Daddy Days and more fun!

Tuesday morning was our "Daddy Day" morning. We invite dads to come join their student for muffins and juice. They can also tour the school, visit the classroom, or stop by the book fair. It is such an exciting day for the kids. This year, one of my kiddos got a huge surprise! Her dad lives in Texas and he flew in Monday night and surprised her Tuesday morning. I could have cried it was sooooo sweet!!! He got to stay in our classroom and help out/play with us until lunch. I thought it was great!!

She was so excited!

And they keep coming...

This week, we have taken a break during math. By break, I mean we are playing math games. Don't tell them, but we are working on addition, greater than, less than, etc!!!! These kiddos are playing war. I downloaded the cards from Constance Kamii. They are the best because the diamonds and number match.

This is track meet. It is a math game from Young Children Reinvent Arithmetic. It is by Constance Kamii and Leslie Baker Housman. This was one of my math books from Auburn and I still use it and love it!

Sneaky Snake- always a class favorite.

Now, on to force. We talked about friction and rolling and well, a lot of stuff!!! This experiment consists of each child pushing a book- one of my college texts- with their pinky from one line to the next. After each child completes this task, they discuss what they found- was it easy, hard, different from what they expected??? Then, each pushes a pencil with their pinky finger. Again, they discuss their findings. We read fact books about friction and wheels and axles to help us understand why things that roll are easier to move.

We recorded our findings in our math and science notebook.

This was right before her dad left. We had a blast and thanks for visiting us!!!!  By the way, did I mention that he lives in Texas and Flat Stanley is going to visit him??? Yay!!!

This is another activity from Suzan Estes. She rocks!!! This is a force (push) exercise. We practice pushing softly, then hard, then to the ceiling... You get the picture. They loved it.

Here is another activity from Estes. This is also dealing with force. Each child rolls the dice and has to push the lid to the matching line. For example, if I rolled a 1, I would have to figure out how much force was needed to get the lid to the first tape line on the rug. It is not easy!!!!

Yes, we have on backpacks. I have told you before that there are not enough hours in our day! They were finishing and then lining up for buses. Wow, kindergarten is a super busy place!!

I know this is a lot, but I have done most of this week in this post. I am still behind from missing last week and then again Monday. Below are pics of the kids creating a car. They were given different materials and had to design/build their own vehicle. It is hard but they came up with some pretty cool things. I adapted this activity from one that Suzan Estes did. I ran out of time and just let them do their own thing.

I hope you enjoyed our few days as much as we did!!! I will finish posting the rest on Friday. Now, only 30 minutes of planning time left, so I best get busy!!