Hugs and Kisses

Hugs and Kisses!

Our first unit of the year, based on the sweet story The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn, is always a great unit to begin with.  The different stories in the series deal with so many "beginning of the year" issues and the munchkins are comforted to know that some of their worries and anxieties are normal. 

We started our unit by tracing our own hand prints and creating a pocket chart activity and class book that helped us get to know each others' names and begin to feel a part of the group.  Handprints made fun little snacks, too!  The munchkins just loved them!

We were able to learn all sorts of new things about kindergarten, all with the help of Chester the raccoon.

Of course, one of our biggest jobs in kindergarten is to begin exploring the language.  To do this (and to begin recognizing some of our first sight words), we used a fun little emergent reader that stressed some of those words.  The munchkins colored the illustrations in the story and we used it to choral read, partner read and even show off our reading skills to
Mr. B. (our principal).

This particular little book was all about how much Chester loved school.  So a perfect companion activity was to create little wooden schoolhouses.

They turned out great!

We had...

orange and purple schoolhouses,

blue and black schoolhouses, 

red and brown schoolhouses,

and even rainbow schoolhouse!

We used Chester and his great stories to focus on some math skills, too.  The munchkins practiced counting hearts to match numbers on a counting mat.

The munchkins also learned about creating and reading graphs.  Everyone took a turn spinning Chester's spinner and graphing the result of the spin.  The classroom graph was created on the floor and then each munchkin recreated it on paper.  We spent lots of time dicussing which result happened most often, which happened the least number of times and if any of the results occurred equally.



We covered another set of math concepts that, interestingly, disguise themselves as a fun art project!  The munchkins color and cut several hearts of differing sizes.  These hearts are flipped, turned and ordered to create Chester himself.  Although cute and creative, it is a fantastic exercise in listening to directions and understanding directionality.

Coloring...

cutting...

 putting it together...

and even trying it on!

Well, for any of you that know Chester's story, you are aware that he shared more than one secret with Mother Raccoon.  Not only did she teach him about the "kissing hand", but she also gave him an extra.  This one was kept in his pocket.

So, we couldn't end our unit without creating a "pocket" of our own. 

First, we made a mini-pocket that we filled with "kisses" (just like Chester's!).

And we had little "pockets" (sealed with a mini kiss) for snack, too!

We made a big pocket, too, as a special place to hold some of the fun activities that we completed throughout the unit.  It was filled with counting games, patterning games and our emergent reader. 

To end our unit, the munchkins were introduced to a special kindergarten tradition. 

 Every Wednesday is "Recipe Day"!

And our first recipe was a Kissing Hand Sandwich.

Its ingredients were...

buttered bread,

sugared sprinkles,

and a candy heart "kiss" in the center.

Yum!

Yes....YUM!!

It's always sad to see the first unit of the year come to an end, but the munchkins are always ready to know what is going to come next...

I wonder...

Will there be enough room?

Until next time...

Giggles,
Mrs. D.