The Kindy kids beckon spring!

As January, comes to a close we learned that not every culture celebrates New Year's on the same day.

Today, we looked at different New Year's Celebration: Chinese New Year. We read the story The Magic Paintbrush, by Julia Donaldson and then we created magic paintings!

Using ink, straws, glue and glitter your children created beautiful pussy willows branches and even placed them in vases to beckon the Chinese New Year a celebration of the beginning of Spring. Please be sure to look at your child's art work in the display case of the main hallway!

A house for Hermit Crab

Today was a fascinating day! Your children collected and organized sea shells they found in the sand. We did not even go to the beach, the beach came to us!

We talked about the types of animals that live in shells and discovered that hermit crabs live in shells too! We read Eric Carle's story, A house for Hermit Crab, the story of a hermit crab who spends all year decorating his shell only to find out that he has out grown it! Your children discovered that hermit crabs really do move out of the shells when our hermit crab Smiley moved into his new shell this morning.

Eric Carle has a wonderful website http://www.eric-carle.com/ you should visit it when you get a chance.

Our big buddies came in this afternoon and helped us find out facts about hermit crabs and sea life. We have so much fun when our big buddies come down to see us!

Please say hi to Smiley and Soccerball, our new classroom friends the next time you come into visit.

What is a scientist?

This week your children have been learning that scientists are not men in stuffy lab coats, but that there is a scientist in every one of us!

We started the off by reading one of my favorite authors Julia Donaldson. The children loved her stories: The Gruffalo and The Snail and the Whale. The latter is a story of the little snail who saves a beached whale. It was the perfect way for our kids to start thinking about the importance of written expression.

We continued our adventure with snails on Wednesday when our big buddies came to read with us in the afternoon. The children sat with their Big Buddies and researched important facts about snails. All of the research they collected will go into their science notebooks.

On Thursday we made the covers to our science notebooks, using yellow and then blue finger paint. The covers became delightful shades of green. In the afternoon your children made snail puppets and we read the story, Snail: Where are You!"

We used our knowledge of snails for mathematics too! The children made a comparison chart of how many eyes,tails, heads, and shells one, two and three snails would have.

Your children amaze me with their confidence and wit!

Next week we will continue to discover all sorts of new things that live in shells.

Here is a list of the books we enjoyed this week-

Nonfiction Books
Bulhozer, Theres, 1987, “Life of the Snail” Carolrhoda Books Inc. Lucerne, Switzerland
Dorling Kindersley book, “What’s Inside? Shells,” Scholastic Edition: New York
Fowler, A. 1999, “A Snail’s Pace” Children’s Press: Canada
Green, J. 2004, “Nature’s Children: Snails,” Groller: Danbury, Connecticut
Holmes, K. 1998, “Snails,” Bridgestone Books: Mankato, Minnesota
Murray, P. 1998, “Snails,” The Children’s World, Inc:
Pascoe, E. and Kuhn, D. 1999, “Nature’s Closeup: Snails and slugs,” Balckbirch Press, Inc: Connecticut
Pyers, G. 2005, “Snails, Up Close,” Raintree: Chicago, Illinois
Ross, M. E. 1996, “Snailology,” Carolrhoda Books: Lucerne, Switzerland

Fiction Books
Ungerer, T. 1962, “Snail, Where are you?” Blue Apple:
McGuirk, L. 2003, “Snail Boy,” Candlewick Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Wadell, M. 2003, “Hi, Harry! The Moving Story of how One Slow Tortoise Slowly Made a Friend,” Candlewick press: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Donaldson, J and Scheffler A. 2003, “The Snail and the Whale,” MacMillan Children’s Books: London

A King's cake for me!

Today your kindergartners took an exciting adventure to France and the home of Puss n' Boots.



The kindy's used magnifying glasses to inspect bird's eye view post cards and they found out several interesting things. They saw color. They saw patterns. They found Puss n' Boots.



We read several versions of the Puss n' Boots, including the Caldecott award winning edition. Marcellino ExhibitPuss in Boots"

Your children practiced making jewelled patterns on their crowns and wore their to our afternoon party. Where we ate cake with our best manners!



We finished our day by finding something else that was hidden. We found two little garden gnomes hiding in our King's Cake.



Please be sure to check out the beautiful study of ordinary shapes your children completed. They are displayed in the main hallway.