Fun Friday!!!!!

What a day we had!  We started out this extra fun day by making pancakes!!!!!!  A HUGE thank you to Anna, Harris' mom who was the guiding chef!  She had it down....and everyone got to flip his or her own pancake!  We even took a big 'ol plate of pancakes to Mr. Ande!

We then had a very interesting visit with Sky's family who shared photos of their trip to New Zealand....fascinating!  And everyone got to take home a shell!

We also finished up our service project....putting together Hygiene Kits for disaster victims.  Our school created 72 kits.  A wonderful turn-out of items came in when you think about how much went into each bag.  Way to go Blakely families!

Mrs. Goony Bird!

 

I forgot to mention our impromptu visit from Ms. Colby's Kindergarten class.  We taught them the "Pirate" song and Ms. Colby taught us this......

Wednesday!

We loved the beautiful, sunny day!  It was great having Sky back from New Zealand...we missed her!  We will say good bye to Logan on Friday as he moves to a new house and school...we will miss him!

We learned a bit about different kinds of poems today - Abecedarian (an alphabetical poem that uses the letters A to Z in their proper order to form the first letters of every line), Acrostic (the first letters of the lines form a word or sentence when read downward) Picture Poem (the meaning is suggested by the arrangement of the words) and Haiku.  Love the poems from this book even though they cause a lot of craziness after they are read "Take Me Out of the Bathtub".

We had our Reading Buddies visit today.  We read for about 15 minutes and then decided to go out early for recess - we wanted to spend some extra time in the sun!  We ended the day in music with the wonderful Mr. Rothbaum!

 

Tuesday!

Well almost everyone made it back today.  Yesterday we started off with 7 children absent.  It was empty in here!  Someone pointed out that there were only 4 girls in our class....scary thought!!!!! 

We are reading lots of poetry.  Some of our favorites today (along with our VERY favorite "Scranimals") are from our Bainbridge Island poets; "Chicken Scratches" and "In Aunt Giraffe's Green Garden".

Thank you for continuing to send in our contribution for the Hygiene Kits, toothpaste!  We will continue to collect until this Friday.  We are still accepting donations of change for the Red Cross and will keep that going until after Spring break.

We were pretty excited after our Science assembly so I am encouraging all of the kindergartners to enter the Science Fair.  A packet of information came home today.  Go here if you need more information or if yours did not come home for some reason.  This is a "homework" project for you to fit in - IF it works for your family!  You can find some more inspiration here!

We finished our "Three Billy Goat Gruff" settings today....

I am really impressed with all of the wonderful writing and reading that is going on around here!  It's the best part of being a kindergarten teacher!  And they are competent in so many areas.....including eating and getting silly......love 'em! 

(I am having trouble getting my video to load....I will work on it...)

Monday!!!!!

After reading some funny poems from "Never Take a Pig to Lunch" (where we decided we MUST make pancakes this Friday), we headed off to an assembly.  And what a fabulous assembly it was!!!!!  Jeff Evans, a scientist and a magician, amazed and astounded his audience (even the teachers) with his tricks and knowledge of science!!!!  I am sure that each of the kindergartners have been inspired and will want to do a project for the science fair!  More information will come home soon...

Please continue to send in toothpaste for our Hygiene Kits.  Blakely students want to help out those who have been left with nothing after a disaster.  This is an easy way for them to be involved.  Thanks for all you do!

Friday!!!!!

What a wonderful day!!!!!  How do you top a field trip to BPA to see a puppet show, and birthday cupcakes?????  Oh, how about an award assembly for the Read-a-Thon where 3 out of the 4 kindergarten prizes go to Ms. Keller's class!!!!  We kindergarten teachers aren't real big on the idea of students winning prizes for reading - it's tough for our students to NOT win!

Make sure you read to the end of the blog to learn about our very important service project....sponsored by the Kindergarten classes!!!!!

We got to get up close to the puppets after the show!

Cupcakes two days in a row....

We loved this book today "Bark George"!

Our big news....

SERVICE LEARNING

Blakely students would like to help the victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. We are putting together HYGIENE KITS to send to families in need. Hygiene kits provide disaster victims with basic items necessary for health and cleanliness. Here is what we will be collecting:

KINDERGARTEN: 1 tube of toothpaste (6-8 oz., no pumps)

FIRST GRADE: 2 unbreakable combs (no sharp handles) and 2 bars of soap ( 4 to 5 oz.)

SECOND GRADE: 2 hand towels (new towels. Please do not use dish towels or washcloths.)

THIRD GRADE: 2 hand towels (new towels. Please do not use dish towels or washcloths.)

FOURTH GRADE: 4 toothbrushes (packaged)

We will collect items all next week and then assemble the bags at school.

Students are also collecting spare change to donate to the Red Cross.

Giving service will help our students feel thankful and peaceful during the scary and confusing times they are witnessing through the daily media. This is a hands-on, visible way young children can feel they are helping. At Blakey we want to learn to be citizens of the world!

Thursday!!!!!!!

There was quite a surprise when the kindergartners arrived this morning!  A path of green glitter (good thing the custodians like us around here) went down the hall and right into our classroom!  It took us to a corner where laying on the table was a note from Lucky the Leprechaun AND some golden coins!!!!!!!

Then it was time for our assembly - starring the kindergartners and third-graders!

We read a somewhat scary version of "Three Billy Goats Gruff" and worked the setting of the story using construction paper!

Mr. Keller brought green cupcakes.....the day was good!  We want to let Sky, in New Zealand,  know how much we miss her......hurry back Sky!!!!!!

Wednesday!!!

Math is getting REALLY fun around here!  We are working on  Word Problems.  Here are the stories...

• There were 4 seal pups and 4 seal mothers on the rock.  The 4 mothers left to go eat.  How many seals were left on the rock? 
• There were 4 seal pups on the rock and 4 seal mothers searching for food in the water.  How many seals were there altogether?

And then it gets more interesting......

• There were 3 seal pups and 3 mother seals on the rock.  3 hungry sharks were swimming nearby.  How many sharks and seals together?
• 2 of those hungry sharks managed to grab 2 of the seal pups off the ricks.  How many seals were left on the rock?

Next we had whale calves swimming in shark infested water....it got REALLY interesting, and fun.  Of course we are working on listening for key elements of word problems, and solving word problems.  Yay math!!

 

Tuesday!

Crazy weather day!!!  Of course these kindergartners were out in it and didn't seem to mind they were getting SOAKING wet!

We read a wonderful book "The Feel Good Book" and gave each page a thumbs up or down if we agreed ("Letting a kitten lick your fingers feels good").  We also laughed hard at the poems in "Oodles of Animals".

Working hard on our literacy jobs - lots of reading going on around here!

Today we took part in an international online survey tallying up the charms in Lucky Charms cereal.   As a group we are trying to prove that there are more GREEN CLOVERS  than any other shape.  So far the hypothesis  is correct as a whole - but not for our class!  Ask your child which marshmallow charm came out on top!  You can go to Projects by Jen to see the results.

Monday!

It was great to be back!  Your darling children came in a little tired looking (or was it just me?) but they worked AND played hard today!