Mother's Day Celebration - Kindergarten 2012

Celebrating Mother's Day is a very big event in our class. We have been preparing for weeks for this special day. On Friday, mothers came in for our annual Mother's Day breakfast. The children sang several songs and prepared wonderful gifts such as bean hearts, place mats, and a silhouette. The morning was a great way to let each mother know how important they are and how much we all love them. Happy Mother's Day from The Mall-ard class.
Mother's Day Celebration -- Part 1 on PhotoPeach
And some more pictures ...
 Mother's Day Celebration - Part 2 on PhotoPeach

Turkish Culture, Customs, and Cuisine

Today we were visited by a "O"s mother who treated the class to a beautiful presentation about the country Turkey. Mrs. B. showed the children where Turkey is on the map, taught several greetings, and shared delicious food with the students. We learned about Nasreddin Hodja who is a charismatic personality from Turkish folklore dating from the 13th century. It is his wisdom that has endeared him to many throughout the centuries. Mrs. B. read a story in Turkish and then translated it for the children...

                                                                EAT  MY FUR COAT

The Hodja was invited out to dinner. He went in his old clothes and nobody was interested in him. When he found a few minutes to spare, he rushed home and collected his fur coat.
When he came back, he was treated with great respect. Everybody wanted to speak to him.
When they sat down for dinner he said: “Eat, fur coat, eat!”
And he explained to the curious people:
“If this regard is for my coat, it must eat also.”

The children learned a lot about Turkey and we appreciate all the time and effort put into teaching the children about this wonderful country and its traditions, culture and cuisine!!

Kinder-"gardeners" Green Thumb

Continuing with our Eric Carle Author Study, the book today was "The Tiny Seed." This is the story of a harrowing journey of a little seed that finally found a place to grow. This book was the springboard to the next activity which was visiting the Chets Creek Garden. This is a plot of land behind the school that was started with a few tomatoes and beans and grew to broccoli, spinach, kale, squash, herbs and other vegetables. First, Miss Brenda came to talk to the children about different seeds and plants. Then each child was given a few seeds to plant in the garden. They planted Chinese Pole Beans along the fence. Students marked their plant with a stick which had his/her name on it.  In this way, we can come back in a few weeks to see how their plants have grown. This was a wonderful "field trip" to our own backyard to see what an actual garden looks like and learn more about seeds and plants.

 This is the Chets Creek Garden.

 Students who were playing on the playground were helping the Kindergarten students find a good spot.

Ms. Brenda is the caretaker of the garden and explained how the plants grow.

Eric Carle Author Study

                                Celebration Day Cupcake Cake of  The Very Hungry Caterpillar
                                      
For the past several weeks, we have been enjoying many of the books by our favorite author, Eric Carle. Reader's and Writer's Workshops have been busy with reading, retelling and responding to his books. The class favorite has to be "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" followed by 'The Grouchy Ladybug" and "The Very Busy Spider." Each of his books includes wonderful lessons that the children understand in Eric Carle's special way of telling them. Last week we celebrated his books by having "Eric Carle Author Celebration Day" and there are still so many books that we still have to read. For homework, students were invited to make puppets of their favorite book and present their retelling to the class. Here are few pictures of the puppet retellings that have happened already and pictures from the past few weeks.
 Bits and Pieces of Our Eric Carle Author Study on PhotoPeach