Cookies, cookies, cookies!

Finally on Friday, we made pumpkin cookies to see what pumpkin tasted like!  Many of us thought they were delicious!

Sink or Float?

We read a book where people were using a pumpkin as a boat.  We had a discussion about whether we think a pumpkin would actually sink or float.


We made a t-chart.  Many of  us thought it would float, although we did change our minds too!!

IT FLOATS!!

It was the week before Halloween....

It is the week before Halloween here in Kindergarten and we are very excited!  We have been doing some pumpkin investigations.

Here's what we want to know about pumpkins:

• what do the insides look like
• what do the seeds taste like
• what does pumpkin taste like
• do pumpkins sink or float

Pumpkin investigation

Opening up our pumpkins!

Inside

Dot Day - Late post

Sneak peak for Dot Day, Sept. 15

Making our mark....coming soon!!

Learning to play

Our classroom is ready!!

Life Cycle Videos

Hummingbird from Stacey Matsumoto on Vimeo.

Caterpillar Observation Update

Our class has been very excitedly watching our caterpillars growing and eating.  Every morning, everyone RUSHES over to see how they are doing.  We have noticed a lot of changes lately.  We also have been writing in these journals called "My Butterfly Observations".  We write about the life cycle 1 or 2 days a week.  We noticed that they have been eating and there's a lot of poop in the container!  We have been doing a lot of work on butterfly journals.  Our larvae has gotten very big now.  Our caterpillars have been getting a lot of fuzz on them.  They are molting lots of skin.  We are hoping they will make their chrysalis soon - around June 1st.  Caterpillars are getting long.  The butterflies fly to Mexico and they find a lot of butterflies.  (We read about the migration of Monarch butterflies in a book today.  They fly south for the winter to warm places like Mexico).  Right now the caterpillars are shedding their skin.  Our class is doing a live stream of our butterflies.  It's a live stream in our blog and Miss Matsumoto set up a camera to watch the caterpillars.  (A live stream is a video that shows our caterpillars in REAL time.  We hope to watch them over the weekend a bit when we are away from school  We predicted that this weekend, some may go into their chrysalis.)  The caterpillars are almost in the chrysalis stage and they are fatter.  If they turn into their pupas, they try to put all of the body into the pupa and then they wait.  The chrysalis becomes transparent, then you can see them.  Then they can go outside and they make their wings so they can fly.  I have been noticing a lot of webby stuff in the containers.  And we think that is their skin shedding.  After this, you should check out our caterpillar video that we put on our blog too!

Written by EVERYONE in Room 163

Live Stream of the Butterflies

Live streaming video by Ustream

I realize that we have been absent from our classroom blog lately, but I still have been taking pictures of what we have been up to.  So finally I am posting some the pictures of what has been happening in Room 163.  I will work harder to ensure that we will be posting, hopefully on a weekly basis!

Celebrating 100 Day with CRAZY HATS!

Reader's Theatre in Reading Groups

Amazing Trees of Winter Watercolour Artwork

Special Guests

Watching the OLYMPICS!

More Reader's Theatre

Learning about the '=' Sign 

Graphing on St. Patrick's Day with Lucky Charms

Reader's Theatre with costumes

Student-Led Conference Goal Storybird

Last week our class had our Student-Led Conferences. With our families, we shared something we were proud of and something we need to continue to work on in Grade 1 and 2. Each student used one page from the story creating website Storybird. . Here is our book. Please enjoy!

The First Day of School

Well, the first day of school is tomorrow and summer is sadly over.  I am both excited and nervous to begin our school year.  I am very lucky to have many of my students from last year in my classroom again for Grade 2 and also to have 5 new students beginning Grade 1.  I was very busy this summer and it seemed to pass by very quickly.  Here are some photos from my summer!  Can't wait to see you all tomorrow!!

-Miss Matsumoto  

Folk Festival 2013

GIANT Scrabble at Folk Festival!

Painting chairs for school my favourite colour :) 

Mary Poppins at Rainbow Stage

Setting up our classroom for this year in August

Taking classes at the University of Manitoba (I am a student too!)

Doubles Raps!!

As part of our learning for doubles I shared with my class these doubles raps.  We liked it so much we are trying to write our own doubles rap.  Hopefully we might be able to share it!

 Miss Matsumoto

Thank you Grade Ones!

On Friday May 3 I wrapped up my teaching block. I had the opportunity to work with fantastic students! I will truly miss all of my grade ones! Thank you for helping me become a better teacher. I hope to see you all soon! -Miss Hrynyk

Music Monday

Yesterday was Music Monday.  All around the world people celebrated Music Monday in a unique way spurred on by a request from Canadian astronaut, Chris Hadfield.  It was an event that celebrated music and had a musical collaboration between earth and space.  Our school was involved in a number of activities.  We had some representatives from grade 5 singing at the legislature building and the jazz band played with others at Transcona Collegiate Institute.  In the afternoon the entire school celebrated Music Monday during an assembly where we sang the Music Monday theme song - "ISS - Is Somebody Singing."

Additionally there was a live webcast that our class attempted to watch starting at 11:00 a.m. where Chris Hadfield sang "ISS - Is Somebody Singing" aboard the International Space Station along with students from schools in Canada.  Unfortunately the webcast was continuously loading, so we were only able to see snippets of the actual webcast.  Afterwards, I managed to find YouTube video of Chris Hadfield singing "ISS - Is Somebody Singing" from space with the Barenaked Ladies.  Below is that video and a video of our class singing along.  Enjoy! - Miss Matsumoto

Eggs! Pictures

The Sid

Testing Our Ears

During our class investigation of the 5 Senses, we tested how to help increase the size of our ears in order to hear sounds better. - Miss Matsumoto

Guest Readers from I Love to Read!

We had the chance to have several guest readers in our classroom for I Love to Read month.

I will add the other photo later! - Miss Matsumoto