Friendship Feast

The day before our school went on Thanksgiving break, all three kindergarten classes celebrated our annual Friendship Feast! During the feast the kindergarteners were able to sit with their friends not only from our class but from the other classes, and enjoy a huge Thanksgiving meal! This included turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing and corn!

Before eating, the kindergartners did some exercises that they learned in PE with Mr. Price so that they could help burn off the calories they were about to eat!

The meals were eaten on their very own placemats that they designed and decorated in our class.

In addition to the meal, the kindergartners also celebrated their friendships by singing Thanksgiving-themed songs that they had learned in music class.  Unfortunately, the video I took does not seem to be working with our blog.  

After eating, all three classes were able to listen to Mrs. Stayer reading the story Bear Says Thanks. 

We finished off our day by holding a grade level writing celebration! All of the kindergarteners were mixed up and they were able to share examples of their writing to each other in small groups. They were all so excited to show their friends what they have been working on in writers workshop!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family from everyone in Room 100!

Room 100 Had a Farm...

E I E I O!

We had such a wonderful time at Bower's Farm this week!  Even though it was cold (really cold!), we were able to learn about what farmers and their animals do!

Here we are on our tractor ride.  While enjoying our ride, the farmers explained the difference between push and pull.  We learned that when we were going up the hills, the tractor was pulling the cart, and when we went down the hills, the cart was pushing the tractor.  Along the way, we were able to see sheep and horses enjoying a chilly morning snack of grass and hay!

We even stopped at the pumpkin patch to collect pumpkins with the farmers!  The pumpkins we picked were then dropped off at the pie stand to be sold for pumpkin pies!

Inside one of the barns, Farmer Julie taught us about stacking hay using a criss cross pattern to make the stack as sturdy as possible.  She even let us try to carry one of the hay bails.  It took all the kindergartens working together to lift it!  While inside, we also learned about the hay elevator that moves hay high up the stacks and that farm cats work to get rid of mice.  We even saw a peahen!

Here we are learning how to brush the ponies and horses.  While some of us were brave enough to pet Patches, others felt more comfortable learning with their eyes and ears.

When we entered the chicken coop, we learned that different kinds of chickens lay different colored eggs!  We saw white, blue, pink, yellow and green eggs!  The children loved seeing Tom the Turkey the best!  We had already learned about a turkey's waddle and snood, and we really got to see them up close with Tom!  Farmer Julie even made us laugh by making Tom burp!

We even fed Happy the pig some fresh eggs - shell and all!

Finally, we learned about mammals such as Latte the goat!  We learned that animals that are mammals produce milk for their babies.  We also learned that a female goat's udder is filled with milk and you can get it out by squeezing the "milk getter outers!"  Each kindergartener was given a chance to milk Latte if they wanted.

Even though it was so cold, we had a great time at the farm!  Thank you to all of our chaperones for joining us!