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!

Slideshow design generated with Smilebox Until next time...

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......

School Spirit - Character Day

Yesterday was Character Day at school.  Some friends chose to dress up.  Others expressed interest in dressing up with our class another day.

We had two Fancy Nancy's, a Woody from Toy Story and a cowgirl... perhaps Jesse from Toy Story.  They were excited to be in  character and have their pictures taken with some of our favorite stuffed character.

until next time....

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

In honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday this weekend I found some of my favorite Seuss books on youtube!

Enjoy this playlist.  The children will watch and respond to several of these titles throughout next week.







Until next time...

States of Matter

The week before vacation was jam packed full of great fun and a wide variety of learning opportunities.  We are in the process of learning to write 'How to' books.  In order to do this we have read many 'how to' books including How To Make Slime by Lori Shores.

This book fit in nicely with our study of the states of matter.  After reading the book I pushed all the tables together so that all children could participate as we made slime together and noticed how the ingredients changed during the process.  They loved this work. 

Until next time...