Mother's Day and More

Well, I meant to post earlier about some of the things we did for Mother's Day, but between spending Mother's Day with my own mom and the arrival of my granddaughter.........I have been busy! We made Kindergarten Cooks, a cookbook of each child's favorite recipe that their mom fixes for them. I do this every year and I always love the results. The many ways that the children think their moms cook different foods is guaranteed to make you smile, if not laugh out loud! The children also wrote about their moms and made TLC irises for them.
Just wanted to show you again the Hairy Harrys. Here are before and after photos. Just this week the sweet potato sprouted leaves. Who knew that leaves on a sweet potato could cause so much excitement.


The combined Kindergarten classes presented The Little Red Hen musical to a packed house. I was really proud of the children. I thought they did a fabulous job.



We finished up a short unit on insects this week and will be doing some ocean things from now until the end of school. When we were learning about plants, we went out in our back yard to look at the plants there. We have lots of dandelions and clover. This afternoon the children were observing bees in the clover. I find myself marveling at how much they have learned and how excited they can get over simple things like clover blossoms and bees. Some days, my job is just too much fun!

Manic Monday

When the children came in on Monday, they quickly discovered that their "Hairy Harrys" had grown long grassy hair over the weekend, the sweet potato had grown roots, and there were pictures of my brand-new granddaughter on my table. Mr. T came by and wondered what all the ruckus was about. It was just too much excitement. Frankly the children were most impressed by their Hairy Harrys and the sweet potato. I was much more interested in introducing everyone to the newest member of my family. By now you have all seen the Harrys, so I would like to introduce you to Hannah Quinn Brune who made her appearance on Saturday, May 7. She was 19 inches long and weighed in at 6 pounds 7 ounces. Proud parents are Matt, my son, and Katherine, my wonderful daughter-in-law.

Here is Hannah............Nonny's favorite (and only) granddaughter!

PS If you want to see the sweet potato's roots, you will have to stop by the classroom. Just to warn you, be prepared, we think it my be sprouting leaves! More excitement!

We're Moooving On

It is hard to believe that this school year is coming to a close. The weeks seem to be flying by and I am not quite ready to let my "babies" go. But those babies are definitely ready to fly.........right on down the hall to first grade. We are just finishing up our unit on the farm. The children made farmers and cows and horses that are displayed on the hall outside our classroom. One teacher gave our class a link because she said that those horses were too cute and made her smile every time she saw them.We finished up our farm unit with a trip to the dairy and the turkey farm, followed by a picnic. We had a terrific time! Check it out.

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Eggs-traordinary Eggs!

Several weeks ago, we had a lot of fun learning about oviparous animals. We read many books and watched a great episode of "Reading Rainbow" called "Chickens Aren't the Only Ones". Then we made our own list of Oviparous Animals.

The children worked really hard with Mrs. B making the eggs you see in the photo. They had to decorate the shells, draw an oviparous animal inside, and then write a sentence about the animal they chose.

Of course we all made TLC Humpty Dumptys, added the rhyme to our poetry books, and had a great time doing "Hip Hop Humpty Dumpty" along with one of our music cd's.




We are still working on our farm unit and are very excited about our trip to Vend-a-Moo that is coming up. I hope to post some pictures of the farm things we have been doing soon. Things have been really busy around my house lately and I have neglected the blog.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We had a wild and crazy time this week trying to capture leprechauns. The children brought their traps to class on Wednesday, March 16. Each child shared his trap with the class and explained how it worked. Before we left at the end of the day, we set the traps in different places in our classroom. I confess that I was just blown away with how creative and marvelous the traps were. I hope the children and their parents enjoyed making these traps. I had a blast just listening to the children tell how their traps worked. They were so proud of their work. St. Patrick's Day we were greeted with a trail of shiny shamrocks from the outside doors to our classroom. There were tiny green footprints on the glass of our classroom door. Inside our room, all the traps had been sprung! Shiny green and gold coins were scattered around the room and on all the traps. Little green footprints were everywhere. The toilet had green water in it! Surely you heard the screams of glee as the children explored the room. We were loud!! Unfortunately we didn't catch any leprechauns so I will not be retiring to the beach anytime soon. During writer's workshop, the children wrote about their traps and our morning. In the afternoon, the children sorted and graphed Lucky Charms cereal. We participated in an online project to determine if there were more shamrock marshmallow shapes than other marshmallow shapes in each box. Our box of Lucky Charms did have more of the shamrock shapes. We finished the day by flying the kites we made when we were studying weather.

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In other work this week, the children made TLC leprechauns and wrote about what they would do if they found a leprechaun's pot of gold.

Leapin' Leprechauns Homework

Help your child be the first kid ever to catch a real live leprechaun at LME! Use the next two weeks to plan, design and build your leprechaun trap. If you need ideas to design and create your own leprechaun trap go to the following link and see what these engineering children came up with: How to Catch a Leprechaun.

Remember leprechaun traps are due on WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16!

Be sure to read the fine print on the note your child brought home about this assignment. "All gold obtained as a result of catching a leprechaun in room 402 MUST be shared 50/50 with Mrs. Miller so she can retire early and move to the beach!"

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