WE DID IT!! The kids of "Kindergarten Tales" have anxiously awaited the day we would hit 50,000 visitors. I will say, I had my doubts that we would make it before the school year was over. The kids were promised a "GAME DAY" at school if we made it. Looks like Monday will be Game Day for us. Thanks to all our visitors for you interest in what we do in Kindergarten. We hope you haven't been disappointed. We hope you will continue to visit us here! THANKS!!!
We learned about the octopus a few weeks ago. Today, Mrs. Blakely surprised us by bringing three of them to school. They were not alive but they were REAL! There were two babies and one REALLY BIG one. We were all thrilled, and a little scared. We paired up with a friend and took turns looking at, touching and holding the octopus! Mrs. Varava came in to take pictures for us. You can see the excitement on all of our faces:
Thanks to Mrs. Varava for taking all these wonderful photos!
fish that live deep in the bottom of the sea can sometimes light up
clown fish live in sea anemones
most fish have a skeleton or backbone
lung fish can breathe out of the water
swordfish have a nose that looks like a sword
fish must live in water
Mom sea horse give the eggs to dad to hold onto
some fish have weapons
some fish make nests
some fish hold their eggs in their mouths
some fish eat other fish
if a fish has sharp teeth then you know they eat other fish
sharks have rows and rows of teeth
the biggest fish of all is the whale shark
the archer fish can spit water to catch his food
salmon can go in salt water or fresh water
you can get a cut from shark skin
some fish go to cleaning stations
big fish let little go in their mouths to clean their teeth
some fish live in fresh water and some live in salt water
sharks are fish
some fish use camouflage
some fish are blind
if sharks and rays stop moving they will sink
We know LOTS more about fish. Take a look at the pictures we made of fish using the Paint program. We drew the fish and labeled the parts....gills, eye, mouth, fin, & tail.
We have been learning about all sorts of interesting sea animals. We learned about hermit crabs. We know they live in shells and as they grow, they will move out of one shell and into another. A few days ago, Jake (a former Kindergartner, now in 5th grade) shared his pet hermit crab with us. He showed us what it eats and the tank he brought it to school in. His crab's shell is painted to look like Lisa on the T.V. show "The Simpson's". We thought that was pretty funny. We recently read the book A HOUSE FOR HERMIT CRAB by Eric Carle so having a real hermit crab visit us was a treat! Jake passed it around and many of the kids were brave enough to hold it. Others chose to just look. Either way, it was neat to see it up close! Thanks Jake for sharing!
On May 6th, we had our Spring Sing. We got to go on the stage at Bartlett High School to perform for our families and friends. We were both nervous and excited! Miss Byker taught us songs to sing. We did a GREAT job!
Recently, one of our classmates asked if we were Chicago Cubs or Sox fans. We thought this was something worth graphing. Each child signed a "baseball" and placed it on either the Cubs or Sox side. There were some who didn't have a preference at all, they added their names to a separate graph. Take a look at the results for yourself:
Today we celebrated Earth Day. We watched the video THE LORAX and talked more about doing our part to help reduce the amount of waste we add to our Earth. After our recent visit from SCARCE; we started wondering what changes we could make in our lifestyles to help the Planet. One thing we decided was to start recycling dead batteries. We sent a note home letting our families know about our decision. The response was overwhelming! We got a LOT of batteries. Grace brought in two very large bags of them. The PM class worked hard to count them all. We had 248 AA batteries alone. In all we had more than 425 batteries in less than one week! That's AMAZING! We are hoping to inspire others in our school to bring them to us as well. We will give them to a local fire department to dispose of properly for us. This will keep them out of the landfills and ultimately help the planet! If we can do this...so can you! Won't you join us in our efforts. Remember, together we can do so much!
As we get closer to EARTH DAY (April 22, 2009) We are learning about all kinds of ways that we can take small steps and have a BIG impact on the environment. Recently, our P.T.O. sponsored a visit from SCARCE, an organization dedicated to educating us on the values of Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling. Miss Linda shared with us so many interesting facts about the amount of waste there is in communities all across America. We were fascinated by some of the information she shared. We learned it's important to REDUCE the amount of waste we create. One way to REDUCE is to find ways to REUSE old things. Other ways include RECYCLING some of our old things. She showed us that clothing can be made from plastic bottles and corn! AMAZING!! We learned that Nike has a special program where you can drop off old gym shoes and they are making playground surfaces, playground equipment and new shoes from the old gym shoes. Their program is called REUSE A SHOE. You might consider gathering and donating old shoes from kids at your school. We are planning to do it too. Miss Linda really got us inspired and thinking about ways to Reduce, Reuse & Recycle. How about you? What can you do? Maybe our video will spark some thoughts:
Today we got a wonderful surprise from the folks at our local Lowe's Store. Josh Janovsky, the General Manager at the Lowe's in Bloomingdale, IL donated reusable shopping bags to our Kindergarten classes! We were so excited!
We are learning there are many things we can do to help the environment. One thing we can do is carry reusable bags when we shop. In doing a little research on plastic & paper bags vs. reusable we thought you might be interested to know:
A plastic bag takes about 450 years to biodegrade (That's just ONE bag! How many does your family use in a year?)
To make paper bags creates 70% more pollution than it does to make plastic bags.
Reusable bags save water. (The recipe for paper bags uses 1 part pulp and 400 parts water...WOW!! That's a LOT of water!)
Reusable bags saves sea animals (Plastic bags often end up in the oceans & lakes and many sea creatures mistake the plastic for food)
According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic bags a year. It takes about 12 million barrels of oil to make that many plastic bags.
You can find many more reasons to go with Reusables over plastic & paper bags at ReuseThisBag.com.
We hope you will consider the option of the Reusable Bags when you shop at Lowe's or any other store you choose to do your shopping. Thanks again to the folks at Lowe's for their generous donation! Thanks to Annette's parents for helping make this happen for us!
Every now and then there are no classes scheduled to use the gym. Sometimes Mrs. Blakely will take us to the gym for extra workouts. One day we got to play with the gym balls. We tried bouncing, catching and throwing them. We even had fun doing fancy tricks with the balls. We got to pass the ball from one teammate to the other. First we passed the ball over our heads, then we passed it forward between our legs. It was fun! We ended our gym time with relays. Ella proved once again that she was the fastest runner in the AM class and Alex took the honors in the PM class. Take a look at what fun we had. Be sure to note how well Trinity can handle the ball! Fancy ball handling Trinity!!
We were featured:
