Mrs. Swanson's PM Class

Please Respond

2010-06-01T18:29:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-01T18:03:00.000-07:00

We have been learning about different kinds of wood and properties of wood. We have become wood scientists doing lots of experiments. Check out the photos of us seeing if wood absorbs water. Other experiments include sinking or floating wood and our favorite - see how many paper clips will make a piece of wood sink to the bottom! Most took about 7-8 clips. We sure had a good time being wood scientists!

Games with some 5th graders

2010-06-01T17:58:00.000-07:00

It was fun when some of our 5th grade friends came in to play games with us. They came about 5 times. We loved it!

ABC Literature Book

2010-06-01T17:53:00.000-07:00

We read this book and then painted our own fish for our books. They turned out awesome!

We are really good at reading our decodable books! Keep practicing them at home!

2010-06-01T17:44:00.000-07:00

We illustrated a picture of what we want to be when we grow up. TJ did a great job!

2010-06-01T17:43:00.000-07:00

These Boys Love Legos!

2010-06-01T17:41:00.000-07:00

Fun Run

2010-05-16T16:09:00.000-07:00

What a great day for a Fun Run!

Ready!Set!
Go!!!!!

Sydney's mom came to run with her.Olivia found her sister on the

course and they ran together.

After we were done, it was frozen treats for everyone!

YUM!

Hey! We are wearing the same shirt!

2010-05-16T16:08:00.001-07:00

If You Give a Moose a Muffin

2010-05-16T16:05:00.001-07:00

For the M page in our ABC Literature Books, we read this book. Then we did a directed drawing of a moose and a muffin. They turned out FABULOUS!

Tooti-Ta

2010-05-16T16:02:00.001-07:00

We love singing the "Tooti-Ta" song! We get really silly!

We Love Our Moms!

2010-05-10T10:07:00.000-07:00

We worked really hard on our books for our moms for Mother's Day! After we were finished, Mrs. Swanson read all the books to us. We all agreed - We have the best moms in the whole world!

We sure had fun reading our own "Mom" book.

We all made great illustrations on the cover!

Many moms work away from home.

All of the moms work hard at home!

One of the pages told what our mom looks like.

One of the pages told what our mom is good at.

One of the pages told what our mom likes to do if she has extra time. Many of the moms like to take a nap. Mrs. Swanson could understand that!

Other moms like to do other things in their spare time.

We all wrote that our moms love us.

Then we wrote how we know she loves us.

Lunch at School!

2010-05-07T14:51:00.000-07:00

What a fun day in kindergarten! We got to eat lunch at school! We are working so hard to get ready for first grade. We all had to learn our lunch numbers and then practice, practice, and practice them! When we went into the cafeteria to get our lunch, we had to type in our own number. EVERYBODY dis awesome! This is what the keypad looks like. We had lots of helpers! Ms. Lokken, our PE teacher, Mrs. Miller, our Music teacher helped. This is a picture of Olivia and Winter. They showed us where to sit and then helped us up open our milk cartons. They also helped when it came time to clear our trays! Thanks girls!

Onna's mom, Mrs. Ostendorf, didn't just help Onna, she helped all of us ! Thanks Mrs. O!

YUM! A lot of us chose chocolate milk!

We ate cheese pizza, salad, veggies, apple sauce, and rice. We all ate really well!

After we were done, we waited in the hallway for our friends, and then headed back to the room to do our work. What a fun day!

We are Minnesota Experts!

2010-04-22T10:17:00.000-07:00

We finally finished our Minnesota Books!

They turned out FABULOUS!

The Minnesota state bird is the loon.

The Minnesota state rock is the agate.

The Minnesota state butterfly is the monarch.

The Minnesota state fish is the walleye.

The Minnesota state tree is the Norway pine.

The Minnesota state flower is the lady slipper.

Puzzle Kids!

2010-04-15T14:39:00.000-07:00

Putting this 100 piece puzzle together was nothing for these puzzle kids! It took two Choice Times, but they did it!

Cool dinosaur!

We are becoming Minnesota Experts!

2010-04-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

The Minnesota State Rock is the agate. We looked at some real agates.Then we wrote the words for our Minnesota Book.
Then we painted our own agates. We were very careful and they turned out AWESOME!

Last, we cut the agates out and glued them in our books.

We are becoming Minnesota Experts!

2010-04-15T14:06:00.000-07:00

We learned that our state bird is the Loon. We watched and heard some loons on youtube.com before we made our own loon. We talked about where a loon would be happy to live. Next we colored that setting in our Minnesota Book.

Mud, mud, everywhere!

2010-04-15T14:02:00.000-07:00

We read a book about mud and then read a poem with the same words. After we circled all of our Lifetime Words, we each illustrated our own poem. We are awesome at drawing!Here is TJ's before he added the mud with brown paint.

2010-04-12T14:49:00.000-07:00

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.

Dramatic Play Center

2010-04-12T11:29:00.000-07:00

Our Home Living Center has turned into an Animal Hospital. We love to pretend play! Dr. Peter
Dr. Kenrick and Dr. John

There are lots of visitors with their pets.Sick animals everywhere!

How much will that cost? Worth it!

Medicine and food for this one.

Robins!

2010-04-12T09:55:00.001-07:00

In March, we read some books about robins. We were also on the look out at home to see if we could spot any in our yards! Almost everyone saw one right away! Then we made our own robins to celebrate SPRING!See that piece of gummy worm in the robin's mouth?

Guess where the rest of the gummy worm went? YUM!

Having fun at Choice Time!

2010-04-12T09:53:00.000-07:00

We LOVE going to the Computer Lab!

2010-04-12T09:40:00.000-07:00

The funnest place in school!

More Art Lessons - Pointillism

2010-04-10T13:17:00.000-07:00

We looked at and discussed these two prints by Georges Seurat and then learned about creating texture by painting using only dots.

Our pictures turned out AWESOME!

100 Years Old!

2010-03-20T14:15:00.001-07:00

As part of our 100th Day Celebration back in February, we made pictures of ourselves when we are 100 years old! I thought you would like to see a few of them. Here we are in the year 2103 or 2104! We still look adorable!

Art Lessons

2010-03-20T13:59:00.000-07:00

We started by looking and and discussing this portrait by Picasso. Then we made our own portraits using oil pastels copying Picasso's style. We did a GREAT job!

We looked at prints using primary colors and repetition of those colors. Here are our primary color repetition pictures!

Here we painted on card stock and then

printed that design onto fabric.

Oops, more repetition.

Playing and creating

2010-03-19T17:25:00.000-07:00

Onna liked to dust Meg, the Leprechaun's house!

2010-03-19T17:23:00.000-07:00

Jesse sure can build with Legos!

2010-03-19T17:22:00.000-07:00

Olivia sure can sing!

2010-03-19T17:18:00.000-07:00

RAD Zoo

2010-03-19T17:12:00.000-07:00

On March 9, Reptile & Amphibian Discovery Zoo c

ame to present to us. We LOVED it!

Art Adventure

2010-03-19T14:53:00.001-07:00

Ms. Aldafer came into our room to teach us about some prints from the Minnesota Art Institute. We were full of questions and observations!

Good Bye Mrs. Baker!

2010-03-06T13:37:00.000-08:00

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

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

Goldfish Graphing

2010-03-06T13:02:00.000-08:00

We read this book in honor of

Dr. Suess' birthday on March 2. Then we each got a pile of goldfish. YUM!
Then we laid each of our fish on a graph, sorting by color.

Jamiyah was loaded with orange fish!

Nice job Kaleb and Lamarion!

There were no yellow fish in our piles.

Next we put an X in the spot where we first put the fish.

Last, we gobbled up our goldfish and compared graphs. Mrs. Swanson gave each of us a

fish stamp for a job "Well Done!"

February Reading Challenge

2010-03-06T12:47:00.000-08:00

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. Meryer 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 kindergarteners wrote their names on a purple hand.

We all got a rainbow pencil.

He talked to us about continuing to read every day!

Meg The Leprechaun

2010-03-03T14:40:00.000-08:00

We heard that there is a wee leprechaun that comes to

live in Mrs. Swanson's room during the month of March.

Well, she did not show up on March 1st so we decided

to woo her in. We started by making rainbow chains.

Mrs. Swanson hung them from the ceiling.

We hope it works!We started making a rainbow collage.

We wrote notes and drew pictures.YES! It worked. Last night she showed up

and set up house! We are so excited!

Here is her bedroom.

Here is her kitchen.

Here is her living room.Here is the side of her house.

Mrs. Swanson said that Meg is tricky and sneaky and that

we probably will never see her. But we are always on the look out!

She even left us a note. She said she might leave us a treat some day!

Number Writing

2010-03-03T14:24:00.000-08:00

Our Kindergarten goal is to be able to write

the numbers in order from 1 to 31.

We practice a lot!

Many kids can already do it!A few kids can even write the numbers to 100!

Wow!

Our 100th Day of School!

2010-02-25T08:35:00.000-08:00

We can hardly believe that we have been in Kindergarten

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

We read some 100 Days books.

We learned that 10 groups of 10 things make 100.

We worked on "My 100 Things Book"

We made 100 Days hats!

We counted out 100 snacks!

It was our lucky day!

Look at all the smart kindergarteners!

Smart...and goofy Kindergarteners!

Our Five Senses

2010-02-22T15:50:00.000-08:00

Mrs. Baker taught us about our Five Senses. On the day we learned about taste, we looked at our tongues. We also had a chance to sample lemons, limes, and oranges.

Euooo! Sour!

This is better!

Lemons - yum!

What does Jordan think?

Thumbs up for YUM!

Thumbs down for NO THANKS!!

Citrus fruit? Thumbs up for some!

Thumbs down for others!

Almost everyone agreed that the oranges were the best!

Thumbs up!

Valentine's Day

2010-02-22T12:48:00.000-08:00

For our Valentine's Celebration, we had some moms, dads, grandmas, brothers, and friends come in to help. We started with a snack of cookies and rootbeer or strawberry floats, and then we opened our valentines from each other. After that we played Valentine Bingo. What a fun day!

Meet our Student Teacher - Mrs. Kelsey Baker!

2010-02-22T12:45:00.000-08:00

Mrs. Baker is going to Northwestern College in Roseville.

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

We sure are are the lucky class to have Mrs. Baker as a teacher!

Firefighters Visit

2010-02-22T12:39:00.000-08:00

The Maple Grove Fire Department sent some firefighters over to talk about fire safety. We saw a video called "The ABC's of Fire Safety", practiced "Stop, Drop, and Roll", talked about good and bad fires, saw real firefighter equipment, and learned the importance of knowing our home address. The firefighters were awesome! We learned a lot!

December in Kindergarten

2010-02-22T12:30:00.000-08:00

We made candle holders for our parents for a

holiday gift. They turned out beautiful!

We drew and painted reindeer!

Mr. Rassier, the band teacher, played holiday music for

the older kids during their lunch time. We went

down to the cafeteria to hear it too! It was also one

of our most fun days in kindergarten - Pajama Day!

Here we are listening with Mrs. Kapsner's class.

November in Kindergarten

2010-02-22T12:05:00.000-08:00

We sampled cheese popcorn, carmel popcorn, and plain popcorn, and then graphed our class favorite. Carmel had the most votes, then cheese, and last was plain popcorn. Yum!
We made fun turkey hats.

We made turkey disguises so our turkeys didn't become

Thanksgiving Dinner! There were lots of clever ideas!

Look at this bunch of turkeys!

October in Kindergarten

2010-02-19T16:22:00.001-08:00

We invited dads, grandpas, and other men we know

into our classroom to help us carve pumpkins.

We had a great time!

We made a plan for our pumpkins.

We weighed our pumpkins.

We measured our pumpkins.

We drew designs and watched.

We scooped out pumpkin seeds.

We counted our pumpkin seeds.

We carved our pumpkins.

We had a lot of fun!

Our pumpkins turned into Jack 'o Lanterns

after all our hard work!

September in Kindergarten

2010-02-13T20:42:00.000-08:00

One of our first projects was the poem/song,

"Mary Wore Her Red Dress".

After we learned the song, we got to

wear one of our favorite things to school!

Mr. Remund, our school counselor came in to read

us some Dr. Suess. We love stories!

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!