Its Been a Wild Ride!

Crazy Head day in Room Thirty-One. We were all impressed with Emma hair, which was actually titled: "The Rat's Nest" and consisted of four or more rats, their furniture, some clothing and a placard denoting the work of arts title. However, we decided Graces braids were equally fascinating.

Kindergarten Sing

 Kindergarten met in the gym today for a special Kindergarten Sing.  Every Friday we meet with all the K classes to sing some of our favorite songs from music class.  Today we had the opportunity to sing for all of you who made it for our performance. Mrs. Wright prepared kindergarten's most requested songs. Here the kids sing a lullaby including nine languages. 

Bellisima!

The Bike Fair

We made our way to the back field from the Kindergarten wing with some difficulty. This turned out to be the hardest part of getting twenty six-year-olds on bikes. Just let them ride!

K-City was drawn out in chalk and cones with a few traffic signals creating a two-way stop. "The Curves" were harder than some of us realized when a slight decline made breaking necessary. Still, no blood was spilt and Lehna was hailed as the best "jumper" of the bunch. That girl can leap of a moving vehicle without a single scratch. Something she had obviously perfected!

Students were required to stop, wait, and walk their bike across our intersection. Thanks to Sue, Missy, Shannon and Trina, we had no collisions. Missy had a great siren on hand for any traffic violations. 

We took our learning very seriously. 

Some kindergarteners shared their bicycles with those who could not bring a bike. Finella lets Caitlin ride while practicing her signals by walking the track. I was very impressed with Alexa, who let another student with less ability ride her bike while she helped push (and steer)!

We push our kindergarteners very hard...too hard? Let Cotter answer that question. 

Alexa and Paul create mobil art when they figure an easier way to carry helmets.

A Tour of the Future

Kindergarten has been touring the one/two blends to get a feel for what lays in store. Mrs. Brent and Ms. Pruitt have opened their doors in the last two weeks. We will be visiting Mrs. Erikson next week as we prepare for the jump into deeper waters.

First, we are eased into the situation with a little peer reading. The six year olds eyes widen as they see just how far they will grow in the next two years. 

Mrs. Brent goes over some of the common rules and regulations between kindergarten and first grade. 

And, of course, there are still class pets! Here some of the older students show off their class gerbil, which, try as we might, is still known as "the first grade guinea pig".

The blessing of blends shown true as the first and second graders took it upon themselves to make friends and teach our students about what it really means to be in first grade. Make Sure You Hold Hands!

The Measure of a Man

Kindergarten is problem solving measurement. After measuring with a variety of tools, each group follows a map and hidden clues to measure distances. At their disposal, one yard stick, five to six kindergarteners, and an unending supply of yarn. Though their final figures differ, most students decide to use bodies to help mark the yards between points on the map. 

Experimenting with Nature

After art class we get ready to hunt for science, this week we are looking for worms in their natural habitat.
Sara is aided in her quest to prepare a happy home for our guests.

We work in teams to find the best places to look for our treasures. Night worms... Where do you think they'll be? A bright place or a dark place? Emma is the first one to find a worm. She also proves to a couple of gentlemen that girls can, and will, pick up crawlers. As if we didn't prove that with the gastropods!

Well... some of us would rather wear protection!

Students create experiments following the scientific method. Hypothesis: Slugs will win a race because they don't have a shell to carry. Theory: After racing more than thirty gastropods, we think small skinny slugs are faster than big slugs because they have less weight to move, and much faster than snails for the same reason. They also might be a little younger: as Johnmorgan stated, "kindergartener's can ran faster than Mrs. Kurkinen", thankfully they didn't comment of my weight!

The students also constructed tracks to see which gastropod could maneuver through various obstacles.  Some of us were very frustrated on the snails refusal to stay on the track. 

And so, what did we learn? Harper pretty much sums it up: 

"This is a small snail. [And it] is slow!" 

Life as a: Gastropod, or Amphibian, or Coelacanth

As summer approaches and the weather finally lets us emerge from our dwellings, kindergarten has embarked on our final science unit. As seen during the arts fair, we have completed our marine education with some rather impressive underwater scenes. After a half an hour in the green space we successfully introduced the current guests into our classroom, if any of you like to touch the "foot-stomachs" or mollusks, now abiding in our terrarium, please come by around 1pm each day so I don't have to! Soon we will have worms and pill bugs in our room as well!

We have also had the chance to watch the life cycle of tadpoles unfold. Near the bottom of this photograph you can clearly see the eggsac. The tadpole are now over a half inch in length.