Kacsko's Kiddos: An Apple a Day

This week we learned how apples are grown, the parts of an apple, and the life cycle of an apple tree. We read both fiction and non-fiction books about apples, played fun apple-themed games, sang songs and recited poems about apples, and, of course, sampled apple-y delicious treats! (This is what happens when I have a whole week to plan)!
We began each morning following a strict agenda (I watched some youtube videos over fall break of how other K teachers run their classrooms and got a bit inspired). We wrote every step of the morning down, all that we would do BEFORE morning recess. And we checked each item off as we did it. It pretty much looked like this.

I have always used a cutesy picture schedule of the major blocks of time for the kiddos to follow in the past, but breaking it down into each little item helps me to stay more aware of the time and organized and it helps them to know what's next and what's left. So, win-win. (I will still probably turn these into picture cards, eventually).
So, how about I follow that same agenda for the blog this week? (I'll skip a few). We are learning to use our manners when greeting one another in the morning. I say, "Good morning, class." And they respond, "Good morning, Mrs. Lukacsko." Then they do the same with Mrs. Taylor. Then I give them 20-30 seconds to walk around the carpet and greet one another, by name, in the same manner. Our morning message is a quick note to them that follows pretty much the same pattern each day: Greeting, tell the day, tell the special class for the day, tell one novel thing they will do that day, and closing. As the students become familiar with the pattern, I will begin to leave a word or punctuation out and they will have to figure out what is missing or wrong. This was today's message.

You may have heard about a funny item that came out of the mailbox this week - underwear! The students got a pretty big kick out of that one (they were brand new and clean - promise)!Other items in the mailbox this week: quilt, quail, queen, quarter, umbrella, umpire, and unicorn. The students really look forward to checking the mail everyday and never fail to remind me when I've forgotten.

I really had fun planning the poems and songs this week. We took the Bingo song and changed it to be about apples. We flipped a letter over each time and clapped in its absence until all of the letters were turned over.

For the Ten Red Apples poem, we did motions and stood up to catch the falling apples as we counted them.
The Apple Sounds activity had us chant;

Apple, apple

nice and round

Pick an apple

Make its sound!

Then the students selected three letters from a bucket. We made their sounds and tried to find a way to arrange them so they would spell a word.

Every second or third item on the agenda involves some sort of standing/moving/dancing/interacting with their classmates. The "activity" on the agenda is just another way to incorporate those necessities with our learning targets. It changes from day to day: High Ten Low Ten, ABC Jumping Jacks, Word Baskets, Quiz Quiz Trade (just nod your head and act like you know what I'm talking about here). Anyway, this week the students learned how to play a new activity called " I Have, Who Has"

Each student gets one card. The person with letter A starts off the game. Everyone has to listen carefully and be aware of what card they're holding. When it's their letter, they read off their card "I have B. Who has C?" and so on. The kids did a great job with it this week. Plus- it used our new sight word of the week: have!

Speaking of sight words, that is the next thing on the agenda in the morning. After we do a whole group review of the new words and the old words, the students choose a workshop. Hopscotch is still the most highly sought after, but this week, I added a new one that was pretty popular too; JEWELS.

At this point in the morning, the kids know we're on the home stretch - just a few more items until recess, so I move as quickly as possible. We start with our anchor chart - this week was a silly one about the color of apples - using the new word, have.

Next up is our Read Aloud or Shared Reading - but I prefer the non-technical term: Story Time. The books I read inspired our journal writings and our apple treats each day. Apple Farmer Annie - all about kinds of apples and apple recipes including apple juice and cider, so we sampled both. The students wrote about whether or not they liked apples in their journals. The Story of Johnny Appleseed- We sampled applesauce with and without cinnamon and the students wrote about what kind of tree they would like to plant. The majority went with banana!

Ten Apples Up on Top- rather than see how many apples the kids could balance on their heads like in the book (though that does sound fun), the students measured their height in apples then wrote about it in their journals.

We also sampled apple cake that day made by "Grandma" (my mother).

Chloee apparently didn't like the apple cinnamon smell.

And finally, we read Amelia Bedelia's First Apple Pie and tried a red, green, and yellow apple to see which we liked best.

Then we incorporated some math and made a class graph and analyzed the data. Yeah for data!

We also got to try mini apple pie bites, made in individual crescent rolls, again by "Grandma."

So, finally after all that hard work which we fit into one hour and twenty minutes - FREEDOM.

After recess, its center time.

Then lunch

Then 20 minutes of Calendar Math

Specials Class

RECESS AGAIN

And then we get to do all our fun math stuff. This week, all of the math workshops centered around apples, go figure.

We also have leveled math lessons during this time period. Here, the students have their own spinner (ahh, the wonders of a paper clip and a pencil) that they use to determine what AB pattern they will color on the apples.

Math is followed up with science. This week's science theme was about, you guessed it- apples. We learned the life cycle of the apple tree and the parts of an apple.

So, by the week's end, we had been so good about sticking to the agenda that it was time to celebrate - and we did! With a wedding! Ms Q and Mr U, the letters we'd been learning all about this week, got married. Some of us came looking fancy and sharp for the event.

We all made a special hat to commemorate the occasion.

Then we went to the reception of cupcakes and punch. Thank you to all the parents who donated - and to Emma's mom for the great decorations- and commemorative stickers!