On Friday, our 6th grade buddies came downstairs and we wrote poems about colors (with some inspiration from taking a walk outside.) Here they are for you to enjoy!

There was a poem format the children had to follow, shown below:

line #1: Name of Color
line #2: Three things that are that color
line #3: Something you can do with that color
line #4: Something that color makes you think of
line #5: Name of Color

Enjoy!

Green
Grass, Leaves, Plant stems
Playing outside
Spring
Green
by Daniel and Olivia F.

Blue
Eggs, Shirt, Shoes
Swimming in the ocean
Toys
Blue
by Luke and Jonathan

PINK!
A pig is pink, the stripes on Mimi’s shirt, and a flower is pink;
You can make pink lemonade,
A big, juicy strawberry makes me think of
PINK!
By Mimi, Taylor and Arthur

Purple
Markers, Jackets, Flowers
Purple Frosting
Purple shirts
Purple
By Trinity, Jackie and Eliza

Mystical White
Flowers, Snow, Vanilla ice cream
make a snow man
Makes me think of clouds
Mystical White
By Heather, Julia and Maddie

Ocean Green
Joe’s zipper, leaves, Venus fly trap,
Paint with green paint,
Grass makes me think of grass
Ocean Green
By Joseph, Lauren, Michael and Colin

Yellowish Green
Leaves, Flowers, and pine needles
Eat lemon-lime popsicles
Makes me think of Spring
Yellowish Green
By Claire, Grace and Vicky

Honey Yellow
Dandilions, Pine needles, Hornets
We eat honey
It makes us think of Yellow bugs
Honey Yellow
By Jacob, Cameron and Nicki

Red Clay
Chocolate ice cream, mud, hair
Eating ice cream cones
Brown seaglass
Red Clay
By Jolene and Simone

Yellow
Sun, Sunflowers, dandilions
Yellow birthday cake
Reminds me of stars.
Yellow
By Ariana and Lauren

Foamy Green
Grass, leaf, and a clover.
Swim in the pool.
The water.
Foamy Green
By Leeann and Cadence

Soil Brown
Tree branch, dirt, chocolate
Playing with my dog,
Digging in the garden
Chocolate Brown
By Collette and Colleen

As a friend of mine put it on Facebook on Sunday night, “I’m actually glad to go back to school tomorrow and get back into a normal routine. I miss my kids!” I’m sure like me, for you last week’s events at the Boston Marathon were unnerving, stressful and caused some sleepless nights.

Getting back to school on Monday was tough (the alarm clock wake up aside) since we were coming with heavy hearts. Though there was a bit of chatter among our young friends about the “bombs,” most happily skipped in wanting to share about their travels and greet friends. I redirected conversation and we were right back into our happy kindergarten bubble.

This week we finished up things and started some new ones. We worked on writing pieces based on Hans Christian Anderson’s The Ugly Duckling. (The children did absolutely beautiful artwork – I’ll post when complete!) We also began a review of lowercase letter formation. I am hoping with this “review” we will start to see more use of lowercase in our writing. We also did simple fine motor exercises to increase our strength in our fingers. Fine motor control is a great skill to work on at home through fun things like play dough, beading, building with little legos, cutting with scissors, etc.)

In Math we finished up Unit 6, which meant a project! We took a couple of days to learn about maps and make maps of our classroom. The at home project is due tomorrow and we are looking forward to sharing each child’s map tomorrow.

We also did more community building this week as we have less than 40 days left together! (Where did the year go??) We did a couple of new Morning Meeting greetings to freshen up the start of the day. We also learned a new tag game called Partner Tag out at recess. And of course, there’s lots of singing new songs and old songs together…

We will see our 6th grade buddies tomorrow and finish up April by doing an outside poetry project. Sounds like a good Friday afternoon to me!

It feels like I haven’t blogged in forever! I apologize for falling behind, but for the last three weeks I have been working on the Johnson School Yearbook for what seems like every free moment I have. However, it goes to the printer tomorrow (Woo Hoo!) and I can get my life back. Though it has been a bit of work, I have very much enjoyed getting to know our 6th grade students better and helping to create a beautiful book they will hopefully love in years to come. (By the way, this is just between us, but there may be quite a few kindergarten photos in there as well!)

I want to mention that this year’s Teddy Bear Float parade did not disappoint, and everyone’s floats were great. Thanks to all the parents who turned out to cheer us on and came out see the parade. I am always amazed at how different each float is and what original ideas are used.

What fun we had on Wednesday night at our Kindergarten Family Math Night at school! I was happy to such an great turn out. All the children and special guests engaged in math and having a blast! While doing a special event like this does require extra work, I feel rewarded by all the smiles and excitement. I love meeting all the families and seeing how proud the children are to share their learning with all of you. Thanks to our room parents for providing the special snacks. 🙂

Last week was a busy week in Kindergarten. We have been working on sight words and continued our independent center work. I am very happy to see the progress I am seeing in the children’s reading skills. They are recognizing more and more sight words and using all the word work skills we have learned to be “word solvers.” However, sometimes at this time in the year, I begin to see children doing more “hurry scurry” work than taking their time to do their best work. It would help at home to reinforce proper handwriting grips, and taking time to try to practice best penmanship.  While this generation of children will probably doing their college courses from their dorm rooms on their IPADs, handwriting is still an important skill. It is especially important for young children who are still need to work on their small motor skills! Penmanship may not be a Common Core standard, but it is a Massachusetts standard. Take a look at this article in the Salem News over the weekend: Handwriting at Risk in Schools 

Here are some ways to practice fine motor skills and have fun too:

– catch/ throw/ bat/ bounce/ balls

– cutting out with scissors

– duplo/ lego, pull apart etc

– craft/ drawing , stickers, stamping, stencils, tracing, glue stick activities

– cooking activities/ opening containers, stirring, pouring into bowl, cracking eggs.

– make believe- washing up, pushing dolls pram, work bench

– hammering/  screw driver

– lacing cards/ threading beads

– undoing/ doing up fasteners, zippers, lids, buttons, press studs, clips on dress ups, hand bags etc.

– balloon games, hitting and catching with two hands

– ‘bubbles’

– washing car (or anything around the yard!)

– sand pit games, bucket and shovel etc.

Speaking of fine motor, we are having another workshop in paper weaving tomorrow, which is another great strengthening activity.

Ms. Purdin 🙂