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