What's happening midweek?

Hello Families! 

Here's a mid week update because sometimes I find myself flooded with thoughts from the children and just need to get them out because I can't stop sharing all their ideas!

Today we had a great concert assembly.  A couple of musicians came with bagpipes and a didgeridoo and the children were captivated.  I put a flyer up outside our class if you want to go to their next concert, or look at the website.  I'm sure your child will be talking about this!

Lately, friends have been asking which bin their waste goes in when they are eating their snack, which has lead to many discussions.Yesterday we looked at another old Sesame Street video because the friends were interested in what happens to our cans when we put it into the recycling.  The magnet part and the liquid metal parts were especially interesting to the children.  Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKpoCzt03B8

Our journal topic was suggested by Tayler yesterday.  She suggested that we journal about what we did on the home days.  Many friends began talking about what holidays their families celebrate.  It was neat to see how interested and matter of fact the friends were.  The feeling seems to be: Yes many of us have similarities, and differences and this is natural.

Tuesday we also had our first cooking class lead by Henry's mum Stephanie.  The kids were very excited to be baking chocolate chip muffins.  Stephanie created a recipe writeup that the children can read with drawings as well as the words- Thank you Stephanie!   The friends were able to eat a mini muffin yesterday, and today they had slices of the loaf for snack.  YUM!  Here's the recipe if you want to make this as a family!

Also the friends have been creating stories using their costumes as inspiration.  There is a story going that is about a butterfly princess who has a cat princess as a pet.  The friend who has been drawing this wasn't sure how a cat's body is shaped.   Usually I offer to look on the internet for images of real cats, but here is another case where the friends are realising that they can take charge of their learning, doing their own research.  So instead of me offering a bunch of internet images, they want to capture images of their own cats.  If you do, please print them out and send them to me, or email me and I will get them ready for the children.  Then we can be looking at our own cat pets for our work!

Thank you for all your help and support!  Enjoy your week, Jennifer

Festive Muffin Tasting!

Dear Families,

How lucky we are- to be having so much fun learning, and to have such supportive families!  I have been thinking about all the exciting work that has swirled around our classroom and know that these children are full of passion for learning and sharing their ideas.  The planning and organization that lead up to the Muffin Party, the party excitement and testing on the day of and the after conversations have all been rich and fun. 

The morning of the party, right before we began, the friends spontaneously brainstormed possible next party themes.  Here are some that they thought of:
Flower Party, Banana Party, Cake Party, Cookie Party, High Heel Party, Broccoli Party, Dancing Party, Ladybug Party and Costume Party.
I find it interesting that these children were so jazzed even with all the work that went into planning the party.  They really took ownership of their fun and learning.  The children began explaining what types of things we would do at these theme parties.  As we continue this conversation, I imagine they'll have many creative game ideas and plans!

As we partied I noticed many things.  The children's games that they created really engaged them.  And the friends spent quality time at each before moving on to try other stations that they set up.  Also we really were lucky that so many family members came to help use in our work/celebrations.  I loved walking into the taste testing room to find parents holding clip boards diligently taking down observations of the children.  So cool!  Gaby's comment afterward reading many of the children's words was that the children really were critics.  I agree, it seemed like they took the science of the taste test seriously.  One parent said it seemed like they were wine connoisseurs taking a small taste and then moving on to their verdict. 

After the taste test and games we looked a bit at our findings in the revisiting meeting.  As you may guess, pudding and jelly bean were many friends' favorites!  The friends are noticing that some information can be culled from a graph, and also that some information is not shown there.  One friend explained that he had two favorites, but had to chose one because that is what was agreed to in this graphing process.  This week we will talk more about ingredients and what makes us feel we like things or dislike a flavor.  Please check out all the artifacts from this exploration on the large bulletin board outside our classroom.

Thank you so much to the families who came to take charge of game stations and tasting stations and documenting and joining in with our fun!  Let the muffin games continue!

Enjoy your evening!  Love, Jennifer

We are thinking about so many things!

Hello Families!

I have enjoyed having time to meet with you and watch your amazing children share their work.  It has been neat to see the children take on the new role of "meeting" persona and tell you all about what they have been up to.  If you still haven 't had your family's meeting, please let me know when it would work for you. 

Many of you may have heard that Isabella has moved to Phoenix, AZ.  We said goodbye to her last Friday. The friends were so loving, making many messages, and have thought about her at different times this week too.  She was a great member of our group, and she is missed.  But this has given us many chances to talk about how we deal with these feelings that come from things that life throws us.  It's all a part of life, right?

Here are two of our recent videos to check out:

Last week we watched a video about the Venus fly trap.  It was interesting.  As a teacher I like to gauge with other educators my decisions.  I asked around to see how others felt about watching an ant trapped and going to be eaten by this crazy plant.  The teachers thought it would be fine and add to the discussion level.  Since we've been creating so many stories about an ant character named Enzy, I was worried the children would identify with the ant and have feelings.  Then the kids were so interested, no one seemed traumatized by watching.  The kids' abilities always amaze me.  Here it is if you'd like to watch:
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/venus-fly-trap-owns-the-ant/48c0ebd0240ad3013f1848c0ebd0240ad3013f18-290636432534?q=venus%20fly%20trap%20video

Today we watched a video about other kinds of ants, since there has been so many more friends interested in creating more stories about ants, inspired by the Enzy character.  The children were very interested in the motivations behind the grasshopper and the ants.  Also, the nectaries and the pods feeding the babies were great because recently the stories of Enzy have been more about Enzy as a baby ant.  Interesting to see how our investigations of real life effect the creative process as budding authors.
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/animals/bugs-animals/ants-and-termites/ant_acaciatree.html

Today we also went on a mini walk to sit below a tree to investigate what tree branches and trunks look like.  It was inspired by one of the Enzy drawings and our revisiting meeting discussion where friends were giving feedback that the rectangular shape that was supposed to be a branch looked more like a boat shape.  In our afternoon journaling  time our challenge was to draw what we were really seeing, not just a fantasy drawing.  The friends began to see the value of adding detail and of taking care to make each line meaningful.  I put the journals outside our door so that you could check them out.  The friends seemed very proud of their work today.  Since a tree is such a large thing, we talked about how choosing to do only part of it allows for you to go into more detail and make it special.  It was nice to see how hard each friend was working!

The muffin party count down is in full swing.  Each afternoon when we do the calendar the friends like to notice how close we are.  We have all the baking signed up for.  I would like to ask the bakers to give us copies of your recipes, too.  This might be a great extension project to talk about what muffins we tasted and liked, and look into what ingredients made us like them so much. 

Today the friends agreed that we will have three graphs to collect the info from the taste test.  One will show our favorites, one will show our "not favorite" and one will be a collection of descriptive words about each of the eight flavors.  I am excited to find out what we learned and to talk about it.  We might have many discussions about personal preferences that come out of this!

Thank you for all your support and excitement!  Remember that Thursday is our Picture day, as well as the Muffin Party!!!  As our October Maurice Sendak Poem says, "Whoopie!".

Enjoy your day, Jennifer

Muffin Party Preparations Are Coming Along...

Hello Families!

This week was a fun one, as usual, and we are getting ready for the exciting Muffin Party.  We have four committees that are working on different elements of the party.  Here are the groups:

The sign committee met to begin the two signs the children want up.  They would like these signs to say, "Welcome to the Muffin Party!"  It is one thing to be getting good at writing, it is another thing to be able to write big on a sign!  These children were able to do this!  And the group also had a great discussion to work out the design on of the signs, deciding which decorative elements to use and where to put them for the best effect, and to keep readability.

The Sign-up Committee met and created the sign ups for the taste test portion of the party.  This was so neat because each of the friends' budding inventive spelling skills were shining!  The friends are beginning to be able to identify which letter connects to which sound, and then to draw the shape of these symbols in a way that we can easily read it.  This group's meeting was an excited and productive time. I was pleasantly surprised to see how fast the children whipped out their great sign up!  Here it is!

So far many families have signed up, but we do have three more flavors that need to be baked: carrot, blueberry and pudding.  The friends will be doing a taste test with this, so if you make 6-12regular sized muffins, that should be enough.  They had originally had 13 different flavours they wanted to taste, but we realized that might be a lot!  The friends decided to hone this down to 8 flavours and we used a voting graph to help us deduce which ones we are most interested in tasting at this time. 

The games are also almost ready.  We did a practice run of "Bear, Bear, where's your muffin?" on Friday in the fort that Gaby and I made to spice up our afternoon.  It was a big hit, as was the game, which went smoothly!  I hope you are enjoying your weekend!  More soon, Jennifer

Take Me Out To The Muffin Game!

You may have heard the buzz about the MUFFIN PARTY! (I put it in caps because it's too exciting!) The children thought up this fun idea and are planning every element of this exciting event, down to the sign ups for parents. They will be asking for volunteers to bake (for the taste testing part), to help by manning some party game stations (they made up their own games and next week plan to create the actual pieces of these games) and to bring other things that they think are important for a party.  Signs ups will go out next week!

It has been fun hearing what is important to the children when planning a party. We have already penned a song for the occasion (see below!) and made many of the party decorations. It is going to be a very festive occasion, with lots of learning to be had in the planning process. We'll keep you posted!

Below you will find the words to the song if you want to get into the spirit.  The title is as yet undecided.  We brainstormed possibilities and will talk next week after thinking a bit about it.
Possible titles include are:
Muffin Party
Let's Go To The Muffin Party
I  Like Muffins
Muffin Baking
Put The Muffin In The Oven
Muffin In The Oven

Here are the words they wrote (Sung to the tune of Take Me Out To The Ball Game)

Take me out to the muffin game

Take me out to the bakery.

Make it yummy and sweet, sweet, sweet.

Grape muffins, blue berry muffins,

We make the batter,

And Put it in the oven

And then we take it out.

And it’s 1, 2, 3

Bites and then it’s gone

At the old muffin party!

I hope you are enjoying your weekend!  Love, Jennifer

Come to Family Night Tomorrow Night!

Hello Families!

Thursday night, October 14th is our next Family night.  Please come for a taco dinner and some fun math activities in each room.

Our class has been very into the pattern blocks and cuisenaire rods.  They are such interesting materials to use.  These tools are made so that you are encountering a lot of truths about shape, size, proportion, and dimension.  And the children have been moving from working with them on the table in a flat way to creating more three dimensional, vertical pieces.

Here are some questions to that our children are thinking about and commenting on when they work:
How many blocks did I use?
How many of each shape did I use?
What shapes could you exchange and still make the same large shape?
What are the relationships between shapes?

Here are some examples of our latest work!

What do you think about when you look at these?

I can't wait to see you all tomorrow night.  Enjoy your evening, Jennifer

Where am I?

Hello Kindergarten Families!

I wanted to give you an update. Today I was out, and will be tomorrow, too.  Gaby did a fabulous job with the kids!  She is so great.  And the kids were great about remembering routines and knowing what to do in the life of our classroom. 

I am having to cancel my conferences for tomorrow, unfortunately.  If you have one set for tomorrrow, please check in with me to reschedule. 

Last week I was reareneded on the way to work, and my neck and back pain have gotten worse.  Now I'm on some major meds to relax the muscles, and the doctors are telling me to rest.  And to top it off, yesterday, I was doing some sun therapy on my balcony (I've read that it helps to get some sun when you aren't well, to stimulate the immune system) and I got stung by a bee.  It's fun!  My arm is rather big and so I'm on some medicine for that annoying pain, too.

Sorry to bore you with my bizzare weekend and last few days.  And I'm so sorry to inconvenience you and your busy schedules.  I love conference time because it's time to talk about all the great things your children are up to.  I can't wait to be better to get to this!  Have a nice day!  Love, Jennifer