A Royal Event

 A future princess and prince

 A Close Up of Princess Emylee

 Princesses in the Making!

 Future Princes

 Practicing our Royal Waves!

Our Royal Class!

You didn't really think I would let the royal wedding pass us by without a celebration did you!? To celebrate the royal event we made jeweled crowns, sipped on tea (apple juice) and crumpets (sugar cookies)! We learned all about the royals, their new titles as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, what their duties will be and what we would do as a prince and princess. We had a lot of dressing up at kid time and I couldn't help but snap a few photos! Here's to all of us finding our own inner prince and princess!

Hoppy Spring

Thursday was a fun-filled day with crafting our own Easter baskets, celebrating 2 birthdays and going on one massive easter egg hunt. Miss Mahoney and I spent our prep period hiding 63 eggs out on our school grounds! Why 63 to be exact? Well in the Rainforest room we have been talking a lot about sharing, playing fair, and treating each other with respect. So we thought if we were going to do an egg hunt, it would need to be fair and the students would need to share. 

So here were the rules: 

1. A student can only pick up an egg they find if it matches their first or last name. 

2. If they find an egg that doesn't belong to them, they are to gently put it back, so that the rightful owner can hunt for it. 

3. Each student was allowed to find one fun shaped egg to keep for themselves. 

Altogether, each student was responsible for finding 3 eggs and with a little teamwork we ended up finding ALL 63 eggs! It worked out beautifully, because everyone ended up with the same number of eggs and it took a little more time to hunt! When we got back into the classroom we enjoyed some tasty birthday treats from Autumn and we created a unique spring bunny to add to our scrapbook!  

We know we had a hoppy spring day and we hope you all did as well! 

Enjoy our SmileBox! Remember to click on the pictures to enlarge them!

Oh the Things You Can Think!

Kindergarteners today are expected to achieve at a higher level today, than every before. We 60 minutes of whole group reading, 60 minutes of small group reading, 30 minutes of content, and 60 minutes of math! It can be exhausting can take part in an endless variety of activities. Then these students go home and they continue to work! From computer games to piano lessons, and from soccer practice to karate, there is no shortage of skills for kids to learn. However, children also need regular playtime that is not focused on structure, skill building or electronics. While those things are all good for children, too much can crowd out the kind of play that is essential for developing one of the most amazing gifts of childhood: imagination. 

Kid Time is a great time for students to use their imagination and socialize with friends. Here are some keys benefits to children using their imagination:

• Imagination helps children solve problems. Helping them think through different outcomes to various situations and role playing ways to cope with difficult or new circumstances.
• Imagination allows children to practice real-life skills. From shopping at a pretend grocery store, looking over a menu in the play house, to assigning roles and dialogue to dolls or puppets, children's pretend play helps them practice and apply new learning and better understand how those skills are used in the real world.
• Imagination also encourages a rich vocabulary. Telling and hearing real or made-up stories, reading books and pretend play help children learn and retain new words.
• Imagination helps children grow up to be adults who are creative thinkers. Adults who were imaginative children often become problem solvers, innovators and creative thinkers.

As you can see, imagination can often be as important as math, science or reading by helping to develop many important skills that boost a child's learning and success.

Kid Time: Future Teachers in Action!

Yes or No?

We have been learning about all sorts of graphs in math. Bar graphs, pictographs, and even pie charts! We decided to make our own graphs based off of a yes/no question. Each student was responsible for creating their own question and their own graph. We then had each student turn into a scientist to collect their data for their graph. They had all the participants names on a clip board and they had to walk around and ask each student their own yes/no question. We came up with some really good questions too! Here are just a few:

Are you having a good day?

Do you have a pet?

Do you like Scooby Doo?

Do you like pizza?

Is your favorite color blue?

After we surveyed every student we had to create our own bar graphs to show our work. We all worked really well and everyone completed their charts! We learned a lot about each other and after voting we decided that, yes, this was a fun activity! Here's to math!

Thanks for Voting!

Wow! We were very impressed by our responses that flew in for Dr. Seuss books. That shows us that young and old, we all love Dr. Seuss at heart. When we added in all our class votes, blog votes, and email votes we were amazed to discover that we had 58 people vote for their favorite Dr. Suess book! Here are some photos of us graphing the results! 

The Cat in the Hat received 9 Votes

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish received the most votes!

Cat in the Hat got second place with 9 votes!

Green Eggs and Ham received 10 votes!

Here is our results!! Thanks to all those who participated! We appreciate it!

Dance and Sway

So there are many things I adore about teaching kindergarten, but one of my favorite things can be watching them get their wiggles out. Having one classroom with 21 five to six years olds can be one classroom with a lot of excitement, giggles, wiggles, and energy. And sometimes, the only way to calm them down, is to literally wiggle the energy out of them! So that's what we do! We have dance parties. And they are classic. 

Today we had a dance party because we were reviewing the difference between a dance and a sway. These were two words in our read aloud, "In the Yard." So, we decided we turned on a song and they had to follow the rhythm and either sway with me or dance with me when directed. We were lucky enough to have Miss Mahoney, Mrs. Parr, and Miss Hanson (a student observing our class) to watch the fun!

And let me tell you, we have quite the class of dancers! We have one friend that imitates the jerk as he busts a move and another that does the Dougie as he moves- if you don't know those moves, you must click on the link to create a better visual!! We have another friend that mimics hula hooping as she moves. We have a few friends that look like the wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man as they move around. And others that have definitely found the "rhythm" in the music! It is always fun to watch their moves and dancing always puts a smile on our faces!

So, if you're ever having feeling antsy, anxious, run down, or just having "one of those days," we challenge you to stand up, turn up some music, and just dance and sway....dance and sway...dance and sway.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Well it is finally St. Patty's Day and it definitely brought us a day filled with luck and laughter! When we go back from Music today there was a note on the SMART Board saying:

Walk around the Dome twice

And I will bring you something nice

For all the kindness you brought to me

I will give you back your green!

So as a class we quietly walked around the dome twice. When we walked back in this is what we saw:

The leprechaun definitely stopped by!

The table was tipped!

The Carpet was Turned!

There were chairs upside down, the green table was TIPPED OVER, a bag filled with our green goodies, and a NEW note on the SMART Board! Before we fixed anything we sat at the carpet and read the note as a class. This is what it said!

I had a great time playing with your green toys and flipping your room around. To thank you I left some magic powder on in the "Leprechaun in Late Winter" book you are reading.  I only give this magical powder to kind kindergartners, so you should feel very honored.

Did you find it yet? What does it smell like to you? 

Well, in order to make it magical you have to follow a few rules.

1. Captains, grab the magical milk that I placed on your tables.

2. Mix all the magical milk cartons and the magical powder together.

3. As you stir, say these words:

Leprechauns, Leprechauns, Shamrocks Seen

MAGIC POWDER Turn Green! 

Well we followed the directions and I we opened the magical milk we discovered that it was already green! But we poured it in the bowl and started stirring. We recited the poem 3 times and BOOM! It happened! The powder turned in a pudding mixture. 

  We the captains grabbed the milk and we started reading through the directions. We thought maybe the powder would mix with the milk to make the leprechaun appear, or maybe once we mixed it our classroom would magically be clean, or maybe we were supposed to put in on our skin to turn ourselves green!

When we opened the milk carton, we discovered that it was already green! The leprechaun even made magical milk!

We added all the milk to the powder and kept reciting the magic words. We realized, that it was looking more like a yogurt or pudding! Maybe he wanted us to eat it!! But why?!

We made predictions about what would happen if we tasted it. Maybe we would turn into Leprechauns, maybe we would be able to fly, maybe we would turn green!!

So, Mrs. Rehder decided to take the first small taste to make sure it was good. And it was delicious! Then we all sat down and enjoyed the magical mixture that our friend left for us. We talked as a class about why the leprechaun was so nice to our class. These are some of the ideas we came up with:

1. We found his hat and gave it back so he thought we were kind.

2. We let him borrow our green items. 

3. We are nice friends to have and maybe he wants to be our friend. 

4. We are respectful Rangers and leprechauns like polite people.

Overall we felt very lucky on this St. Patricks day and we wanted to share our luck with you! Hope your day was filled with as happiness, kindness, and craziness as ours!