kids. Mrs. Anderson included a letter telling us about lobster fishing. It was so interesting for all of us. Our Kindergarten kids are in the process of organizing a package to send to Grosse Ile. We have a moose to send to them because they don't gave moose on the island where they live. We voted and came up with the name Melvin. Have a look at Larry and Melvin below, they are big buddies.

The Railway Museum

Upon arrival to the Railway Museum we were given bonnets and engineer hats and became children from 1911. All our activities were based on activites played by children from that era. Below you will see us making gingerbread cookies. We played old fashion games, played dressup on a kid size wooden train, went on a scavenger hunt and identified different things in and around the museum, ate our lunches picnic style, made train masks, listened to a story called Emma and the Silk Train and sang some songs. What a good day.

Caterpillars are so interesting...

Our Grade 3 buddies are learning about life cycles by watching caterpillars turn into butterflies and of course we just had to get in on the action today.

We just have so much fun here..

We had a really good day today. We were busy, busy for most of the day but at the end of the day we really enjoyed center time. Have a look below at the variety of things that are going on at center time. Play is a huge part of how a five/six year old learns. I continue to believe in the importance of center time.

Great fun at the pussy-willow patch

On Tuesday we took our annual trek to the pussy willow patch. It is always fun to take Kindergarten kids out into nature. They are delighted and amazed by the things around them and the pussy willows were no exception. We found pussy willows just coming out of the stem, we found them turning yellow and we found some turning into leaves already. We pulled them apart to see what was inside, we peeled the bark on the stems and we even sang our pussy willow song before we left. Take a moment to go play outdoors with your Kindergarten kid, you will enjoy watching them learning about our world.

Do you realize just how important letter r is?

So, we took off through the school armed with our digital camera looking for words with r in them. We needed to know, is r really that important or could we just get rid of it and be just fine. Do you know what we found...words everywhere that had a r in them! Really important words, too. I whipped up a little collage to show you a few. R is important, we are going to keep it around.

Frog eggs and fun....

Honestly, there could be no better grade than Kindergarten. Where else can you completely go off track and learn about a whole new topic simply because someone brought frog eggs. This is exactly what happened today. One of our students brought a huge jar of frog eggs, they were mesmerizing to our Kindergarten kids. This jar led to the drawing of frogs, learning about the lifecycle, making a display for the whole elementary school, reading frog books and sheer amazement about our environment and the things that are in that environment. Today's experience reinforced to me how nature excites a child. Have a look at the pictures below and then go play outdoors with your child, you will be amazed at what you will find together.

We need this next week....

Could each family send in an empty cereal box. It is Earth Day on April 22 and on Thursday on our way to the Public Library and to pick pussy willows we are going to help the earth by cleaning up our town.

And....does anyone have a stuffed deer or moose we could "borrow." We are starting a new project with the Kindergarten in Grosse Ile, Quebec and we need a deer/moose to send from our classroom to theirs because they don't have deer/moose on their island (they are sending us a lobster!)

Fun, fun, fun with Trickster Theatre

Are we ever having big fun with the artists from Trickster Theatre. We had a whole school assembly on Tuesday morning and a great session with Cari(our personal trickster),she even came back to our room and sang and danced with us to some of our movement songs. The artists are very professional and tons of fun and all our students from K-6 are having a blast. Thanks to Ian's Dad and Reese's Mom for helping out with our session. Thursday will give us another fun workshop, as well as workshops on Friday morning, a dress rehersal in the afternoon and the Community performance at 7pm in the small gym. Hope everyone can make it, we will need the kids there by 6:30pm.
I found a magnificent math learning site, I have added it to my "Links for Little Learners" on the blog sidebar. We will be working with this site on a smartboard tomorrow and then individually in the computer lab. If you have not sent headphones, please do, it makes their experience in the computer lab much better with headphones.

Everything from Peter Rabbit to chocolate nests...

Our question of the day was, "Was Peter Rabbit a good little bunny who always listened to his Mother?" To start the day, some students did not know the answer to that question, but by the end we all knew that Peter was a bad little bunny and almost ended up in Mr. McGregors pie plate. We also spent the day writing Happy Easter on little post it notes and delivering them to other classrooms, we even put post it's on our local RCMP officers car who just happened to be at the school. I bet he was surprised. Have a look at the slideshow below, we made chocolate nests for our Grade 3 buddies and even a few for ourselves. Hope everyone enjoys their family this Easter.

Easter is just around the corner

Spring Break has just about come to an end and we will be back at school next week. Lots of fun Easter activities will be on the agenda. I found a site with lots of coloring pages that can be printed for our little ones to color. DLTK Kids has loads of coloring pages, crafts and activites for everything, a great site to check out.
Also, here is a little Easter trivia for you, just how clever are you?

We had a "Dino-riffic" week.

.
Dinosaurs....Dinosaurs...everywhere! What a fun week we had. We were so lucky to get another great Science Alberta Crate called Jr. Palentologists. I called in some great parents and together we spent a whole afternooon learning about dinos. Watch the video below to see our activites and a huge thank you to those parents who gave time to us out of their very busy lives.
We capped out week off with another amazing experience. We actually video conferenced live with the Royal Tyrrell Museum. We interacted with a very friendly gal who taught us lots of things about dinos that we didn't know. We split into groups and played a game to try to get our dinos off the volcano before it exploded. The kids loved it and a big thanks to Ian's Mom for the leg work for this great activity.

Well, we almost got him!

The traps were set, the gold layed about, the camera ready to go...and he got away again! Lenny the Leprechaun has escaped from us once again, I have to wonder if we are ever going to actually get him! I was able to snap a picture as I snuck into the room this morning, you can just see his back in the picture above. This picture and the fact that Lenny lost his hat caused quite a stir as you can imagine. Lenny also left us a note. Lenny was good fun in Kindergarten and we hate to see him go, but I am pretty sure he will be back next March. Happy St. Patrick's Day.