Ms. Kempke's Holiday Speech Group!

Ms. Kempke put on a delicious and festive speech group today! First she read through a holiday story about five presents under the tree, and then the fun began! Out of sugar cones, gum drops, twizzlers, and the best part, frosting, to make a Christmas tree!

Check out all the messy fun!

Everyone is being good listeners while Ms. Kempke reads the story.

Ms. Kempke is showing us how to put the frosting on our sugar cone trees.

Now its our turn to decorate!

After we coated our sugar cone with frosting it was time to start decorating our tree!

The finished product...



Hermit Crab Home Makeover!

Recently we've added two new hermit crabs to our classroom tank. We also added some Spongebob accents to their home that the kids absolutely love!!!

Our pineapple "under the sea" and Patrick.

Polar Express Stations

Ms. Katlyn put together some really great stations relating to The Polar Express. The kids had so much fun completing the activities! Take a look at all the fun and learning that went on below...

Ms. Amy and Amaya making 'snowman soup' while listening to the book on CD and following along.

Ms. Katlyn, Diego, Terrence, and Nurse Mary working hard on their math skills by graphing holiday pictures.

Ms. Marilyn and Anthony stapling a bow onto his decorated jingle bell.

Shannon is sorting items we want and items we need on different cars on the train with Ms. Margo.

The Polar Express!



     This week we are reading from The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg. We will have lots of fun with this book! Here are some of the activities we will do this week:

• Ms. Katlyn's Polar Express Stations
• A trip to Barnes & Noble for a special story time on Friday!
• Watching the movie The Polar Express on Friday and drinking hot chocolate and eating treats!
• Map out our trip to the North Pole
• Sequence the story on a train
• Make a train out of candy
• Making a number train
• And lots, lots more!

Last week we learned all about...

SCIENCE!

     Last week we learned all about science and making a hypothesis. We talked about how scientists observe change and they use their senses to do so. So we conducted some experiments of our own and used our senses to observe and made some hypotheses of our own!

In one experiment, we created gas. We made some hypotheses, or best guesses at what would happen to our balloon in this experiment.  Lorenzo was my lab assistant for this one! Check out the procedure below...

First we observed the balloon BEFORE the change. We then drew pictures of the balloon before the reaction.

After we poured an inch of vinegar in the bottle, we added two teaspoons of baking soda.

Here we are observing TWO changes- the bubbling of the vinegar and baking soda AND the balloon getting bigger!

After we observed the change, we drew a picture of the balloon and talked about what we did in our procedure and why there was a change.

In another experiment found out what happens when you mix two colors together. We observed and took notes on what the cup of water looked like BEFORE, then added a new color and colored what it looked like AFTER. We all had lots of fun making our own hypothesis about what color the water would change to.

Shannon observing and taking notes of what the water looks like BEFORE the change.

Anthony and Ms. Carol adding yellow to blue to make green!

We also learned about how scientists compare and contrast when observing. Here Lorenzo is observing how the two cups of water are different, or contrasting.

Chef Amy Visits Room 24!

     Before Thanksgiving we were talking about community workers and how we are so thankful for them. During that unit we learned all about chefs. The kids loved this job! When our question of the day was, "what do you want to be when you grow up?", everyone picked a chef! Ms. Carol's daughter Amy is in school studying the culinary arts! She is on a competition team and attends school in Joliet. We were lucky enough to have her come in and do a couple demonstrations for us!

Here are some pictures of all the fun!

The kids loved seeing Chef Amy in her uniform!

On her first visit, Chef Amy showed us all how to make omelets! She also talked about kitchen safety!

Here she demonstrated how to cut the vegetables and how to do it safely!

The kids got to chose what ingredients they wanted in their omelet!



Everyone LOVED the delicious omelets!!!

     Then on December 3rd, Chef Amy came back for another demonstration! She made homemade mayonnaise and fresh salads!

This visit, Chef Amy brought her sous chef and twin sister Kayla!

Chef Amy is going over the directions and the science behind mayonnaise!

Thank you Chef Amy for your great demonstrations and expertise in room 24!





Our Thanksgiving Feast

Last Tuesday, November 23rd we had our annual Destiny Thanksgiving Feast. All three Destiny classrooms came together to put on a festive holiday party! We made sides and sweets for all to enjoy!

Check out all the holiday fun and special guests!

Dr. Wazny kicked off our holiday celebration!

We always love how she dresses as a pilgrim!

Lovely ladies Shirley and Ms. Miller joined us for the fun!

Waiting our turn to get in the buffet line!

Ms. Amy with Amaya and Lorenzo!



Ms. Christine, Amar, Nurse Mary and Diego visiting with each other! 

Happy Birthday Anthony and Ms. Kempke!!!

Happy Birthday Anthony!!! November 24th

Happy Birthday Ms. Kempke!!! November 29th

We had lots of fun celebrating their birthdays this afternoon!

Ms. Carol baked the most delicious cake!

Learning All About the Postal Service

Today we learned all about the postal service! We learned about mailboxes, mail, the post office, and what goes on an envelope. We also learned about how postal employees help the community.

After we read all about the postal service, we went to work on our post office centers!

Here is a picture and summary of what went on at each center:

Shannon is hard at work sorting index cards by whether they had letters/words or numbers/equations on them.

Lorenzo is at the passport center. Here you have to cut out all the different places in the community you have been on trips and paste them in your very own passport!

Here Anthony is sorting words by their beginning letter/sound!

Terrence and Diego were sorting mail by the different shapes on the outside of the envelope.

Here Amaya is designing her own stamp using stickers, dotters, glitter, and tissue paper!

Each student spent about ten-fifteen minutes at each center then rotated around the room. Everyone had lots of fun today!



Making Invitations!

Next Tuesday we will be having a Thanksgiving party for students and teachers. We all worked really hard together to make beautiful invitations!

Amaya and Terrence teamed up to cut out the information to put on the invite.

Shannon and Lorenzo worked together to glue the information onto the invite.

Diego and Anthony teamed up and stamped on different colored leaf designs!

The whole process hard at work!

Our finished products! WHEW!



Community Trip to The Little Red Schoolhouse Nature Center

We had an awesome time exploring at the NEW nature center on the grounds of The Little Red Schoolhouse. There were lots of animals, artifacts, fossils, and exhibits with real stuffed animals.
Check out all the fun we had exploring!

Here we are looking inside a large replica of a wigwam.

Lorenzo and Amaya were taking a good hard look at the fossils on the limestone found on the grounds.

This exhibit was so cool! There were different kinds of skulls numbered and mounted on a turn table. Then there were clues under each number to help you guess which animal the skull belonged to. Once you made your guess you could flip over the clues to discover whether or not you were right!

Shannon loved this one!

A close up view of the animal skulls!

Here's Terrence trying to figure out "What's in the Tree?" Here you reach your hand inside and use your sense of touch to try and figure out what animal is living inside.

Here Shannon are Diego are getting up close to check out a snake! Ms. Carol made sure she stayed far away!

Lorenzo was mesmorized by this bullsnake slithering all over the tank.

                                                     Shannon and Anthony checking outhow they measure up to some of the area's birds!

Terrence and Amaya worked really hard at completing this puzzle on the life cycle of a butterfly!