Graduation

Congratulations graduates!  I am so proud of each and every one of you, and I know you will all do great in Kindergarten next year.  

Butterflies

We have butterflies!!!!!!

Wednesday, we had the most awesome thing happen.  We came into school and one of our butterflies had came out of their chrysalis.  Then when the kids were watching the butterfly dry his wings, another butterfly came out!  5-6 kids actually saw it happen!   We had 3 butterflies by the end of the day!  Our room was full of excitement.  Check out these faces.

This project was so cool.  The kids learned first hand, how the caterpillars grow and grow, then hang like a "J" to form their chrysalis.  They saw the chrysalis shake many times while the butterfly was in there working away, and finally they got to see how the butterfly comes out of the chrysalis all scrunched up and wet, slowly stretches out his wings and then begins to flap them to dry them.

The butterflies also inspired a lot of writing.  Here is our morning message (it shows invented spelling at its finest, notice our sight words are all spelled correctly, while all the other words we tried to here all the sounds). 

I can't wait to let them go and see them fly away.  They say these butterflies have been known to land on people before they fly away and can be seen in the area they were let go for up to 2 weeks! 

Plants

The kids had a wonderful week studying plants, thanks to Mrs. Tracy, who shared her wonderful plans, and Mrs. Kelly who subbed for me.  They were able to finish up student of the day,

Do many fun plant crafts and activities,

And they even did a science experiment to see how a plant's stem transports the water up the stem and to the leaves!

Thank you all for all the love and support through these tough times, I really do appreciate all the kind words and can't wait to see you all on Monday!

Insects

The kids had a blast with our new class pets this week!  They were constantly checking in on them, and they inspired A LOT of our art work this week!  They loved watching them get bigger and bigger each day, we even had one that was hanging upside down on Tuesday.  We predicted that by next week we will have chrysalises in the container!

 

 

 We made a couple different books that talked about a butterfly's life cycle, and even learned a big Kindergarten word, metamorphosis!

We learned that butterfly's wings are exactly the same on each side and played with symmetry by painting one side of a butterfly and folding it in half to make a beautifully symmetrical butterfly!

 We measured a ton of things around the room with caterpillars,

Wrote several different bug names on many different crafts,

 

explored insects with magnifying glasses in the sensory tub,

 

and dotted ladybugs with the correct number of dots at an independent center this week!

 

These kids are getting so big and smart, I am so impressed!  Just check out these little smarties in their new morning centers!