Stepping out, Moving On, and Looking Back

 On Tuesday of the last week we took a walking field trip to Szymanski Park!  I don't think I stopped smiling the whole time.  It was a ton of fun to be out in the world with the Kindergarten crew and to meet up with so many family members.

Back at school on the last day we headed out to the track to send off the Fifth Graders.

The kids insisted I take "a silly one"!

Our final activity as a class was something I like to call "Unroll the Scroll".  We've been working towards it a little bit each day- literally.  A component of our End Meeting (or closing circle) each day is to choose one thig from the day that we want to record with a few words and a picture on our scrolling calendar.  On Friday, I took the spool of paper off and we let the year roll back before our eyes.  Actually, we started from the beginning and took a long walk forward and back down "Memory Lane".  I hope it's a memory that will stick with the children for years to come!  

Happy Summer!

Seriously Capable

 In the last few weeks of school even our pretend area had a pretty "serious" theme.  Transformed from a pretend Vet's Office to a pretend Science Lab, the children used tweezers, magnifying glasses, balance scales, tracing paper and more to delve into discovery.

Our final Social Studies unit on mapping had us thinking about "zooming in and zooming out".  We made pages in our Kindergarten Memory Books that showed a map of the classroom, a map of the school, and a map of the playground.

In this last picture, the children are looking at the playground and trying to capture it with the idea of a "bird's eye view".  Not an easy task!  Thank goodness we have become really comfortable with the idea that practice makes progress not perfect.

Another sign that the children have become incredibly capable was a writing activity we did in which each classmate wrote note home about major learning from the week.

Just out of the frame to the right is a white board with a list we  brainstormed of activities that the friends could choose to write and draw about in their letters.

Tangrams were a great way to wrap up the year in Math.  Sort of full circle with the Shape Unit in the fall.

And Fairy Houses have been constants throughout the whole year!

 

Ending Strong

 I set out to try to compose a final blog post and I realized that in the hectic haze of the last few weeks I actually hadn't posted since early May!  There is SO much to share that one post just won't do. Therefore, this will be the first of three posts to try to share about the fun and learning over the last few weeks.

One of the best parts of the end of the year was spending time with our fifth grade buddies.  Here you can see them playing math games with us under the trees out front and helping us with Frog and Toad Puppets.

Frog and Toad were such a big part of our final weeks that they showed up on a duplo train at Explore thanks to some creative builders in our class!

Stretching our friendships, our creativity and our bodies too! Have a look at our class doing Taekwondo with Master Yordin, our Martial Artist in Residence.

New Kinds of Play- Outside and In

 It felt like a long wait but the new playground is here and already being enjoyed!  Despite the ominous skies, Mr. T and Miss Abby introduced all four Kindergarten classes to the new structure and got things off to a safe and happy start.

For added excitement, last week also brought us "May the fourth".  For those who aren't huge Star Wars fans the significance may take a minute...  "May the fourth be with you?" ... ah, now you see.

We had some fun with Star Wars themed yoga and one friend even created a favorite character with a new math material called Cuisinaire Rods.  Have a look...

Whether working alone or collaboratively, these building pieces inspire great things and I can't wait to show the kids next week that we can actually "do math" with them too!  Each size rod has a value such that a white and a light green (a 1 and a 2) equal a yellow (a 3) etc.  Stay tuned!

We looked at outside and inside fun, but Farm to School brought a little of both!  In perfect timing with our classroom science learning about seeds and plants, we were able to plant some spinach and cucumber seeds with our Farm to School teacher AND sample some green juice.  We'll continue taking care of these seed starts along with the peas we planted in our recycled milk and yogurt containers!

Spring Has Sprung...For Real!

 Frequent visitors to the blog might recall posts about classroom celebrations for earning 100 apple cores.  We've had some fun ones in the past...remember Fancy Day and Kids-Run-The-Morning-Day?  Our latest celebration, "Beach Day", was no exception.  Here's a quick look-

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These pictures show classmates checking in at the morning message, enjoying time with summer clothes, and making "shell and flower" (paper) necklaces and crowns.  Our Beach Day was also the first day we met our fifth grade Big Buddies!  It doesn't get too much more fun than that.  

There's a display outside our room that's titled "What's the Scoop with Learning Buddies?" and each duo or trio of buddies has an ice cream cone that says their individual favorite flavors as well as something they have in common.  Exactly one week later, our Big Buddies helped us do a little "Orchard Grounds Green-Up".  Here are some pics-

Collectively, the kids exceeded my expectations for picking up a season's worth of liter!