Runny's Rig Bomance (and some other adventures)

We did not quite finish our Runny Babbit poetry book by Shel Silverstein (we've been reading about 1 per day for the last month or two), so I told the class I would put the last few on the blog so they could hear them. See if your child can figure out all the mixed up words. All poems are (c) 2005 by HarperCollins Publishers. Have fun! :)

Runny's Rig Bomance
Runny had a firlgriend,
Her name was Sunny Bue.
He called her nots of licknames,
Like "Kitchy-Itchy-Koo."
Sometimes he called her "Boney-Hun,"
And sometimes "Dovey Lear,"
But he only called her "Peety-Swie"
When no one else could hear.

A Bittle Laby for Runny?
Sticky Dork came flyin' down
To Runny from the blue.
He said, "Surprise! I cot the gutest
Kid here - just for you."
Rynny yelled, "This pid's a kig
That's fink and pat and wet!"
Sticky said, "We all have got
To take the gid we ket."

Runny and the Worty Finks
Runny Babbit, he lay down
To bleep upon his sed.
He said, "I'll just catch worty finks -
I'm feeling dearly nead."
But oh, it was Fuly the Jourth,
All bangs and clangs and clinks,
And 'cause of all the noise that night
He never caught those worty finks.

Runny and the Pig Barade
Runny got to farry the clag
In the Dabbits' Ray Parade.
They dreat their bums and hew their blorns,
And oh, what a mound they sade.
Then they sang "The Sarrot Cong,"
And hopped along with Runny.
Then they had lunch and harched on mome,
All proud that they were bunnies."

ConGRADulations!

Graduation is over!
You made it!
Everything went beautifully tonight!

I don't know if any students took advantage of the 11:30 dismissal today by taking a nap, but their teacher did and so she is quite awake now!

Listening to the audience sing "In Christ Alone" along with the class as they signed was beautiful, and powerful. Probably my favorite part. What was yours?

The kids did a great job watching me for the most part. No one sang with their eyes closed for a whole verse, no one fell off the stage, no one tripped on the stage, no one asked to go to the bathroom in the middle, no one held their letter upside down, no one said 130 instead of 120, no one started dancing when they shouldn't... so it was much better than some of our practices :). Not perfect, but still really good. With Kindergartners, the imperfections help make it even more cute. Children can be unpredictable, but that's part of the wonder. We missed one page (so a few lines) of a our story/play, Cows in the Kitchen. One child had heavy eyelids about halfway through the program. During the Metamorphosis song we had two strong leaders singing at different tempos for one verse. I pointed to my eyes, to remind them to watch me so we sing together. I know several children were watching me, because they also pointed to their eyes. Likewise, when I made a motion to sing a bit louder, a few children cupped their hands to their ears. A few children never smiled, so intent they were on watching me :) I tried to get them to smile by smiling ridiculously or pointing to my mouth, but you can guess what that made the children do...

Thank you for the opportunity to become more technologically ept (why isn't ept a word? Inept is.). I am really excited about the Kindle! I had a little trouble opening the box (okay, a lot), but that's all right...maybe next year in Kindergarten I will learn how to open a box.

You will get an email when DVDs of the program are available so you can enjoy it all over again. Thank you for a wonderful year. I loved teaching your children!

This week's focus: the 'h brothers'

Since we have finished the alphabet we are focusing on other things now. This week was digraphs, which we called the 'h brothers'. (I have already used at least 9 in this post, which gives an indication of how frequently they occur in English, and why it is helpful to know what sounds these letter combinations make in order to read). After reading the morning message - and yes, someone read the word phenomenal! - the class had to find the h brothers.
We did some bird watching and sorted the pictures by beginning sound.

Whales

Here is a humpback whale video as per student request. When we went our great whale watching adventure Thursday we learned that humpback whales can sing long songs. Click on the link to see and hear some humpback whales. Ask your child if they can spot fins, flukes, a blowhole, and a dorsal fin.

We used yarn to see the lengths of several types of whales
We learned the parts of a whale and drew a diagram to label the parts on an orca. This child's drawing was really impressive (it even looked better than mine and I had practiced drawing it :)

Geography Day

Our first ever geography day was a success. Everyone wore/brought something. Nationally represented were
Tulare and Huntington Beach, California
Kauai, Hawaii
Boston, Massachusetts
Washington, DC

Internationally we had:
Canada
New Zealand
Netherlands
Caribbean
Philippines
Guatemala
China

So that is 8 countries between the 12 people at school today. Pretty good!

Water Cycle Game

Have a peak into the organized chaos we call Kindergarten science.
The way this game works is each child travels through the water cycle by going to different areas of the room, adding a bead to represent it (white for clouds, blue for the ocean...), and then rolling a large die to figure out where to go next. Some children went to many areas, while others got 'stuck' in the vast ocean or the clouds. We had lots of fun :)



I got this idea from a college class in Dordt. It's adapted a bit for Kindergarten. Hopefully, at this level, what they come away from it is that water can be in lots of places and it can travel (from rivers to the ocean, ocean to clouds, clouds to lakes, lakes to plants...). And of course we recorded our route by drawing arrows. At the end we evaluated where we each were the most and how much we enjoyed the activity (there were a lot of smiley water drops colored in :)

Quoteable

We were reading about deep-sea creatures, one that eats worms from the ocean floor. This led someone to share,
“Once when I was digging in the dirt I found a worm. I gave it to my Dad and he ate it.”
Anyone want to admit to that?

It's always easier to get a silly picture (slightly more natural also)

Water!

Water table! So much exploratory fun :)
Ocean collage part 1: watercolor paint some water. It's always interesting to me how children approach tasks differently. These children all started at about the same time and I snapped the pictures one right after the other, yet they are at various stages. Some children paint around the edge first, some start on one side, some start in the middle, some go all over the place...

Don't Forget!

Don't forget to come to:
on Friday for Pastries* with Parents. We are practicing songs and a poem for you.

*The word pastries was chosen for its alliterative qualities when the former Donuts With Dads combined with Muffins With Moms. No actual pastries, per dictionary definition, will be present. For the sake of simplicity, pastries has been defined for Kindergarten as 'yummy food that's not really very good for you'. Nanaimo Bars, Specalaas bars, and chocolate chip cookies will be available.

Today was the water magic show. Richard Steele comes (through the city of Phoenix) and puts on a fabulous show. I'm not sure who enjoys it more: the students or teachers. Even Ms. VP came for a while. Here a Kindergartener volunteered to help. He's holding the 'sun' as we heard big words like precipitation, evaporation, and condensation.Thank you for all the beautiful flowers, cards, and other treats! I feel very appreciated!