Gingerbread House decorating!

We had a blast on Friday! Decorating the houses was a great time- thank you so much for all the help and support ! I can't say thank you enough! Here are some pictures of the event...

Brooklyn and Ms. Wall begin her masterpiece 

Trevor and Ms. Laura (my mom). All Cramers love kindergarten.

Kyle and Brian had a great time decorating houses. Shoutout to Elli's grandpa for volunteering with a smile and what appears to be no chair! You are totally awesome!

Hayley gives it two thumbs up. 

I know that many people couldn't come- it's hard to take off work after having all the snow days, etc. Please know that your children all had a blast, and that there were an abundance of caring adults helping to make it happen.  It's totally cheesy, but I felt blessed to be in a room with so much love and joy. The kids had a great time. Thanks for sending in all the stuff and thank you to all the people who can in to help out and be with the kiddos. I was totally stressed for nothing. 

And one more picture group... Making it "snow" on all the houses...

I really appreciate the Kinzie and Clayton hung with me on the reindeer hats .

 

Okay, glad I wasn't the only one who kept the reindeer antlers on. That might be embarrassing. Thank you Elli, Kyle, Se 'Kyia and Hayley :)

The month of November in pictures and words.

November just flew right by!  You wouldn't believe how much has been going on in the classroom!  We've had our first two Husky Times, picture day (and retakes!), 2 birthdays, our Share Feast, crafty visitors, and Meet the Masters.  I am so proud of all the hard work that the kiddos have been doing.  As you might have guessed, my whole family loves helping out in the classroom.  My mom recently visited our room (with my aunt!  See what I mean?) and she was SHOCKED about the changes.  The children were all so busy learning, and they're coming along so well as readers.  It makes me so proud!  I hope you are, too!  The wonder of watching children learn to read, and be excited to read, doesn't wear off.  It's still cool after 6 years.

I have quite a few pics I have snapped of various activities.  I've been meaning to post them; I am backed up!  I'll try my best to caption them.  Your little ones are with me a great deal of the day, and I know you like to see what they're up to!

In case you didn't know, here's a recap of the last few events:

• Husky Times are short morning assemblies for grades pre-K-2.  We talk about important school business, learn about upcoming events, and celebrate school successes- like the Walkathon!
• Meet the Masters is PTO organized art curriculum that is taught by parent volunteers.  If you are interested in assisting, please contact me!  Ellery's mom taught the children about Joan Miro and surrealism.   The kids really enjoyed it and have been pointing out the prints that were posted in the hallway!  Big thanks to Ellery's mom!
• We have been so fortunate to have crafty visitors!  Elena's, Sawyer's, Deakon's, and Karson's moms all came by last month to do a craft with the children.  Elli's grandmother came twice!  I am so grateful to you for taking the time out to come hang out with the children and do art. 
• Our Share Feast was last week.  We had plenty of snacks to go around; everyone got to add something!  (Also, we will be good on class snacks through December, I am pretty sure!).  When I told the children it was a feast, they wanted to know if that meant they could have seconds.  I said "Yes," they could even have thirds.  You would NOT believe the amount of snack mix these children went through.  It was shocking.  The bowl Saywer is holding was FULL.  Lesson learned.  Point for the kindergarteners. 

Bring on the pictures....

Share Feast-
 

Katie and Kyle brought cupcakes. Kids eating colorful icing always makes me laugh. 

Working hard in math-

Deakon and his table working on their math box. They built "name towers" using blocks for how many letters are in their name.

Scott's table is working on a math box about comparing weight.

Paige decorated her paper after she finished her math box on nonstandard measurement (measuring things with objects instead of tools like rulers)

Elena works on surveys for her math box activity. She had to ask everyone the question and record their answer using tally marks. She's collecting data! :)

Hayley is making her numbers book, which is designed to help children understand different ways to represent a number.

Karson practices nonstandard measurement.

Brooklyn uses a graph to record data while doing the coin flipping math box.

Working in centers-

Elena and Katie, practicing reading at the Buddy Reading center. Each child has a folder where they keep a buddy reading log. When they fill up their log (read 20 leveled books), they get to eat lunch in the classroom. We've already had 2 children fill up their logs!

Karson listening to a book. Children can follow along with the story and hear fluent reading modeled.

Sully makes a sight word book. She practices each sight word by reading it, building it with letter stamps, and writing the word.

Crafty Visitors-

Making snowy owls to illustrate our reports with Deakon's mom. See my previous post to learn about our new genre of writing.

Making paper scrap trees with Sawyer's mom.

We made macaroni necklaces to create patterns!

Report Writing!

We have started a new genre of writing in Writer's Workshop! 

We have started nonfiction/report writing! Woo hoo! It gives us a chance to cover lots of science, and also learn about animals. Kids love animals. So it's a high interest theme :) 

Each day, we learn about an animal by reading a nonfiction book together. Then the children write simple sentences about the animal. It's a great way for them to practice the skill of independently writing, because the format is easy to understand. They write one thing about how the animal looks, one thing about how it moves, one thing about where it lives, and one thing about what it eats. Before they know it, your child has written four sentences! 

Your child's writing may look like gibberish- but it's not! They are all at different stages of writing development. Most of the children are now writing phonetically (writing words they way they sound). That is AWESOME for this time of the year! Seriously. Please don't be stressed about incorrect spelling, the spelling will improve as the year progresses and they become better readers. Praise them for sounding out the words to write! That is a difficult combination of many skills we've been learning (concepts of print , alphabet knowledge, letter formation, AND phonemic awareness). Ask them to read their writing to you- soon you, too , can become fluent in  "kindergarten." :)

If you have any interesting pets- snakes, rabbits, iguanas, etc., and are interested in bringing them to our room, please let me know!  As scientists and writers, we can learn a lot to write about by observing an animal.

Guest Blogger!

I have a rather long post that I've been working on and hope to finish tomorrow. But in the meantime-

My aunt, Leigh Jones, recently stopped by our classroom. Aunt Leigh is a nationally recognized journalist- she's been a writer for Reuters and is currently an editor for the National Law Journal (I'm a little proud of her!). Anyway, she asked if she could write a guest blog- and I was honored to have her do it!

My name is Leigh Jones, and I am Miss Cramer’s aunt. I recently visited Miss Cramer’s class, when I was in Edmond to see my family for Thanksgiving. I had such a memorable experience at Northern Hills Elementary that I wanted to write a post about it on the “Miss Cramer’s Kindergarten Class” blog. She was kind enough to let me.

The afternoon I spent with Miss Cramer and her class of “friends” made me nostalgic for my former career as a teacher—I taught middle and high school English before I became a journalist. I also was reminded of my own elementary school years and all the caring, patient teachers who taught me to love learning. 
I saw that same love of learning in her students on the afternoon of Nov. 26, when I visited her classroom as they were returning from recess and lunch. They were amazing little people, with precious smiles and wide eyes taking in the instructions from their teacher about the afternoon’s activities. 

While I was there, they were busy reading books, working on spelling and moving throughout the different activity centers in the classroom. 

I don’t have kids of my own, and I haven’t spent much time with groups of small children, so the afternoon was unfamiliar territory for me. I had never seen such tiny chairs! 

But I do know this: The future is under construction in those classrooms at Northern Hills. And knowing that, I have much for which to be thankful.