Getting Serious (about stories, straws and summer time fun)

The end of the year is special for so many reasons.  To begin, the children have grown tremendously in their ability to show their thinking with pencil and paper.  Take a look at this student's Venn diagram about the characters Frog and Toad.

Secondly, I always feel that it starts to sink in around this time that the remaining days with the current configuration of classmates are limited.  It is wonderful to see the crew "banding together" as evidenced by this "architectural feat" with straw connectors at Explore.

And then of course there's the way we are able to listen to and learn from one another as we did during a Candle Day about family camping.  We tried our hand at storytelling inside and and outside the tent!

Candle Days, Courtyard Days

This week we were fortunate to have two children's Candle Days.  We gathered together to learn from one friend about witnessing the transformation of a caterpillar to butterfly first hand ! And from another friend about special family time at the beach in Maine- including catching crabs!  Candle Days are a powerful way to learn new things FROM and ABOUT each other.

We ended our week with a Math lesson in the courtyard.  The objective- to draw a 10 frame, fill it with your choice of items from nature, and write a corresponding equation.  Math fun in the sun!

Skyping with Tomie

Almost all of my posts are attempts at summing up our week by highlighting key activities or events.  This past Monday's Skype Meeting with author/illustrator Tomie dePaola just needed it's own post!  Tomie has been a major inspiration for the way I teach writing and my work with children in general.  He was a favorite author of mine when I was a child and I think I sensed then something that became clear to me though our meeting over Skype and that is, he seems to understand and not underestimate the complexity of children's emotions.  He answered our questions with honesty and depth while still being aware of how a young child would process the information.  Here are some pictures of us looking at him as well as us sending him a photo of us making his signature symbol- a heart.

Hearing Tomie talk about connecting with his breath at times when he is mad or sad as a way of bringing himself back to calm felt like affirming words of wisdom given all our work on strategies for getting and staying "in the green zone". A special thanks to Donna Mac Donald, our librarian for helping with the the technical aspects of this event and for supplying these photos.

The Great Outdoors and More

This week brought "May the fourth [be with you]" for Star Wars Fans, a Cinco de Mayo dance party with great music courtesy of Mr. White, and several opportunities to learn in nature.  Below you can see us spotting a nest under the eaves of the building on our second bird walk with Julie from Americorps.  We also spotted a Turkey Vulture and laid down pretending to be dead in the hopes of luring it closer! (A little morbid but we were being dedicated birders). In connection with our Farm to School lesson about beans- we made bean dip with Miss Meg and also planted some peas of our own in the courtyard.  And of course there's always work to be done collecting and arranging natural materials for the fairies in among the newly blossomed tulips and daffodils.

And when you plant peas, you sometimes find other special things like a snail!

Highlights from the Week Before April Break

We are all grateful that spring has finally sprung and with that comes Kindergartners looking older and wiser.  In this post you can have a look at the children learning about "word families" with flip books.  Understanding how to read and write words that rhyme because their ending sounds are the same is a great way to build up a bank of sight words.  The children also worked with their big buddies to type out some word families that we turned into a display of  "word flowers" on our back bulletin board to use as a reference.  On another note, we completed our science unit on force and motion by playing with cardboard pinball machines!  If you are not familiar with the Burlington startup that launched  The Pinbox 3000, you should definitely check them out!  Lastly, we learned about dedication, discipline, and strength through a classmate's Candle Day presentation about Taekwando. It was inspirational! 

Garlic, Games, Gizmos and the Great Outdoors

I'm not sure where the title of this post would make sense other than for something connected to a Kindergarten classroom!  The words in the title are key for describing several important events from our week.  
Garlic- because on Monday, when the sun was actually shining, we got out to the garden to plant garden with our buddies.  Maybe the little bulbs will think it's fall?!

Games- because we learned a new math game this week that's helpful in practicing plus and minus 1, 2, and 3.

Gizmos- for all the fun we are having with Lego robotics!  Thanks to Donna MacDonald and some willing parent helpers the children are building models and programming them to move, light up and make sounds with Ipads.

Great Outdoors- is referring to our birding expedition with Julie, a visiting Americorps Science Educator who took us out into the woods with binoculars and an appreciation for our feathered friends.

Firing on All Cylinders!

Some posts have a theme or a focus and some try to capture certain events of the week.  This post is definitely the latter type.  With engaging games, projects and experiments happening across all areas of the curriculum, I with have lots to share at upcoming conferences. For now, I will try to supplement what you may have read in the newsletter with some photos.

On the Science and Tech front... we used our coding skills to draw with Bee Bots and furthered our learning about Force and Motion by experimenting with friction on an inclined plane with some help from our big buddies.

In Literacy the children were extraordinarily focused on creating stories and illustrations in the style of Tomie dePaola...

Above (right) you can see friends acting out a scene from Strega Nona with Popsicle Stick Puppets!

In Math the children are enjoying mixing groups with Ms. Garland's class.  Here you can see friends playing a cooperative game about putting teen numbers in order.

And for continued learning with  Social Skills and Guidance...

The Puppets In Education imparted empowering messages about personal safety and being an upstander.