A Busy Fall Week!

This week was super busy in our kindergarten classroom! We had parent teacher conferences, a class party and a field trip... Not to mention our regular studies.  First off, we finished our RTA bus model. The students painted and added all of the details and labeled the parts. It turned out quite well.

We also had an alphabet parade... Unfortunately... I didn't get any pictures. We went to different classrooms around the building and the teachers and students chose different letters for us to sing the phonics dance songs for. It was so fun and the kids did great!

Of course we had yummy fall treats at our fall party.

Today, to finish out the week we took a field trip to Windmill Farm in Springboro.  This place is great! The kids loved the hayride back in the woods. They enjoyed picking their own pumpkin and playing at the park. There were lots of cool animals to see as well. When we got back to school they wrote about what they saw at the patch.

 One of the pumpkins actually dropped and cracked open so we saved it. It will be perfect to explore as part of our pumpkin investigation next week. We will also be making paper machete pumpkins... Wish us luck!

It's Not a Box... It's a Bus!

A few weeks ago we read the story Not a Box. We had just received some new reading materials and decided to ask the students what we could do with the boxes they came in. They decided we should make a school bus. And so it began... Our first inquiry project of the year...

Part 1- Learning About Buses
First we had to do research on buses.  We read non-fiction texts, watched video clips and even went inside a real bus.

The students drew pictures of 5 different types of buses (school bus, city bus, tour bus, double decker bus and water bus). They decided we should use our buses to make a model of a community.

Part 2- Creating the Community
We read books about street signs and took a few walks around the school building which is located in a neighborhood.  The students worked in teams to create a community scene for our buses to go in.

Part 3- Using the Boxes
Finally we circled back around to the start of the project... Using the boxes to make a school bus. The students painted the boxes this week and added the details.