I wanted to share this book I just got at our book fair! It's called We Are Growing, by Laurie Keller, and... I cannot wait to use it. I am sharing it with you before I even do anything with it, in case you want to get your own and have fun with it. Maybe you already know about it, and I've been missing out. Anyway- here it is!
I was so sad when the Piggie and Elephant series ended. So sad... but I knew something else wonderful would be coming along, and it has!
In this story, Walt and his blades of grass friends are all excited to be growing. As they grow, they each have their own personality and brag about why they are the most special. "I am the CURLIEST!" I am the SILLIEST!" Every blade is the something-est... except Walt. He isn't the tallest, the curliest, or the silliest. Along comes a BIG surprise that knocks everybody down (in more ways than one) and Walt discovers something special-est about himself that is all his own.
Here is a video reading of the story so you can see what it's all about:
Every year I have the children grow their grass hair people. We haven't started ours yet because we just finished growing our beanstalks, but these are coming soon...
This was one from a few years ago. I buy tiny ponytail holders and little plastic barrettes. The kids love putting them in the hair- and... giving haircuts!
How perfect will this new book be to introduce this activity?
It's a great character education story, too. Everyone has special qualities. We can talk about how everyone has LOTS of special gifts, and just because one person is good at something, that doesn't mean someone else can't be good at that, too! We don't have the be the -est of anything! We can have fun learning and doing lots of different things.
Once their Hairy Person grows, I'm going to have the children think of something they think they do the BEST. Maybe they are the fastEST or the bravEST of the happiEST or the cleanEST or the friendliEST or the nicEST or the neatEST or the funniEST. I am going to have them write a story all about them as the Hairy Person, and what they are the best at and WHY. "I am the neatEST, because I always help clean up my room before I go to bed." "I am the funniEST, because I can always make my baby sister laugh when I spin around and fall down." This is another way to use that special word 'because,' too!
That's my plan for writing.
THEN- for a quick math break, we'll go outside and collect dandelions. The children love to pick dandelions, so we turn it into class contest to see how many we can pick, working together. When each child gets a group of ten, they put it down on the ground in one group. We keep picking and making groups of ten. At the end of a set time (I usually say 5 minutes because it's amazing how many we get in a short time!) we count by tens to see how many we pick.
Here is one tip to consider... One year, I did this on Spring Picture Day. One of my boys was wearing a white shirt, that turned out to be more of a "dandelion yellow" in his picture... oops. Don't do this on picture day.
I hope you have fun with this new book! I can't wait...
Last Saturday was a perfect day with my girls! We started off bright and early. Ellie came down and we fueled up with some Dunkin Donuts coffee. Of course. Then we were off to our yearly trip to the Tioga Terrace Garage Sales. This is my Christmas in May. Every year we look forward to it. Tioga Terrace is a wonderful neighborhood with about 750 homes- and every year they have a neighborhood garage sale. Thousands of people come, and it is like a treasure hunt. This year, I did find some Melissa and Doug puzzles- for a quarter each! WHAT?! (I gave her a dollar, because really... ) I got a few other little things for my class, too. I am out of room in there, and know enough not to turn into a hoarder- so I didn't get many school things. We all found some fun things and a great time.
Every year the girls get Matt something strange. It's their mission. We were thinking back to at least 5 or 6 years of what we found for him. This was their contribution this year. What a lucky brother.
ET mug- who doesn't need one?
This paper mache' guy with tiny ankles.
Then, at night, Ellie took Emily (for her graduation) and me( for Mother's Day) to this painting class at Wine and Design. WHAT a great time we had! Matt and Ellie took us to dinner first. Oh what fun memories that day!
Here were the other new friends we met in the class.
Here are our finished paintings. I love how they are all different. My little leaves sort of took on a Christmas light look. (Try not to focus on my hair- what is going on?!)
One of my FAVORITE Writing Mentor Texts is The Jolly Postman. It seems like as I am reading it, the children are already thinking what notes they want to write and include in their stories before they even start!
This is from Amazon:
The Jolly Postman goes from home to home in a fairy-tale kingdom, delivering letters to such familiar addresses as "Mr. and Mrs. Bear, Three Bears Cottage, The Woods." Every other page is an actual envelope, with a letter tucked inside. The letter to the three bears, for instance, is from Goldilocks, who apologizes for the trouble she's caused and invites Baby Bear to her birthday party. Some authors would stop with this cute concept, but the Ahlbergs have given this book their all. The story of the postman's travels is told in charming verse; the pictures are delightful, full of clever detail; and the results are frequently hilarious. (The wicked witch of "Hansel and Gretel" fame, for instance, receives a circular from Hobgoblin Supplies Ltd. which advertises such appealing products as Little Boy Pie Mix.)
The children loved the story, but most of all, they were taken with the envelopes and real letters tucked inside. I did condense the story a bit, because some of it was a little wordy for my kids- and in one part someone gives the postman champagne which I left out, too... but the book is just a clever, sweet idea.
Reading this story was my entire mini lesson- no need for anything else but this on each table (along with scissors to cut tiny note size papers for the envelopes and glue sticks to stick on envelopes):
and LOTS of this:
The children were so busy and so focused, I didn't even interfere today. I just let them go so they could get their ideas down and create.
She's way ahead of me- thinking of Father's Day! Bless her heart.
This book will be a keeper!
She wrote notes to all of her kitties.
This story was about a jolly dog who loved to joke. It made me laugh!
I posted about our love of Letting it GO in my classroom.
You would think none of us in that room would have a care in the world if you judged us on the number of times we sang about, talked about, or wrote about Letting it Go. Sometimes I just need to let those words sink in because...
They really aren't.
Anyway, I shared some ideas of ways I try to help me the children realize that.
I also found one more version of the song that made me smile. It's even better if you close your eyes. Do it. You'll feel just like your favorite Disney friends are singing along with you.
My sweet Sandy from Kinder-Gardening shared some fabulous ideas for dandelions- and this wish jar was one of them. I went right out and made one for me. My sweet husband just mowed down about a MILLION wishes- so I actually had to go down the road to find some. I just loved this idea.
Today was Grandparents' Day at our school. Grandparents visit their grandchild's classroom for an hour before lunch, and then go to the gym to have a special lunch with the child. I always get nervous planning for this day, and then when I am in the moment, I always wonder why. The grandparents are so relaxed and happy.
I had one little guy who didn't have grandparents come because they were out of town. Sometimes a parent or older sibling will come instead. Today, this little guy was my helper. At the end of the day, he said it was the BEST Grandparents' Day EVER- so I guess he was happy with the way things turned out. Although at first, this morning on the rug when he told me they couldn't come and was sad, sad, sad, I said (trying to be nice), "I will be your grandmother for the day!" To which he replied a blood-curdling, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" The other kids were sort of speechless. Then I made a face and everyone laughed. So I told him I would really need a helper (instead of me being the grandma), and life was so much better for everyone. Phew.
We had 32 grandparents in our classroom (which is crowded with just the 18 of us). But it worked out just fine. My face was as red as the ladybugs, and I thought it was going to rain in there because it was so humid, but it was fine. We played Sparkle and I Have, Who Has as they arrived. Once everyone was there, we sang a few songs. We voted and came up with My Favorite Things, My Mother is Baker, and Let it Go. Of course. So precious. Except the boys got SHY- and all of a sudden it sort of looked like, "WHY is she punishing those poor boys making them sing Let it Go?!" Oh my.
We have had a week of Eric Carle, so I thought it would be fun for the grandparents to do some projects with the children. We did some centers.
We painted grouchy ladybugs. I sprayed them with clear gloss once they dried so they can be put outside in the garden. These made me laugh because I'm pretty sure the grandparents let them do these all by themselves!
These were from last year once I sprayed them.
We colored and painted fireflies with glow in the dark paint.
We decorated houses for hermit crab, which I didn't get a good picture of... because I totally lost my camera there for a while. That is so me.
On the rug, the children each read 2 stories they chose to their grandparents and showed them their stories in their writing folders. Everyone wrote a special story for their grandparents ahead of time, too.
We gave each grandparent a lupine that we planted when we read Miss Rumphius- and The Tiny Seed.
We finished up reading Grandpa's Slippers- a perfect story for the day.
The children ate with their grandparents in the gym, which was decorated so beautifully. And then they could go into the cafeteria and dress up for the Photo Booth with their grandparents. They all LOVED that part.
I am linking up with Kacey from Doodlebugs Teaching for another fun Five for Friday linky.
Thank you for hosting, Kacey. I find myself thinking of my favorite five all week long.
Last weekend we had a wonderful time at my daughter Emily's graduation from Niagara University. The weather was gorgeous, and so was the ceremony. We had a great time with friends at a party afterward, too. We only had two tickets (because it was inside), so only Jeff and I went up to the graduation. We are going to have a family celebration here for everyone. You would have thought we might have had SOMEONE take a picture of the three of us, wouldn't you?!
Since it is that time of year when USUALLY I have found frog and toad eggs in the pond, I wanted to share my Frog and Toad Prezi with you if you would like it, and maybe are watching some eggs in your classroom.
I keep hearing frogs and toads, but haven't seen any eggs yet. My Prezi is free this week if you would like it. It includes a simple biography of Arnold Lobel (author of the famous, fabulous Frog and Toad books), links to an interview with his daughter who continued on with his work as an author herself, some videos of his stories, and some online games. I also included some pictures that I like to use to compare frogs and toads and their eggs. Have fun!
We grew some lollipops using our imaginations! The book The Gumdrop Tree is a great way to remind the children to never lose their wonderful imaginations. Here is my post about that book and some other fun ideas.
This time of year, I always have my dandelion activities ready to go for the perfect moment. It really isn't something you can plan down to the day- you just have to do it! I love spur the moment fun with the kids. They remember that, too. We had a great time. We read books, wrote about our dandelion wishes, did a little dandelion math, and decided that dandelions are actually quite pretty flowers. So it was a successful day. I posted about it HERE.
My number 5 is a huge bit of a rant. I feel like it is partly on behalf of Friedrich Froebel, because he would be so sad to see what has become of his idea of a "child's garden." Kindergarten was to be based around playing, singing, practical activities, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school.
Yesterday I took a professional development class with our school's occupational therapist. She's wonderful and does a great job with the children. She was sharing activities to do with children in the classroom to help with OT issues. She has five times as many students to service in our school with the incoming Kindergarten class than she had this year.
I don't see how anyone can be surprised. People wonder why there is such an increase in needs for OT and PT, and drugs for ADD and ADHD. How can we wonder this? Which one of us could sit do anything for a solid hour everyday at our age now without a break? Of course children get active and distracted.
As teachers, we know that we are supposed to take into account what is developmentally best for the children we teach. We need to be able to do that, not feel guilty doing it, and be strong enough to defend that we are doing what is best for children. But how sad that we have to defend it, and that it isn't obvious. These precious, inquisitive, questioning creatures crave hands-on experiences and movement, as the best part of their learning. Kindergarteners are so capable and so willing and eager to learn. They amaze me. But somehow the word "developmental" has become outdated and ignored.
How sad that good teachers know what they need to do, so they shut the door and do what is right for children by giving them time to be children, like it's wrong or frivolous. Luckily, my Principal knows and appreciates the whole child, encourages brain breaks, and realizes the benefit of movement and experiences for children. Many of these children aren't getting experiences at home with exploration and play like they used to, either.
I honestly feel like we are on this path of "flipped classrooms"even for young children, where children will be learning on iPads or whatever devices they have at home, and school will have to be where they learn to socialize, be healthy, exercise, be polite, practice manners, and have hands-on opportunities for learning. One reason cited for so many OT referrals is the overload of technology at such a young age. Some children don't know how to climb jungle gyms, jump rope, or play tag.
Technology is amazing. It is a valuable tool for teaching. But it's only one part.
Our country's quest to be compared to other countries with high test scores is scary. Those children are often not well-balanced, happy children, but well trained test takers, who from a young age are afraid to do anything but succeed academically. It makes me sad when test scores are a driving factor. My children are beautiful readers and writers. They try so hard for me because they know that I am so proud of each of their accomplishments- just like I'm sure your students are. Still, I feel this pressure that I am not spending enough minutes reading, or writing, or adding, or subtracting, or something. If I feel the pressure, you can bet the kids do, too.
Lots of times I write these posts like a journal, mostly to remind MYSELF that I am not crazy to let the children be children. Moments like this remind me that letting them be little is a pretty wonderful thing.
