Farewell!

I would like to thank all of my students and families for a wonderful year of kindergarten! I wish all of you the best of luck in first grade. You will be dearly missed.

Field Day Fun

We couldn't have asked for more beautiful weather for Kindergarten Field Day! We all dressed up in our tie-dye t-shirts and laced up our gym shoes for a day of fun. 

We rotated to different stations around the school. The stations included everything from dancing and snacks to musical hoops and relay races. We had an awesome day!

Exploring Butterflies

Our study on garden and insects led to an interest about butterflies. We were lucky enough to watch our very own caterpillars develop into butterflies in our own classroom! 

We began our study by talking about what we knew about butterflies and then documented questions we had.

We first answered the question: How do caterpillars turn into butterflies? We read several non-fiction books about the life cycle of a butterfly. We drew and labeled each phase of the life cycle (a kindergarten learning target)! 

We learned that butterflies begin as an egg laid by a butterfly which turns into a caterpillar. The caterpillar eats and eats and eats before turning into a chrysalis. The chrysalis then turns into a butterfly.

After learning about the life cycle, we then wanted to learn even more about butterflies. 

We learned about the different parts of a butterfly, what and how butterflies eat, what attracts butterflies, and what species of butterflies we may find in Ohio. 

We spent a lot of time observing different butterflies and the markings that made them each unique.

We learned that butterflies actually have four wings. Through observation, we noticed that the wings of butterflies are the same on both sides. We learned that this term is called symmetrical. To show our understanding, we created our very own butterflies with symmetrical wings. 

To end our butterfly study, we released our classroom butterflies into our discovery garden. 

Library Field Trip

A walking field trip to the local library was something that we had been looking forward to all spring! We had a wonderful time listening to the children's librarian read fun books like Pete the Cat. She also told us about the summer reading program and how it is important to keep our reading skills sharp over the summer. 

We loved reading and exploring several books chosen for us! 

Garden Study

Since returning from Spring Break, we have spent a lot of time working in our discovery garden. We used garden tools to spread mulch and to prepare our flower boxes for planting. We learned that spring is the best time to begin planting seeds. To become experts about gardening, we turned to several non-fiction resources such as books, websites, and online video streaming. 

We first learned about the needs of plants: air, water, space, and soil. We discovered that most of those are also important for us to live. We learned how seeds turn into plants, as well as explored different types of seeds. We planted sunflower, zinnia, cilantro, and spearmint seeds in our classrooms. We cared for the seeds by watering them and documented their growth. 

We spent a lot of time outside exploring the beautiful spring blooms outside of our school.

We learned about the parts of a plant and each of their functions.

We collected nature items from outside and brought the outside indoors by creating beautiful nature collages to hang in our classroom.

To share our learning, we painted different types of flowers to display outside of our classroom.

We learned that not only can you plant a flower garden, but you can plant vegetable gardens too! We read several books about planting vegetable gardens and learned about what vegetables we can plant in our garden at school.

We decided to plant cucumbers along with cilantro and sunflowers in our class flower box. Other classes have planted lettuce, potatoes, onions, carrots, broccoli, and peppers.

We have learned the appropriate way to care for seedlings and have done a wonderful job taking responsibility for weeding and watering our flower box.

While caring for our garden, we noticed several tiny critters in our garden. This led to an investigation about insects and other bugs. We learned that all insects have three body parts (head, thorax, abdomen) and six legs. Worms, slugs, spiders, and centipedes are not considered insects because they do not fit the description of an insect! We spent time sketching the insects we observed in our Exploration Journals.

Outside of our classroom, we created a vegetable garden to show others what types of vegetables can grow in a vegetable garden, as well as, the importance of planting vegetable seeds in rows. 

We also created a flower garden that included the parts of a flower. We showed the insects you can find in a flower garden like ants, caterpillars, and butterflies. Our learning about plants, gardens, and insects are included on the display.