Learning

Today I overheard someone observing about their table group, "Hey! Seahorse is a compound word: sea and horse!" And then someone else said, "So is ours! Jelly, fish: jellyfish!"
We learned about compound words in January (when we did projects with snowmen and snowflakes), and it's so much fun to see them remembering what they learned and making connections.
O O
\_/

Science Rocks! (with raisins)

Our science experiment set-up included a cup of water on each table.
Student 1: "Why do we have water?"
Student 2: "We're going to make wine! AWEsome!"
(We had just heard a Bible story about the Last Supper and bread/wine, which reminded some students of Jesus' first miracle...)
Well, our experiment was not quite that awesome, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

Something interesting is happening
Look!
Can you see it?
This is awesome!
The class was quite noisy with exclamations of surprise and excitement. Science can be so much fun. Yesterday in science we learned about sinking and floating. Today we did more experimenting. First we predicted what would happen if we dropped a raisin in water. Then we tried it. (It sank.) Next we put the raisins in pop. Below are two children's recorded observations.
To try it at home all you need are a clear cup, some clear pop (so you can see it better), and a raisin.

Sorry, no spirit day pictures today. Tomorrow is tacky day!

Twin/Triplet Day and How Awesome Is Our Room?

Spirit Week continues with twin/triplet day



Last night was the school society meeting. It was nice to see some of you there. Since that began at 7, I had lots of time after school to transform the room. Welcome to the ocean! We have a new favorite place for reading and puzzling.
After a science lesson about sinking and floating, the water table was open for centers.
Ocean animals are hanging from the ceiling and we had to walk through seaweed to get in our classroom this morning. I was predicting that to last about 5 minutes, but most of the seaweed is still there!
Okay, this last picture is not in our room because we took our writing lesson outside. We wrote our names, practiced our new sight word, are, and then wrote whatever we wanted. So I know that someone's mom is macen cuces (making cookies). I didn't take many pictures since I didn't think they would turn out very clearly - I was right, by the way - but I had to capture this one. In case you can't see the pink-chalk-on-gray-sidewalk writing, it says Miss Vis is My farvit teecher. Awwwwww. And there's me at the bottom in a purple triangle dress.

Spirit Week day 2

I know it's only Monday, but it is day 2 of Spirit "week" which happens to span 3 weeks. Anyway, today was pj day, so here is everybody looking sleepy for the camera. Tomorrow is twin/triplet day.

Plenty of Pictures

Aquarium field trip...
Here are most of the boys
All the girls
Class picture
There were several places with 'bubbles' you could stand in so that you were almost in the tanks and could see the sea creatures all around.
In the tunnel:
Not the greatest people picture, but see the world's biggest species of crab (from Japan) in the background.
Some boys in front of a large tank housing sharks, stingrays, and many fish.
I'd say they enjoyed it :D
Touch tank with sea stars, hermit crabs, anemones, and sea cucumbers
Walking out together. Awwwww
Career Day: artist, soldier, doctor, firefighter, singer, army man, quad racer, doctor, racecar driver (hope I got those all right)
A few pictures from inside the parachute this afternoon:

Friday

Friday we added a new poem to our poetry books. I love "Willaby Wallaby Woo" because the children enjoy it since it is funny, and it teaches phoneme manipulation and reinforces rhyme. The long poem we read in class all week had a verse for each child, but in their poetry book they got to decide the 3rd verse. Most chose their own name or someone else's. I love the below illustration with the speech bubbles ("This chair is so nice." and "No, it's not!")
We also did some weaving since our letter this week was Ww. Fun, fine motor, art. Some got creative: "Can we decorate it?" "Can we add a handle?" "Can we put something on the bottom?" Yes! I support creativity!
Another fun thing from the day: we made webs (also because of Ww). How often do you get to draw with glue? There was not a lot of silver or white glitter, so this year I said they could use any color of glitter and I'm glad because they turned out really cute. You can probably imagine with the table and floor looked like...
Multi-colored glitter:
The pink web is a little more abstract, but once it was glitter-fied it received an "ooh-la-la"


The red and blue combination looked really neat.
This child has some artistic skills! I think he drew this in only 1 or 2 minutes and it looks great.
Later in the day we made words with the letters npsgri. They figured out the mystery word (the word that uses all the letters) almost right away. I challenged them to use the letters to make at least 5 words before recess and they all did! Quite easily in fact. Some children built 8 or 9 words, and mostly independently (I made a few suggestions to some children, like "Can you make any words from the word wall?" or "You made pig. Can you make it plural?"). Impressive!
We read some Spring books yesterday. One was about birds. If you have not seen it yet, there is a live video stream trained on an eagle's nest in Iowa. All 3 eggs have now hatched, so if you want to see some real baby birds, check out this link occasionally. http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles They are cute. If you look at the right time, you can seem the parents feeding them.

Happy Spring!

Independence

Today I needed to do something at the beginning of the day (you can ask your child what it was or read your email - I'm not going to post it here), but the class didn't seem to mind. So with me working at the back of the room, someone grabbed a pointer and they read the morning message together, asked everyone how they were doing, figured out the letter of the week, asked children with raised hands to find the letter in the morning message, gave clues to figure out the next special helper, led devotions (singing and prayer), worked through calendar, and even taught part of a math lesson. I was SO PROUD of how they did. I only had to offer a few suggestions.

After math we went through rotating centers. I explained things once and everyone seemed to pretty much follow directions and get to work. One center included putting some cards in order and then following the directions on them to plant seeds, independent from the teacher. They did a great job of figuring it out together, and they were really quiet (which is especially good since they were outside and other classes had their doors open to let in the cool morning air). I had to run home for a few minutes (had a flood incident last week....long story), so Miss De Jong and her class came over, and the Kindergarteners finished their centers without any problems.

At lunch time I did not open any milks or other packages. Everyone is getting so much more independent. I can tell they are almost ready for First Grade! (Sniff. I will really miss this class)

Gardening

We are starting to learn about plants/seeds in science. This morning we planted seeds. So far only about four look like they may drown/rot. I have yet to see a Kindergarten plant die from lack of water.

In the afternoon our class did a favor for Ms. VP. We planted some geraniums around the flagpole (so make sure you ooh and ahh if you walk by with your child). We dug the holes, put in the flowers, covered them up, and watered them.

Farm Bureau

Miss Katie from the Farm Bureau came and gave us a presentation about farms. At the end she had some children help her show the many jobs a farmer does: mechanic (fixing tractors), builder, weatherman, nutritionist (getting food for animals), vet, scientist who knows about bugs, and business man who pays the bills. (I hope I got that all right)