All Saints Day

When the Saints March In

Although we spent so much time preparing for our Saints Alive Fair last week, we couldn't let this beautiful Holy Day go by without reminding ourselves of the holy people of the past whose lives & prayers can help lead us to heaven.

After attending Mass together as a class, our munchkins did some fantastic writing, asking the saints of heaven to pray for us. (It was a great opportunity to work on the /ay/ sound with a fun rhyming game before doing our writing activities.)

Then, they had to chance to create some fun little "saintly" dolls.  Everyone had the chance to make two of their favorite saints...

We had:

St. Mary, St. Therese, St. Michael, St. Francis

and

(of course)

St. Patrick & St. Brigid 

As a special treat at the end of the day, each student received a pack of saint trading cards.  It was so fun to watch the munchkins explore each saint and trade favorites with their friends.

May the Saints of Heaven Pray for Us!

Until next time...
Giggles,
Mrs. D.

Happy Halloween!

All Hallow's Eve

Cuties in Costume!



Happy Halloween to all the munchkins!

Until next time...

Giggles,

Mrs. D.

All Saints Fair

Saints Alive!

What a great way to learn about the saints.

This year, Father developed an all-school extravaganza! The CCD classes were included as well.  Everyone took part.

Each classroom was given a country from which to research saints.  The students created displays of all kinds.  The classrooms were decorated, music and art was included, to make each room feel as though visitors were truly taking a journey around the world.  There were even regional snacks in some of the "countries".  Family members were invited for a fun filled evening visiting all the classrooms.  Everyone received a "passport" which was stamped as they visited the many countries.  It was quite a success!

Our country was Ireland.

(I am French by marriage only!  I'm an Irish lass at heart!)

We spent several weeks learning all about St. Brigid and St. Patrick. 

The students each created a fantastic display board, complete with colored holy card images of each saint, a map of Ireland, the Irish flag and a biographical paragraph (kinder-version!) about each saint.  Each munchkin also made a St. Brigid cross and a St. Patrick shamrock. 

We created a great hallway display, turning our doorway into the entrance to Kildare Abbey with Brigid spreading her cloak on one side & Patrick driving the snakes into the sea on the other.

Our classroom had some fun snacks...

Saint Francis' Snakes

Irish Mints

and

Trinity Shamrocks

So many of our munchkins visited the fair.  It was so fun to see them all!

Father ended the evening, gathering all the kids in the gym for a Saints Trivia game.  Too fun!

It was a fantastic evening and it was such a great way to learn about so many of the wonderful saints of Heaven.

May they all pray for us!

Until next time...

Giggles,

Mrs. D.

Clifford's Visit

We Love the Big Red Dog!

Look who came to visit our school today for the Book Fair!

The Kindergarten munchkins had such fun with the Big Red Dog!

Even Mr. D got in on the fun!

Thanks for visiting, Clifford!

We love the Big Red Dog!

Until next time...

Giggles,

Mrs. D.

Mrs. Wishy Washy

Into the Tub!

Mrs. Wishy Washy is always such a fun unit!  It is a great story that gets the munchkins excited about reading and writing on their own.  We use it to explore all sorts of fantastic phonological awareness skills, including rhyme, blending three sounds, separating three sounds and writing three letter words.  We put many of these skills to work in some neat books that we make during this mini-unit.

We started off with choral & partner reading and we also used the pocket chart to practice some of our focus words.

After everyone was familiar with the text, we created three fun class books that followed the same text pattern that our main story had.

In our first book, we put the munchkins in the tub!

In our second book, we put all kinds of crazy, three-letter objects in the tub!  The munchkins did a great job of counting each sound, putting a letter with each sound they heard, and then writing the word conventionally on their own!

"One day she washed a hat."

"One day she washed a fox."

"One day she washed a nut."

In our third book, we developed our own farm...a farm with all sorts of three-letter objects living on it.  The munchkins got to practice those same skills again, only this time they composed the whole sentence.  They used several of the sight words we've been working on.

"I see one rug."

"I see one fox."

"I see one nut."

The munchkins wanted to be able to take some of their hard work home, so we also created two little books so they could share their great reading skills with Mom and Dad.

We made one that focused on retelling the story, using the animal words to match the characters.

The other focused on rhyme families, in particular, the "at" family.  The munchkins had to decode the "at" family words on each page in order to properly illustrate it...so this time, instead of separating the sounds, they were blending in order to read.  They did a great job!

 

We also took some time to learn about characters and setting, creating cute little stick puppets and a fun setting for a retelling of the story.

One of the more fun activities we did as we ended this unit was to decide who would like to play in the mud...like the crazy characters in the story!

We made a "person" graph to show the results.

Then we made mud!

Mixing...

Stirring...

Eating!
Oh! Lovely mud...

In the tub you go!

Such muddy fun!

Until next time...
Giggles,
Mrs. D.