Mrs. Swanson's AM blog

Please Respond

2010-06-01T17:25:00.001-07:00

If you have enjoyed this blog this year would you please let me know. You can send a note with your kindergartner or email me at swansonshari@district279.org Thank you!

Wood Science Unit

2010-06-01T17:13:00.001-07:00

What fun we are having learning about different kinds of wood and properties of wood. Today we did some experiments to learn about wood and water. We really liked the experiment where we had to see how many paper clips were needed to make our piece of wood float. Wow! Most kids needed about 7-8 clips!

Striped Girlfriends!

2010-06-01T17:12:00.000-07:00

The Pledge of Allegiance

2010-06-01T17:08:00.000-07:00

Noah and Maja lead the Pledge of Allegiance on EC TV! It sure was fun for the rest of us to watch them!

ABC LIterature Book

2010-06-01T16:56:00.000-07:00

We read this book by Eric Carle and then did a directed drawing of a firefly. After that, we used a black flair pen to highlight our pencil drawings.

Then we colored our pictures. This is what our fireflies looked like when we were finished!

Fun Run!

2010-05-14T17:01:00.000-07:00

What a beautiful day for our FUN RUN!

Brody's Grandma, mom and brother came to run with us too. Well, his mom didn't run too fast - she's going to have a baby very soon!

Leif's mom ran with him too!

Amy's mom and baby brother joined her. Lots of moms, dads, and grandparents came too!

Here is Maja and her mom and brother.

But most of us ran with our friends and the big kids!

Here we are getting ready to run.

Onna, from the PM class, came to cheer us on with her pompoms.

RUN RUN RUN

Sometimes we walked.

When it was all over, we were given a frozen treat. YUM!

If You Give A Moose a Muffin

2010-05-14T16:59:00.001-07:00

For the "M" page in our ABC Literature Book, we read this book.Then we did a directed drawing of a moose with a muffin.
They turned out GREAT!

The Napping House

2010-05-14T16:44:00.000-07:00

We are on the letter "N" in our ABC Literature Book.

We read this great book by Don and Audrey Wood. Then we worked hard to complete the project that goes with it.
Here are some pictures of us working.

You are going to love our books when they come home!

We love our moms!

2010-05-10T09:54:00.000-07:00

We worked really hard on our books to give to our moms on Mother's Day. Mrs. Swanson read all the books to us when they were finished and we decided - we have the best moms in the world! Here is a little sampling of the book covers and pages.

The first page told what our mom looks like.

Another page told what kind of work our mom does.

Another page told what our mom is really good at doing.

One page told what our mom likes to do

if she has some extra time.

There were really a lot of moms who like

to take naps if they have extra time!

The last page told how we know our mom loves us!

We hope all the moms loved their books as much as we loved making them!

Lunch At School!

2010-05-07T16:02:00.000-07:00

What a fun day eating lunch at school! We are doing so many things to get ready for first grade. First we had to learn our lunch code. We had to practice, practice, and practice before we punched our code in today! EVERYBODY knew their number and did a great job! We ate cheese pizza, rice, fruit choice, veggies, and milk. Lots of us like the chocolate milk! YUM!

Mr. Meyer came to see how we were all doing!

"Great!", we said!

Concert in Room K-3!

2010-05-07T15:56:00.001-07:00

American Idol in kindergarten! We sure do have lots of talent!

Luke's Superstar Week

2010-05-07T15:51:00.000-07:00

It was our lucky day! Luke's grandma was in town from International Falls - way up on the Canadian border where it is super cold and snowy! She came in to read a book to us. The book was called Some Dog and Luke's Grandma knows the author and the dog in the story - they live by her!

We loved the story and the way she read it to us - using special voices and whistles for the wind and a lot more! Thanks Luke's Grandma!

Creative kids!

2010-05-07T15:49:00.000-07:00

Hunter made this little pouch at Choice Time. Isn't it cool?
Luke made this awesome frog at Kidstop!

ABC Project Book

2010-05-07T15:44:00.000-07:00

We finally finished our ABC Project Book! They are in the process of being bound and should be coming home soon! Each project teaches way more that the letter name and sound. We also practice writing the letter. Projects likes these also help us to follow directions, organize our materials and space, plan ahead, alond with fine motor practice and develop work quality, to name a few objectives. It also teaches us how to take care of our table and clean up after ourselves - all important skills for first grade!

Media Center

2010-05-07T15:43:00.001-07:00

Once every 6 days, our class gets to visit the Media Center and hear a story from Mrs. Olson. We really like it!

Earth Day

2010-05-07T15:19:00.000-07:00

April 22 was Earth Day. We read the book and listened to the song, "What A Wonderful World" and then we made our own classroom display. Isn't it wonderful!

We love Choice Time!

2010-04-19T14:50:00.000-07:00

Our Home Living area turned into an Animal Hospital a few weeks ago. We love to pretend play!

Jackson has some sick animals.

Damien waits patiently in the waiting area.

Dr. David helps Luke with his sick dog.

Dr. Drew checks in the sick animals.Dr. David gives a shot to a sick dog.

Dr. Noah helps Damien's dog.

Maja pays her bill. How much was that? Worth it!Some kids like to play with the Polly Pockets at Choice Time.

Here is a group playing school.

Miss Maja must be the teacher.

Katie and Jordyn playing with the blocks.

We love the Computer Lab!

2010-04-19T14:41:00.000-07:00

Almost everyone can log on to their computer

in the lab without help! Yeah!

Here is Mrs. Raven. She is the "boss" of

the computer lab. She is a great help to all of us!

Here is Mrs. Raven helping Jackson find a fun reading game.

We are becoming Minnesota Experts!

2010-04-15T13:49:00.000-07:00

We are learning about the state symbols of Minnesota. We are making a book about them. Watch for them to come home soon!

We are becoming Minnesota Experts!

2010-04-15T13:45:00.000-07:00

The Minnesota State bird is the loon. We watched some real loons on youtube.com to see what they looked like and sounded like. Next we colored a setting for our loon in our Minnesota Book.

Here are a few samples!

We are becoming Minnesota Experts!

2010-04-15T13:32:00.000-07:00

Today we learned that the Minnesota State Rock is the agate. First we looked at some real agates.Then we wrote the sentence for our book.

Here we are painting our agates.

Wow! They turned out super!

MUD!

2010-04-15T09:56:00.000-07:00

We read a book about Mud and then this poem that had the same words as the book. First we circled all the Lifetime Words we could find. Next we did our own illustrations.

We have some GREAT artists in our room!

Last, we painted the mud!

Mud, mud, everywhere!

The illustrated poems will be added to our "Poetry and Songs" book that will come home at the end of the school year.

Superstar of the Week - Jeremiah

2010-04-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

WOW! Jeremiah didn't need his mom or me to read his favorite story during his Superstar Week! He read it himself! And he did a FABULOUS job! Way to go Jeremiah!

Puzzle Work

2010-04-15T09:50:00.001-07:00

For Jeremiah's talent, he brought in a puzzle. We discovered he isn't the only one who rocks at putting 100 piece puzzles together! It took two Choice Times, but they did it!
Nice Job! The boys even carried the table into the bathroom (the only really dark place we could think of) so they could see that this dinosaur actually glows in the dark! COOL!

2010-04-12T14:45:00.001-07:00

Hi Everyone,

Sorry it's been such a long time since I updated this blog! We have been super busy in kindergarten! I hope you enjoy these new updates and much as I am enjoying your child! Also, its super easy to right click on pictures you like to save for your own collection of memories.

Fun Friends!

2010-04-12T14:41:00.000-07:00

We are making such fun friends in school!

Sometimes we even dress the same by accident!Hockey maniacs (and good friends) - Brody and Jackson!!

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

2010-04-12T14:29:00.000-07:00

First we read this Goldilocks and the Three Bears book. And then we read this Goldilocks and the Three Bears book.

We next compared and contrasted the stories.
After all that, we worked on a page for our ABC Literature

Book about Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Last we did a retell of the story using our stick puppets and our house setting. Do you see the three beds? How about the three chairs? Now do you see the bowls of porridge on the table?

Moms Reading

2010-04-12T14:25:00.001-07:00

When kindergartners have their turn to be Superstar of the Week, someone from their family can come in and read a story to the class. If your child has had his/her turn already and you missed coming in to read, feel free to email me and we can set up a time. We love stories!

Here is Amy's mom reading

Make Way for Ducklings. Here is Jackson's mom reading one

of Jackson's favorite fishing books!

10 Black Dots, by Donald Crews

2010-04-12T14:15:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Lohn came into our room and read this book. OUr job was to make our own picture using 1-10 dots. We had some great ideas!

Quietest Time in Kindergarten

2010-03-22T09:53:00.001-07:00

Working on our math sheets is the quietest time of the day. Our class ROCKS at math!

Today we had to draw Tiny Tumblers falling down the mountain. This week's math homework will explain what that all means!

Super Star of the Week

2010-03-22T09:51:00.000-07:00

Everybody has or will have a turn to be our Super Star of the Week. It's Jackson's turn this week. Nice job on your poster, Jackson!

2010-03-20T13:37:00.001-07:00

There are several new entries posted today.

Don't miss the new posts all the way back to RAD Zoo!

SCIENCE! Fabric Unit

2010-03-20T13:23:00.001-07:00

We spent time looking at different fabrics and what they are made from.

Two of our favorite jobs were weaving and dying fabric.

St. Patrick's Day! Look at all the GREEN!

2010-03-20T13:15:00.000-07:00

We decided to write notes and draw pictures to Meg

with the hope that she will bring us some gold from her stock pile.

It was our lucky day! She did bring us some gold!

Art Lessons

2010-03-20T11:35:00.001-07:00

We looked at some prints and found primary color repetition.

Then we made our own. We think they turned our pretty neat!

We made prints, then copied them onto fabric.

We looked at this print by Picasso and then

made our own self portraits using his style.

Drew builds cool things with Legos!

2010-03-20T11:34:00.000-07:00

RAD Zoo Visit

2010-03-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

We sure enjoyed seeing all the reptiles and amphibians that

Jamie brought in! He does birthday parties if you are interested!

100th Day Project

2010-03-20T10:51:00.000-07:00

One of the projects we did for the 100th Day of School was to think ahead to when we will be 100 years old! Here are some of us in the year 2103 and 2104!

Good Bye Mrs. Baker!

2010-03-06T13:34:00.000-08:00

Mrs. Baker's last day was Friday, March 5th.

We miss her already! Come and visit us soon, Mrs. Baker!

Goldfish Graphing

2010-03-04T14:25:00.000-08:00

Today we read this book in honor of

Dr. Suess' birthday which was on March 2. Then we each got a pile of goldfish - YUM!

We had to lay our fish out on our graph page to

see how many of each color was in our pile.

There were no yellow fish in our piles.

Next we put an X where ever we laid a fish.

Wow! Hannah was loaded with orange fish!After we were done filling our our graph,

we got to gobble up all of our goldfish!

February Reading Challenge

2010-03-04T14:14:00.000-08:00

February was "I Love to Read" month at Elm Creek. Our school challenge was to read 200,000 minutes. If we met the goal, Mr. Meyer promised to dress up like a leprechaun! Well, we went way beyond 200,000 minutes! Doesn't Mr. Meyer look great! The rainbow wall behind him is made up of hands. All the kindergartners wrote their names on a purple hand. Mr. Meyer visited our classroom and

gave each of us a rainbow pencil!

Super Reader Amy!

2010-03-04T14:08:00.000-08:00

More good news!

Amy was the top reader in Kindergarten!

Hooray for Amy!

Meg the Leprechaun!

2010-03-03T14:10:00.000-08:00

After a lot of work wooing her, Meg the Leprechaun

finally showed up to stay in our room for awhile!

Boy are we excited!

We thought that maybe a rainbow chain would attract her.Mrs. Swanson hung it up!

Damien colored a picture of a leprechaun.

Alexa made a rainbowOther kids wrote notes and hung them up.

Last night she came and set up her house!

She had lots of fun things!

Here is her bedroom.

Here is her kitchen. Hunter made her a Christmas tree!

Here is her living room.

Meg left a note too! She said she may leave us a treat some day!

Snack time!

2010-03-03T14:08:00.000-08:00

Our Five Senses

2010-03-03T14:04:00.000-08:00

We finished up our Five Senses Unit by

sorting objects by how they feel.

The 100th Day in Kindergarten!

2010-02-24T09:04:00.000-08:00

We can hardly believe that we have been in Kindergarten

for 100 days! We did lots of different things to celebrate!

Here we are - 100 days smarter!

Here we are 100 days smarter

and 100 days sillier!We read some 100th Day books.

We learned that 10 groups of 10 things makes 100!

We worked on "My 100 Things Book"

We made hats with a 100 on them!

This is a picture of Mrs. Haertzen,

our ESP that helps us sometimes.

We counted out 100 snacks! It was our lucky day!

Hooray for the 100th Day of School!

Our Five Senses

2010-02-23T08:01:00.000-08:00

Mrs. Baker taught us about our Five Senses.

On the day we learned about Taste, we read about

our tongue and then we had a taste test.

We got to taste lemons, limes and oranges.

First was the lemon!

Here goes......Euoooooo! Sour!

What do you think Jackson?

Now for the the lime...

At last....now for the orange!

What did you think, Hunter?

There were definitely some thumbs up!

And there were definitely some thumbs down!

Most of us agreed - we liked the orange the best!!!

But some of us....like Tara.....loved them all!

Meet our Student Teacher - Mrs. Kelsey Baker!

2010-02-22T13:19:00.000-08:00

Mrs. Baker is going to Northwestern College in Roseville.

She is student teaching in our classroom until March 5th.

We sure are the lucky class to have Mrs. Baker for our teacher!

Valentine's Day Fun!

2010-02-22T08:47:00.001-08:00

Della - all ready for Valentine's Day!

We decorated our Valentine's Day Bags at school.We passed out our Valentines.

We were all so excited!
Yum! We ate cookies and had rootbeer or strawberry floats.

Our friend Andrew.

Our friend DJ.

The most fun part of the day was opening all our

Valentines from our Kindergarten friends!

We had lots of helpers! Thanks everyone!

Work and Play in Kindergarten

2010-02-22T08:20:00.000-08:00

Firefighter's Visit

2010-02-22T08:09:00.000-08:00

The Firefighters came to teach us about good fires and bad fires. We reviewed "Stop, Drop, and Roll" and learned the importance of knowing our home addresses. We saw a video on the ABC's of Firesaftey and watched and learned while the firefighter put on all of his expensive and important equipment. We loved it!

2010-02-22T08:05:00.000-08:00

We were so excited to get two new students in January!

Welcome Damien!

Welcome Jeremiah!

Osseo Junior High Readers

2010-02-22T07:56:00.000-08:00

As part of their Family Life class at Osseo Junior High,

students came to read to us

Santa Girls

2010-02-22T07:50:00.001-08:00

November in Kindergarten

2010-02-22T07:39:00.001-08:00

We learned about the First Thanksgiving

and made a book about it.

We made turkey hats.

We worked hard disguising our turkeys so

they wouldn't get eaten for Thanksgiving Dinner!

What a bunch of silly turkeys!

2010-02-20T09:29:00.000-08:00

We invited dads, grandpas, and other men we know

into our classroom to help us carve pumpkins.

We had a great time! Here is a sampling of our day.

The photos are a bit out of order. Oh well! :)

Maja's dad brought in some power tools!

That was exciting!

We counted out some seeds to bring home and bake.

Yum! Cooked pumpkin seeds!

October in Kindergarten

2010-02-20T08:09:00.000-08:00

Our pumpkins turned into Jack 'o Lanterns

after all our hard work!

September in Kindergarten

2010-02-20T07:20:00.001-08:00

One of our first projects in kindergarten was the

poem/song "Mary Wore Her Red Dress".

After we learned the song, we all got

to wear one of our favorite things to school.

Noah brought in a chrysalis and we watched

as a beautiful monarch butterfly came out!

We brought it outside and a few kids got

to hold it before it flew off to begin its long

journey to Mexico. It was really fun!

Besides learning a bunch of procedures and rules,

we illustrated poems, made patterns, sorted objects,

worked on projects and of course, made lots of new friends!

We miss Lauren!

She moved to Fernbrook in January.

Oops! this is TJ from the PM class.

How did he get in here? :)

Constitution Day