Happy Thankgsiving

Happy Thanksgiving! I wish you all a wonderful day filled with love, laughter, and yummy food. On Tuesday, we enjoyed our special Thanksgiving feast, read about the first Thanksgiving, and spent time sharing some of the things we are thankful for. I was impressed with the students thoughtful responses.

This week, we also welcolmed a new student to our classroom. Welcome to Cayla and her family!

Thank you for the donations that made our feast possible.

Kindergarten Thanksgiving concert

We hope you enjoyed the Thanksgiving concert! The students did a wonderful job.
Click on the link below to enjoy an iMovie of the concert.

Kindergarten Concert

Halloween Fun!

The storm might have caused a little delay in our Halloween plans but we had a great time celebrating a few days late 😊

October

It's hard to believe that October is coming to an end. This month has been filled with so much learning and so many fun activities. I have seen so much growth in each student during the past 40 school days and their smiles and excitement for learning fill my heart with joy. 
Here are a few of the many moments we enjoyed this month.

Pumpkin Painting!
A big thank you to Brycen's mom for supplying the pumpkins and for helping with the painting.

Learning about color mixing from Miss G. 
While reading the book Monster Mess by Deanna Jump, Miss G. led a lesson on color mixing. Each child had 6 balls of playdough (2 red, 2 yellow, 2 blue). They explored what happens when we mix 2 colors together. The students made interesting observations as they watched the colors become more and more mixed until their ball of playdough became one new color. 

Walk to School Day!
On Friday, October 20th all of Fuller Meadow School enjoyed a walk in the neighborhood behind the school. As we walked we made observations of the things we were seeing. We saw many examples of shade (something we are studying in science), colorful leaves, roots growing out of the sidewalk, people walking, dogs inside and outside of houses, and Halloween decorations. The weather couldn't have been more beautiful and we had a great time.

Goodbye Miss G. 
Sadly, later that afternoon we had to say goodbye to Miss G. Miss G. has finished her student teaching experience with our class and is starting a new student teaching experience with a first grade class in Boxford. We wish her all the best and look forward to future visits later this year.

This past Friday, we had a special treat when Officer Cardinale visited the students during lunch time. The students enjoyed his visit and look forward to seeing him again soon. 

As you can see, October was a fun and exciting month for us. Next up........Halloween

Apples!

The weather couldn't have been more perfect for our fieldtrip to Smolak Farm in North Andover. The students enjoyed a hayride out to the apple orchard, picking apples, and a delicious snack of apple cider donuts and apple cider. 

Later, that afternoon the students investigated their apples. They looked at the outside and inside of their apple. They used tiles and a balance to find out how heavy their apple was. They used tiles to find out how long their apple was. They put their apples in water to see if they would sink or float. Last, we had a taste test to see which kind of apple was most popular (red, green, or yellow). 

It was an apple filled day!

Thank you to Mrs. Prinzivalli and Mrs. Santostefano for all of your help!

On Tuesday, we wrapped up our apple unit by completing our Learning on our KWL chart. As you can see the students learned a lot about apples!

 

A Great Start!

It has been a great start to the school year! The students have been hard at work learning the routines and procedures of Kindergarten. 

Happy 1st Day!

Students enjoyed sharing their All About Me clouds.

The students are learning about Math Stations. They are practicing reading, counting, and writing numbers to 10.

At the end of the day, the students enjoy centers. During this time, they get to choose activities such as blocks, legos, painting, dramatic play, playdough, and games. 


It has been a great two weeks and I am looking forward to a wonderful school year full of fun, laughter, and learning.

Kindergarten Serenade

This was a very special week for us.  On Monday, we said goodbye to Miss Irene, our senior volunteer. We were fortunate to have Miss Irene volunteer in our classroom on Mondays and Wednesdays during WIN. She worked with students on reading, writing, and sight words. We wished her a wonderful summer and hope to see her back in the fall.

On Tuesday, Officer McParland visited our classroom for the DARE program. Thank you Officer McParland for helping to keep us safe.

On Thursday, we had our Kindergarten Serenade. Thank you so much to all of the parents that were able to come. The children loved looking out into the audience and seeing you. 
Please click on the link below to enjoy an iMovie of the performance

Kindergarten Serenade

It's been a wonderful year!

It's been a wonderful year and it's hard to believe it's over so quickly. Thank you for sharing your children with me. We learned, we laughed, and we had a lot of fun together. Wishing you a fun and relaxing summer! Love, Mrs. Ochoa

Symbols of America

For our final Social Studies unit, we learned about some important symbols of America. The students really enjoyed this unit and often spent additional time at the end of the day drawing the symbols that we had learned about.

For each symbol, we started by reading about the symbol and creating a fact chart. 

After, the students chose 3 facts for their information book.

Last, the students completed a special project for each symbol.

The American Flag

The Bald Eagle

The Statue of Liberty

The Liberty Bell

Field Day!

The weather couldn't have been more perfect for Friday's field day and the students had an amazing time.

Sponge Race

Ball Game

Sack  & Wheelbarrow Races

Obstacle Course

Kindergarten Picnic!

It turned out to be a beautiful day for our kindergarten picnic. Thank you for spending time with us! The children enjoyed it so much.

 

World of Jumping

On Friday, we were treated to some amazing jump rope skills by Mr. Mark from World of Jumping.

He didn't just show us how to jump rope, he used his talents to talk about the importance of teamwork, having focus, and always trying our best to reach our goals. He talked about respect and  about making our own good choices and being a leader. The students listened to Mr. Mark's every word and cheered him on as he challenged himself with tricky skills.
Each grade level got their own special time with Mr. Mark. He led us through some stretching and strength skills and more rope jumping. 

Thank you for helping to support this special program with donations to the MPTO Treasure Chest and our Coin Challenge.  We had a great time! 

Exciting Surprise!

During the past few weeks, we have been watching our Praying Mantis egg case. This morning we had an exciting surprise! The students were excited to see that the babies look just like the adults, only much much smaller.

It's All About Science!

We have been very busy during the past few weeks. During the month of May we have learned about Day and Night, nocturnal and diurnal animals, as well as plants and what they need in order to grow.
 We started May by learning about day and night and why we have daytime and night time. The students learned that while the Earth is rotating around the sun it is also slowly spinning. For part of the day,where we live is facing the sun, giving us daytime, and for the other part of the day, where we live is not facing the sun, giving us darkness. They thought this was really interesting and enjoyed using the globe to demonstrate.

Next, we talked about activities that we can do during the daytime and/or nighttime.

Talking about what we can do during the daytime and nighttime, led to a lesson on what animals do during the daytime and nighttime. We learned about nocturnal and diurnal animals.

When this unit was finished, we started our unit on plants.  This tied in nicely with our reading unit on Jack and the Beanstalk.

First, we learned what plants need in order to survive and about the parts of the plant. The students made their own diagrams.

Next, we planted bean seeds and made a castle in the clouds for our bean stalk to reach as it grows.

Our bean plants grew very quickly in our sunny window and within a week most had reached the castle.

Another activity to help us learn about plants, was sequencing the cycle of a sunflower.

During this time, we also had the opportunity to help plant in our school garden in the courtyard.

  May was a busy and fun-filled month for us in K-O.