When we planned our field trip to the apple orchard, we knew it was late in the season, but we never expected it to snow during our visit to the orchard! The Kindergartners, 1st graders, and several brave and wonderful chaperones bundled up and spent a brisk morning at Minnetonka Orchards! 
   While there we went of an extra long tractor ride, learned about pollination, and got to sample an orchard grown apple and an apple doughnut! They were then challenged to decide which they liked better, the apple or the doughnut!
  It was a field trip to remember for sure!

The Kinders were mighty surprised when they walked into our classroom after recess on Monday to discover that our classroom was attacked by spiders! The spiders had set up an obstacle course and game for us to play. The spiders were nice enough to lend us their superpowers by giving us each a spider ring, which helped the Kinders navigate the maze in our room. 
   The Kindergartners were challenged to work in teams to navigate the obstacle course, grab a card from the bags hanging from the spider webs, and then talk with their team to figure out what letter the picture started with. The Kinders were able to have their problem solving and reading skills challenged all at the same time! 
  This activity brought forth several wonderful conversations about letters, a lot of giggles when Kinders were trying to navigate the web, and teamwork that amazed this teacher! 
   What a day it was!

The past few weeks, we have been learning all about communities, jobs, and all sorts of important aspects of neighborhoods! In order to celebrate our learning, the Kindergartners created their very own community! We worked hard to create different buildings, arranged them so that they made sense, and then took the opportunity to add people, cars, and scenery to our beautiful community. They are so proud of their little town and have been adding onto it ever since! 
    Check out a peek at our community, creations, and a few pictures from our visit with Minnetonka firefighters!

As we learn all about bats, we decided to mix science and vocabulary with math! We spent an afternoon working in teams to measure a bat's wingspan. Using several different sized items throughout our classroom, we experimented with non-standard measurement and a whole lot of fun!

Johnny Appleseed's birthday happened to land during our second week of apple exploration so we took some time to learn a little bit about him and celebrate! We made our very own Johnny Appleseed hats, wondered what he kept it that sack of his, and explored his love of apples!
   This week, we made our very own applesauce, did a survery of the class to see how many of us have picked apples at an orchard, and did our first STEM project!
    The Kindergartners were given a challenge. Their challenge was to build a raft using only toothpicks and apple slices. Once they completed that challenge, they were given another. Make the raft stable enough to hold a plastic person!
    This activity showed to amount of perseverance and problem solving skills that this group has. We discussed how none of us were successful the very first time we tried to build our raft. We needed to go back, rethink, redesign, and try again. Not a single Kindergartner gave up, even when it was difficult. I could not be more proud of these Kinders!