April 24 - May 6

JK's Got Spring Fever!

The JK kids have been so busy over the past few weeks!  


We celebrated Vincent's birthday!  Happy fifth Birthday Vincent!  Thanks for the yummy fish cupcakes.  Thanks to Mr. Molden, Vincent's dad, for staying and reading If You Give a Mouse a Muffin.  The kids really enjoyed the celebration.

Our field trip to the Farm at the zoo was a big hit!  See the slide show to the right for more pictures.  Thank you to all of our wonderful chaperones.  We couldn't have been able to explore all of the places at the farm without your help.  We were able to explore new signs of spring too and really enjoy the outdoors.  We had a gorgeous day at the farm!


The learning in the classroom has been enhanced because of this outdoor experience.  We have been working on identifying farm animals vs. zoo animals, draw pictures about our favorite farm animals, read stories both fiction and non-fiction, use farm animal manipulatives to count, identify numbers, and add and subtract numbers.

Lots of children turned in their Spring Detective sheets too this past week.  They shared with the class signs of spring and then picked a prize from the prize box!  Way to go Spring Detectives.  We are still accepting papers:)

The children enjoyed the Spring Backpack homework so much that we now are sending home Farm backpacks!  I hope everyone makes time to complete the projects and enjoy them with your children.  The JK kids love to share what activities they did with their favorite themed animals!  They started to bring home the farm backpacks this week with Moo Moo, Peepers, and Oinkers!

The children have been working on their monthly self-portraits, concentrating on the shape of their features, the color of their skin, hair, eyes, etc.  They continue to work hard in their journals as well, drawing pictures about Spring time activities and then writing about it.

 In the math center, the children worked on number identification, counting objects, matching numbers and objects, and adding numbers together through a fun ladybug game.  First they counted the lady bugs spots, then they found the flower that had the number written on it.  After playing the matching game for a while, those that were ready to add numbers together were given either two ladybugs with dots or two flowers with numbers and they were asked to add the numbers together.  If that skill was mastered then they went on to illustrating a number problem.

This past week's math center also had multiple levels to it.  The children started by identifying a number, then counting pigs to match the number and put them in their pig pen, then some went on to having two pig pens with different numbers on it and adding how many in all.  Finally they illustrated how many pigs they had or solved a number problem and illustrated it.

 In the language arts center, the children worked on popcorn words want and new. The predicted what the story, Socks was going to be about, they tracked their reading, and discussed what the story was about when they finished it.  Then they went back and used wikki sticks to circled the words.  The children loved the bendy, sticky, sticks to help them with their new words.

This week they read a book called A Duck.  In this story they read about a silly duck who met a buck and they drove a truck!  The children found popcorn words, rhyming words, and made a list of rhyming words to help them learn more about word patterns which is so important when reading short and long words.

In the independent center last week the children worked together to build floor size puzzles.  This week they worked together on smaller farm puzzles to make farm shapes. They really did a great job working together.

In the fine motor center the children found spring pictures to cut out of magazines and paste them on their blankets they weaved from the week before.  Check out these beautiful spring blankets outside of the classroom.

This week the children picked their favorite farm animal and drew a picture of it.  Then they filled in the blanks for Old Ms./Mr. ____ had a farm, E-I-E-I-O.  And on his/her farm he/she had a  _________.  They had a great time with their very original pieces!

Third grade reading buddies came to visit!  We love being read too and being silly with our big third grade friends.

Our seventh grade reading buddies came to visit too!  They helped us with a secret project that you mom's will see on Sunday! (NO PEEKING)  When the JK friends finished they were read to.  

Thank you to Mrs. Susmita Sahoo for coming to our classroom and sharing your community helper job with the children.  Susmita is a postdoctoral research scientist.  Her research is in stem cell therapy for treating cardiovascular diseases.  She talked to the children about how the heart works and how the foods they eat and the exercise they get helps the heart function.  She showed them lots of healthy and sweet foods.  She brought in a model of a heart and showed them the different parts of it.  Then she read a Magic School Bus book about the heart.  We learned that our hearts are as big as our fists and when it beats it expands kind of like our hand when it opens and closes.  The class loved it so much!  


The JK class has been learning new spring and farm poems.  They are a very interactive way for us to learn and hear language.  We read a lot of springtime books and farm books these past weeks.  We read a book about Ten Dirty Pigs and Ten Clean Pigsbecause it's funny, because it so warm, That's their only bath they could have, because they like mud and sometimes they drink it, because they have it, instead of sunscreen, because it's the certain things pigs do.  Then the kids experimented with mud and how it felt.  They said, it feels sticky, slimy, and cold.  We concluded that farm animals roll in the mud to keep cool!  

Here's our beautiful class project.  Thank you for all of your help.  We hope to see you at the Auction!