Baby Chicks

The end of the school year is fast approaching!  Here is a quick look into the joy that the baby chicks brought to our classroom!

Until next time...

Happy Birthday Baby Chicks!

Over the past twenty one days we have been immersed in the study of chicks.  We have observed our eggs as scientists.    The children have become experts in the field of chicks!

 We have read stories with chickens as main characters.

We have learned from our resident expert, Mrs. Blauss all about the process chicks go through in order to come into our world.

We have conducted scientific experiments, making hypothesis, observing and recording our results as good scientists do in order to learn new information.

Today our study of the egg will turn into a study of the chick itself as they hatch and join our classroom community for a short time.  

Until next time...

Happy Mother's Day!

Over the past several weeks the children have worked on a special art project for their moms.  Under the instruction of  Ms. Etrie, our amazing art teacher, children learned about the work of artist Wassily Kandinsky, specifically his circle art.  Each student had his or her photo taken.  Children's portraits were printed in black and white and then sectioned off into squares.  The children learned how to color inside each square using concentric circles, squares or hearts of different colors.  They also learned how to 'tickle' the paper with their colored pencils so that the color would be light allowing the original portrait to shine through.

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During our unit on poetry children learned about list poems and created special poems for the special ladies in their lives.  This poem was written by the children in 'kindergarten' writing and then dictated to me so that I could share a typed version with families.  In keeping with the Kandinsky theme children created cards that featured bouquets of flowers made from brightly colored concentric circles.  The children loved this process.

Finally I lined up the children so they could sing to their moms.  It was a bit of a challenge to get everyone in place but they loved singing and being recorded!

Wishing you all a wonderful Mother's Day!



Until next time.

Norbert, What Can Little Me Do?

Norbert, the therapy dog visited the full day kindergarten class today with his handler, author,  Julie Freyermuth and Julie's mother, illustrator, Virginia Freyermuth, Ph.D.   Julie and Virginia collaborated on the creation of the picture book Norbert, What Can Little Me Do?  In this story we meet Norbert and his Mama and travel with them as they experience life in a big city.  Through his adventures Norbert comes to realize even the very smallest of creatures has something special to offer.  Norbert's special talent is making others smile.  I would say that Julie and Virginia also share in this talent.  

During their visit Julie shared Norbert's story as we watched the illustration unfold on the smartboard.    The children demonstrated their understanding as Virginia illustrated their answers to questions about Norbert's story.  They had an opportunity to ask questions about Norbert.  In the end Norbert shared several of his tricks with the class and greeted each student with high fives and kisses.   It was an uplifting presentation that will not soon be forgotten!

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Wind Socks

The children have been waiting patiently since the end of March to experiment with their wind socks.  Yesterday seemed like the perfect day!   The sun was warm and the weather seemed to be cooperating.  When I met the children in the cafeteria after recess and lunch I learned that the wind was whipping sand around the playground and it was rather uncomfortable.  Instead of delaying the flight of our wind socks yet again we decided to use our own force to fly them in our classroom to the rhythm of instrumental music.

Until next time....

Spring!

We have been thinking about spring in the full day kindergarten this week.  We finished our wind socks and are looking forward to flying them outside.   Through interactive writing, a process where children write down the sounds they can hear in a word and the teacher adds parts of the word that students would not be expected to know at this time we created a sign for our wind socks.

Over several days children worked on a multi step project during math workshop.  First the children traced and cut out kite shapes and used oil pastels to create a pattern on their kite.   Next they used a water color wash technique to cover all the white on their kites.  Finally they learned how to cut a square in half to create two triangles.  Children used the triangles to create their kite tail before placing their kite on our hallway mural.

Happy Spring!!!

Until next time......

Art Show

I visited our district wide art show at the guild with my family today. I was thrilled to see not only my son's art but also a piece from one of my full day kindergarten students!  Our art teacher, Ms Etre, does an amazing job with my little friends.  

This is the perfect kindergarten artist's statement.

Until next time......