Final Animal Open House

 We had our final animal open house on Friday. On Thursday we held an auction in our room. We put out all of the habitats, clay animals, projects and everything we have created over the course of our Ohio Wild Animal, Penguin & Reptile/Amphibian studies. We chose names out of a basket and they chose what they wanted to take home with them one by one until everything was gone! They thought it was hilarious when I said, "Sold!" after someone chose something and by the end, they were saying it with me. The students who had family members coming to the open house gathered their clay animals together, we bagged them up and the family members were able to take them home with them as well as the items their child chose from the auction. For the other students, we bagged them up the best we could and put them in book bags to send them home. I hope they all made it home in one piece!! They were very excited about all of the goodies they got to take home with them. We will be doing another auction right before our awards & video for children to take more things home as well.

 Tabitha with her goodies.

Kaci with the items she chose from the auction.

 Miley showing her mom one of the things she chose. Lexi enjoyed sharing with her family her work and what she chose to take home.

 Scarlett with her family and the items she chose. 

With helping to make sure everyone took all of their items, I didn't get a chance to take more pictures! Thank you to everyone who has supported us throughout the year by coming to our open houses! We work so hard in order to get ready for them and it means so much to have you all there! 

Mrs. Brittany Garrabrant

Bulletin Board, Handwriting & Stuart Little

We had a great week this week! We noticed on Monday that we had sprouts in our garden! The students were very excited and wanted to know when we could harvest the vegetables. We talked about how we would have to wait a while longer because they are not ready! They have been continuing to keep an eye on our plants to see how they have been growing and getting bigger. They are fascinated with them.

We worked on getting our very last bulletin board together for the year. Every student chose a color to make their hand print with and put it on white paper. The students loved feeling the paint on their hand. They thought it felt cold and tickled. They also signed their first and last name as well as 2014 by their handprint. Mrs. George & I did our handprint as well. We added them to the bulletin board.

We also wrote the words for our bulletin board and traced them with different sharpie markers to make it look pretty.

It turned out really great!

It says, "We came as strangers. We leave as friends. Kindergarten 2014"

We also added our playground map and documentation papers to our project wall.

Since we are getting so close to first grade we have been working hard on practicing writing our letters correctly to make our handwriting neater. We have been making sure to hold our pencil correctly, write neatly, and write the letters correctly on the line. 

We finished reading the book Stuart Little this week. We watched the movie on Friday. Since our computer is very quiet while a movie is playing, I brought in my laptop and wireless speaker and we watched it that way. The screen isn't that big but it worked and we could hear it great! After watching the movie we talked about how the book and movie were similar and how they are different. We came to the conclusion that the book and the movie are very different! The plot is completely different and there are only a few other things besides the characters that are the same as well. We found this very interesting! We only have 6 more buckeyes to earn for our class reward system and we have decided that once we earn all of them, we would like to watch Stuart Little 2 & 3. 

Thanks for stopping by! Check back next week to see what we have been up to.

Don't forget that the ECC Spring Sing is this coming Thursday, May 22nd at 6:30 at the high school. More information about this event will be sent home with your child this week! 

Have a great week! 

Mrs. Brittany Garrabrant

Butterflies, Mother's Day & More!

Of course we had another busy week in kindergarten!! We had a lot of things to get done and we learned a lot! We started the week off with butterflies! When we came back to school on Monday, one of the caterpillars had emerged from its chrysalis as a butterfly! The students were amazed to see how the chrysalis had cracked open and the butterfly had come out of it. We even got to see the other four come out of their chrysalis over the course of the day! Once they were all out, we took our butterfly house outside to release them. They actually didn't want to leave the butterfly house!! The students really enjoyed watching them fly away into their natural habitat. They also enjoyed observing and documenting the life cycle of a butterfly.

A couple of weeks ago we started preparing for Mother's Day. We planted Marigold seeds in our classroom and we placed them up on the ledge so they would be able to get sunlight. We learned responsibility by watering our plants a couple of times a week! The students really enjoyed watching their sprouts grow over the last couple of weeks! We were supposed to be keeping the flowers a secret but I am sure some of the kids spilled the beans! I hope you all enjoyed your Marigold seeds!

The kids decorated bags to put all of their Mother's Day presents in.

Here are a few of the completed bags.

We also made these hand cards that make a heart. We traced their hand on paper to make a card that opens to a heart out of your child's hands. On the front we wrote, "I love my mom". On the inside left we wrote because followed by why each student loved their mom. On the inside right we wrote love followed by their name. On the back they drew an illustration of themselves with their mother. Take a look at some of the completed cards below.

Scarlett wrote that she loves her mom "because she loves me".

Taha loves his mom "because she took me and my friends to places".

Lexi loves her mom "because she makes me smile". 

Layton loves his mom "because she takes care of me".

Along with the students cards, we also included this poem about their sprouts.

 The students put their card and poem into their bags.

 Some of our friends sprouts got really tall and some of them had lots of sprouts come up!

I also found this M&M label about moms that we put on a pack of M&M's and they included it into their gift bag as well.

Here the students are putting their M&M pack and their plants into their bags. They were excited that they were 'finally' taking their plants home!

We put some tissue paper in the bags in order to help keep the plant from falling over. They also wanted to use the tissue paper to help hide their plants so their mother wouldn't see them!

Our class with their finished Mother's Day bags!

 We also watered our vegetables this week since it got SO hot! They have been checking every day and then running over to tell me, "Mrs. Garrabrant, our vegetables haven't started growing yet!".

The students have recently enjoyed using the logs on the playground to create a see saw.

 Bottom left: We have added a new workstation where the students are sequencing pictures to make a story. Bottom right: During our "I Wonder" exploration time, Emma was documenting all of the plants in our room including flowers that some of the students had gotten me.

 We also added a new survey to our graphing workstation. The students are now asking their friends, "What is your favorite ice cream flavor?".

 We added labels to our playground map. 5 of our students were chosen to represent our classroom and present what we wanted to add to our playground to Mrs. Hall. We talked about being persuasive and each student wrote down one thing that we wanted to add to the playground and why it would be beneficial for us. We also talked about why we put these objects in the specific places that we did on the playground. We recorded our ideas on Friday and once I combine all of the classes videos into one, we will be sending it to Mrs. Hall so she will be able to make her decision. Stay tuned for more updates! 

We hope to see you all this coming Friday for our LAST animal open house! We will be displaying all of the work on different types of animals we have done over the course of the year. You will also be able to take home all of your child's clay animals! Otherwise they will be sent home in their book bag on Friday and they might break on the bus ride home! See you on Friday, May 16th- 8:30-9am.

Have a great week! 

Mrs. Brittany Garrabrant