An Amazing Day

Today was an amazing day of community helpers.  The students started the day with a police dog, Renee.  They watched in awe as he popped out of the police car door as if he opened it himself.  He demonstrated his ability to listen and follow directions.

Later that morning, the tooth fairy sisters came to talk about the dentist and how to properly brush our teeth.  Students were instructed to count to 20 three times before stopping: 20 on the outside, 20 on the inside, and 20 on the tops of the teeth.  It served as good practice for counting and brushing. 

Lia's mom came after recess to talk about Educational Therapy.  She read the beautiful story by Patricia Polacco, Thank you, Mr. Falker, about a teacher who helped a little girl learn to read. When Mr. Falker discovers that she can read, he helps her prove to herself that she can - and will.  The students learned that they all have strengths that can be used to help them learn.

Community

We learned that a community is where people or animals live, work, and/or play.  We started by creating a map of Room 18!  It was a fun project that challenged us to view things from different perspectives.  We then extended out to MATES as a school.  The students were given a map of MATES and asked to locate different places on the map.

We watched a video of a few important community helpers at MATES.  Mrs. Priske, Ms. Gigi, Ms. Renee, and Mr. Fiss told the class a few of their duties at school. The students then wrote about them using our new sight words "he" and "she".

Outside of MATES, we learned more about the community around us.  Each student chose a building in our community to put on our map.

Starbucks and Target!

The highlight of the week was learning about community helpers.  The students chose what they wanted to be when they grew up and made themselves into paper dolls.

Vancennzo is a policeman!

Josephine is a pastor!

Jack is a f irefighter!

Mr. Smith, a Kindergarten parent, came to visit and explain his job as a sheriff in Ventura County.  He brought along some exciting tools to show the kiddos!

Our newest hero, Mr. Smith!

Protective gear

We were able to see the robot in action!

A week of holidays...

We had quite a busy week! We learned about President's Day and celebrated the 100th Day of School and Valentine's Day!

We made our 100th Day trail mix by mixing 10 different types of goodies!  First we sorted them, then we put them on our 100 chart.  We found that there were 10 of each!  

100th Day trail mix activity

Another activity was quite a challenge! We had to do 100 exercises!  

10 situps, 10 jumping jacks, etc. 

We had fun counting out our 100 objects by tens!  We also weighed our 100 items and compared them to the other items our friends brought in.  It was neat to see how 100 things can look and feel so different!

Drew's 100 eyeballs!

For Valentine's Day, we recreated art by Jim Dine.  We used crayons and watercolors to make beautiful hearts.

Peyton's heart art

We got a box of candy hearts to sort and graph! 

Math with candy hearts

We also had fun passing out our Valentine's! We read all of the names on our valentines and delivered them to our special mailboxes.

Delivering special valentines!