Artist in the Making...

 Wait...no artist MADE!!....Take a look at the BEAUTIFUL bird Viktoria painted. She is enrolled in an art class outside of school and asked her instructor if she could paint a bird. Remember, we were learning about birds and how to draw them a few weeks ago? Apparently, this made an impression on Viktoria and she wanted to make more! ;-)
 WOW!!! Can you believe she painted this? I understand she had a little help from her art teacher....but this is AMAZING don't you think? Way to go!!

Kindergarten Draws Birds...

As we prepare to say "Goodbye" to winter and "HELLO" to spring, we've been learning all about some of the birds we can see in our neighborhood. We learned about the robin, cardinal, blue-jay, sparrow and hummingbird. There are many other types of birds we could see as well. In the computer lab we drew birds using the PAINT program. We had fun taking what we learned to do with pen and paper and transfer it to the computer. Take a look at what nice birds we drew:

At Home Movies...

From time to time we will be able to watch school related videos right from our own computers. The same folks that bring us the Discovery Channel, have made videos available to teachers and students. You must have the pass code to view the movies at home. You should have received a paper from me with the pass code on it. Look for the icon on the right side of our blog to access the Discovery Student Center. You will see a screen like this:





Enter the pass code and your name. Be sure to hit the submit button when you're done watching the movie. It will send me an Email telling me that you watched the video. Have fun and look for more videos on other topics soon!

We Know Birds...

We have learned a lot of interesting facts about birds. Watch our voicethread and you can find out some of what we know about birds...

Bird Watching...

Over the past few days we have been learning all about the birds we might see in our neighborhood. We made binoculars out of paper tubes and went for a nice long bird watching walk. We spotted a lot of birds we know and a few we didn't know. We worked with a partner. We had a pair of binoculars, a sheet for tallies, and a clipboard. We went all around the school yard looking for robins, sparrows, blue-jays, cardinals, hummingbirds, other (mystery) birds and nests. We found a lot of robins, sparrows and "mystery" birds. We didn't see any cardinals, blue-jays or hummingbirds. It was a very windy day, but we had fun!

More about Robins...

Today we returned from "Spring Break". It was so good to see everyone and know that we missed one another. We began making a book about BIRDS. Can you guess which bird we put first in our books? Yes, the robin! Many of us have spotted them all over the neighborhood. We visited a web site by a lady named Julie Corsi. It's called The Robin's Nest. Ms. Corsi had the exciting honor of having a pair of robins build their nest right below her bedroom window. She could watch each day as the robins built their nest. Even more exciting was the fact that she was able to watch, day-by-day, the growth and development of baby robins, from egg to wings! Take a few minutes to enjoy all the photos and details she provides at "The Robin's Nest". Cornell Lab of Orinthology has a recording of the "song of the robin". It's pretty cool!

For our book we used images of robins to help us get the colors and backgrounds just "right". We followed a step-by-step method for drawing. Look for our images to appear here later in the week. In the meantime, you can learn to draw a robin (or similar birds) by following the directions in the video. You can choose to draw your bird on the computer using a program like Paint, or grab a paper and markers. Either way give it a go and have fun:

Spring is Here at Last....

Tomorrow is the first day of Spring! We couldn't be more ready for it too! This has been a long, cold, ...very cold, Winter. In our area of Illinois, one of the first signs of Spring is the return of the robins. They have been away all Winter long and are coming back to build nests and start new families. We are all on the lookout for robins and other signs that Spring is here at last! If you haven't seen a robin in a while, here's a quick reminder of how they look. Their eggs are a beautiful shade of blue. The male robins have the beautiful orange chest, the females are more dull in color. What are some of the "Signs of Spring" where you live?