The Last Day of School

Here they are on their last day of school!  What a wonderful year we had together learning all they needed to know and exploring our world!  They have grown and changed so much since that first day of school.  I will miss them so much, but it is a pattern in my life that I have been through many times.  I hope that they have a safe and enjoyable summer!  I will see them around town and in August when they return as 1st graders!

We've Published a Bird Book

At the end of the school year we were working on their very own published bird book.  The size of book that we can afford is twenty pages.  It is quite a lot of work, but very educational as the students worked together to find details of each bird, write about the bird they chose and draw the bird remembering the important field marks.

First, we chose which 23 birds we wanted to have in our book.  Then we researched each bird at the smart board and came up with a few facts about each one.   I typed up the facts for each child to copy onto their page.  They met with me first to discuss which field marks are important to remember.  Then some of them had step-by-step drawing lessons and others did not need it.  I don't draw on their paper, but I show them how to draw the bird.  They loved this activity, even though the writing was a bit difficult. Here are a few of the finished pages.  They will be available for sale online within the week!  Their bird book should cost around $10.  I will let you know when they are ready for purchase.  It will be a nice keepsake from their year in kindergarten.

Meet The Chickadee Bird Club

Here is the Kindergarten through 4th grade students or as I call them...the Chickadee Bird Club.  All of them have gone through my kindergarten class learning about birds and nature throughout the year.  I realize that many people don't remember much from their year in kindergarten, but I hope that I have made a difference and have given them a well-rounded education prompting them to be life-long learners.  

As they move through the grades we get together to review birds a few times a year.  I feel like they probably know more about birds than most elementary students and hopefully this will help them be more aware of nature and enjoy its beauty throughout their lifetime!

Rock Painting

In conjunction with the book and song titled, "Only One You" by Linda Kranz, our music teacher asked if all of the elementary kids would each paint a rock to look like a fish, being as creative as only they know how.  They will eventually be displayed outdoors with a sign that says, "There is only one you in this great big world!  Make it a better place!"  How true!  What a great idea!  I can't wait to see the rocks displayed!

Sink or Float?

We decided to try our hand at being scientists.  First, the students had to guess if an object would float in water.  They had to write yes or no on the form with a marker.  Then we tested it out and they wrote what really happened.  They had to write yes or no with a pencil.  Some of them didn't like being wrong and they wanted to change it, but I assured them that it was okay to be wrong when you are doing activities like this.  I try to get them to think like a scientist by making a guess/hypothesis, testing it, make observations and coming up with a conclusion.  They loved this activity!  You can do this sort of thing at home too.

  

Journal Pages

You can see that the child is using bird alpha-codes, 
so that she doesn't have to write out the whole bird name.  
She was writing about the Northern Cardinal - NOCA is its 
code name.  Some of the kids were really interested in that.

Storm

On Monday, May 15th we had a huge storm with a 
microburst of wind that hit right during the morning 
commute to school.  We lost power to the school, so we 
needed to call off classes for the day.  
There was significant damage in town from collapsed 
roofs and buildings to downed and uprooted trees.  
It was really something how quickly all of the damage 
occured.  Here is a photo of the kids in the dark 
waiting for someone to pick them up.  Everyone was a 
bit rattled due to the severe weather.