Mentos and Coke

I have always wanted to do this and the boys were game, so last night we tried it.  We bought Steve Spanglers geyser tube.

The boys were really excited.  You put 7 mentos in the tube and screw the tube to the top of a 2 liter of coke.  They say to use diet because it is less sticky.  The tube has a little stopper on a string to keep the mentos out of the coke until you want them in.

Then you back up and pull the stopper out and.....

Why it works (from the package):

Each Mentos chewy candy has thousands of tiny pits all over the surface.  These tiny pits are called nucleation sites=perfect places for carbon dioxide bubbles in the soda to form.  As soon as the mentos hit the soda, bubbles form all over the surface of the chewy mints and quickly rise to the surface of the liquid.  Couple this with the fact that mentos are heavy and sink to the bottom of the bottle and you've got a double whammy.  When all this gas is released it literally pushes all of the liquid up and out of the bottle in an incredible soda blast."

It was pretty fun!

Free Miss Bindergarten Unit Giveaway

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Crayola Window Markers

I am always looking for interesting things to keep my boys busy.  One of my latest new to me finds is the Crayola Window Markers.

I learned about these from my younger son's daycare provider.  We have a big glass door in the back of our house and I set my three year old up there and he went to town.

He absolutely loved them and they were very easy to clean off!  Just a wet rag did the trick.

This got me thinking about using these in the classroom.  I think it would be awesome to use one of the windows in my classroom as a center.   It would be easy wipe on and wipe off.    Students could:

• practice names 
• write sentences with sight words later in the year.  
• do rainbow words with sight words

I also wondered if Lowes would cut plexi glass into small boards for us to use.  You could put them over practice sheets and use them as wipe on and wipe off.  They would also be another way for students to practice writing letters and words.

Any other ideas?

My Wish List

Really Roper is having a linky party of things we really wish we had in our classroom.





Here is my list:

1.  A smartboard

2. Projector to go with the smartboard :)

3. Tag Reader System

3.  MP3 Listening Stations

4.  A good color printer (or any printer lol)

My Classroom Looks Lonely!

I took some pictures of my classroom all packed up before I left so when I read "Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten" in the fall, I will be all ready.  I know if I wait until the beginning of next year, I will forget.

I thought it looked a little lonely without the kids!  :(

My Favorite TV Shows

Primary Connections is having a linky party for favorite TV shows.  Mine in no particular order are:


1.  The First 48 Missing Persons

2. The First 48

3. House Hunters International

4.  My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding

5.  Dance School:  Julliard

6.  All the Real Housewives

7.  All the Top Chefs

8.  Holmes Inspection

9.  Rehab Addict

10.  Any other reality show!!  can you tell I am a reality TV addict!!

Great Super Easy Giveaway!

On Lesson Plan Diva.  Click on the picture below to get all the information!

Classroom Pet Peeves

The Organized Classroom Blog is having classroom pet peeves linky party.  So here are mine in no particular order:

1.  Rearranged Furniture:  I teach 1/2 day kindergarten and I only work part time, so other teachers and ancillary staff often use my classroom in the afternoon.  I certainly don't mind and even encourage other people to use my classroom, but if you move the furniture, please put it back!

2.  Empty Water Bottles and Snack Wrappers:  See above with the added comment of, "Your Mother Does Not Work Here, Please Clean Up After Yourself!!"

3.  Walking My Kids Somewhere to Find Out It's Not Happening:  Whether you take my computer lab time, when there is no sub for a special, when I have signed out the gym for a special activity and the PTO needs to use it, I don't mind, but please tell me before I line up my kids to go there!!

4.  Technology Not Working/Broken Down Copier:  This always happens when I have waited until the last minute to do something, which is my fault, but it still annoys me.

5.  Classroom Interruptions for Non Important Things:  I really don't need to be interrupted teaching to be told that so and so's lunch is in the office.  Although I have to say that this happens very infrequently.

6.  Being Given Notes To Send Home At the Last Minute:  Its not that simple for kindergartners to pull their folder out of their backpack and put a flyer in it to take home.  And if its not in the folder, it either won't make it home or won't be seen.



 Wow!  I had more than I thought.  Sounds like I am annoyed all the time, but I'm really not :)

Summer Reading Game at the Local Library

What does your local library offer for summer programs?  Here in Kalamazoo, MI we have an awesome library system.  Yesterday, I took the boys down and we all signed up for the summer reading game.  This year, it is the same for all age levels, including adults.  You read for 20 minutes per day and after 20, 40, and 60 days, you earn a prize! There are also family story times offered several times during the summer. 

I hope all my newly graduated kindergartners are signed up for the Reading Games at the Kalamazoo Public Library.  Hopefully, I will see some of you at the other programs this summer too!

Kindergarten Graduation

Yesterday we celebrated the end of the kindergarten year with our graduation ceremony. I consider it a success if dads come up and tell me they cried :)  Here is the powerpoint for the ceremony.  Unfortunately, I don't think the music is connected to it. Click on the image below to link to the powerpoint.

This is my first time using Windows Live to share a file.  Please let me know if it doesn't work.  I am pretty sure you will need Powerpoint on your computer to view the file.

Last Day!

We had a great last day today!!  First we read "Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the Last Day of Kindergarten!"  We read "Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten" on the first day of school, so it was fun to compare the two books and also to compare what happened in Miss Bindergarten's room to what was happening in our room that day  :)

I made the kids little bags like the ones that Miss Bindergarten gives her class in the story.  I got the little bags from Dollar Tree.  Here is the poem:

"Here's a little gift for you, a penny and a Kiss.

The penny for success to come, the Kiss that you'll be missed."

Love, Mrs. Stoll

Here is a picture of the finished bags:

At the end of the morning, we had a pizza party.  Here is a Smile Box of the kids having their pizza!

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See you tomorrow for graduation!!

Clay Animals

We are wrapping up the end of the year. Tomorrow is the last day for AM kindergarten students. They can attend Wrap Around on Tuesday morning if parents wish them too.

We wrapped up our Living Things unit in science with a clay animals project.

First, we read the book "Frog Has a Sticky Tongue" by Pamela Graham. 

This book discusses special body parts that animals have.  While we were reading, we also discussed why the animal might need that body part.




Next, we made clay animals.  I asked the students to think about what special body parts their animals had while they were creating them.  Thank you to our awesome Wrap Around staff for softening up the clay for us the day before!  Here are some examples of pictures of animals the kids made:

Last, they had to draw their clay animal in their science journal and then write the name of the animal, it's special body part and what it is used for.

Hope everyone had  a great weekend!

More Ocean Literacy

We are continuing our ocean unit for at another week and a day :)  School gets out Monday June 13th.  Here are a few items that I created for this week.

First here is a poem we are going to read and illustrate this week, "If I Ever"

Click on the picture if you want to download.

 

I also made an ocean themed -ut/-ug picture word sort. Click on the picture to download.

I adapted some color a rhymes from this website: http://sewwhat4ucorp.com/teacherresources2005.htm

Here is a whale color a rhyme.  Click on the picture below to download.

Here is a beach scene:

 

Wonderful Worms!

Our science unit is called Living Things and as part of the unit we study worms in our classroom. As you can imagine, this was a very exciting event!

First, we read the book "Wonderful Worms"

Then each child got their own worm to observe and draw in his or her science journal.  These were very active worms and were crawling and flipping all over the place!  Waaay too exciting :)

 We put the worms in a worm viewer so we can see the tunnels they make.  Creating the habitat in the viewer was fun to do as it is pretty much like following a recipe.  Putting newspaper in the bottom.  16 cups of soil mixed with one cup of water.  Then put the worms in and sprinkle alfalfa on top.

We put the worm viewer on the science table along with some diagrams of worms to study.