All I want for Christmas is...

This week, we have been working really hard to create our Christmas Wish List. However, in kindergarten, we turned their list into a persuasive list article. 

We started the week by studying Mo Willem's pigeon books and created a persuasive pigeon tricks noticing chart. After that, we began our writing!

We started by writing a letter persuading some of the reasons we needed the special item for Christmas.

"Dear Santa, I have been very good because I will play with my brothers."

"Dear Santa, I will play with it and be good at school and be a good boy."

"I will clean up the house this year."

"Dear Santa, I have been real good this year."

"Dear Santa, can I have a four-wheeler? I will help my mom."

"Dear Santa, me and Ellie have been good! Can me and Ellie have a Doc McStuffins house?"

Next, we made our actual wish list.

Lastly, we restated our opinion and explained what we would do with our special item.

"Dear Santa, please can I have a Barbie house?"

"Dear Santa, I want a police motorcycle. I love you!"

"Dear dad, I will play with my Dino robot."

"Dear Santa, I will play with my elf."

"Dear Santa, I will play with the games on Nabi."

"Dear Santa, I will play with it and throw it up."

As you can see, they have been working so hard this week! They will bring these home tomorrow for you to enjoy!

Fun Holiday Math!

Today, we counted, sorted, and compared numbers using M&Ms. We learned a lot, worked hard, and had a great time!

Wonder #11

How are sleds and sleighs different?

How do our senses work together to help us live?-Sense of sight and touch

This week, we have been learning all about our 5 senses and how they work together. Yesterday, we experienced what life may be like if we were blind. The students realized very quickly how dependent they were becoming on the other 4 senses. We continued that exploration today:

This was our morning message this morning.

Their responses are in green (1. No, they need glasses; 2. No, we would have to read the book to them, and 3. Yes, if they could get new eyes.)

We moved into our wonder of the day:

I realized very quickly, that most of my students had no background knowledge of Braille.

Next, we completed a mystery box activity where students had to guess what was inside the bag without looking. Students recorded their predictions on the posters. Once again, they realized how closely each of our senses work together.

After exploring and sharing the predictions on the posters, we pulled the mystery items out of the bags!

Next, we learned about an incredible man named Erik who hiked to the top of Mt. Everest.  This alone is incredible, but the coolest part about it, is that Erik is completely blind. His story is completely incredible! If you would like to read more about his story, please click the link below.

http://inspiremykids.com/2011/erik-weihenmayer-achieving-the-peak-of-success-literally/

One of the pictures on his website was a picture of Erik reading. At this point, we went back to our morning message and wonder of the day. I asked the students, "what did you use to figure out the items in the mystery bags?" They of course replied that they used their sense of touch. I then asked the students again, "knowing that, how do you think people who are blind can read?" This was when the light bulbs starting going off! One student responded, "by touching!" Another student added, "by touching those dots maybe..." This is when I introduced the term Braille and showed them examples. The students felt the letters that would make their names using the Braille alphabet card. 

At this point, we went back to our wonder of the day and wonder journals to write the answers to our questions we had asked this morning.

Right before we went to lunch I asked the students, "What would happen if we had a student at Oakland who was blind? Do you think we have Braille around our school?"  All of the kids said, "No!!" We decided to search for Braille in Oakland on our way to the cafeteria.  To our amazement, every classroom has Braille outside of it!

My kindergartener's continue to amaze me each and every day! I hope you enjoyed reading about and seeing pictures from all of our learning today!