Kindergarten graduation

This year went by so quickly! I'm so proud of all of our kindergarten graduates.  You will all do so well in first grade! Have a wonderful summer and don't forget to stop by next year.

Friends forever in kindergarten!

Our last week of school was so much fun. We did a lot of fun projects, plus assemblies, field trips, and many goodbyes! On our second-to-last day, we wrote about the friends we had made in kindergarten. Each one chose another friend to write about. Here are some adorable pictures of the friends!

Writing to change the world

Our spring Writers Workshop unit is no small undertaking! The theme is writing to change the world, in which kindergarteners learn what it means to use writing to persuade the reader. We start by reading lots of persuasive picture books. Then we begin to observe the world around us, and discuss what changes we might make to make the world a better place. Many students start off noticing problems in our school community, including not throwing paper towels in the wastebasket and walking in the hallway. Then we move on to our town, where students have noticed littering and other community problems.

Here are some pictures of our diligent writers:

Last, we discuss a larger action that we can take as global citizens - helping protect endangered animals. This fits in perfectly with our spring science unit on animals. After learning about why an animal get classified as endangered, each kindergartener picked an animal to research.

Here are pictures of our research process:

 And our final reports:

This year many kindergarteners developed a strong interest in pandas. We read several books on pandas, including one called Panda Kindergarten, about a conservation center in China that helps raise and protect pandas.

I noticed that a lot of our kiddos were distraught over pandas losing their habitat to deforestation and development, so we discussed what actions we could take as a class besides writing letters. One girl came up with the idea of doing a fundraiser so we could donate money to the panda conservation center!

Unfortunately, after a few minutes of research, I realize that particular conservation center had been shut down due to a tsunami several years ago. So instead, we decided to adopt a panda from the World Wildlife Fund! The kindergarteners quickly started to make posters to ask other students and teachers to donate to the cause.

The money began trickling in from many generous families! It was a great opportunity to learn a little bit about money, so we worked together to count the jar as a class.

In the end, we raised over $120! This meant we could adopt TWO pandas from the World Wildlife Fund. WWF sent us two special stuffed animal pandas, plus an official certificate of adoption for our class. Thank you so much to all the families who helped us reach our goal! Here is a picture of the class with their beloved stuffed pandas:

(A little while later one of our classroom moms found panda frisbees for everyone in the class! What an awesome gift.)

Getting ready for first grade

It's hard to believe the end of the year is here already! I have been having lots of conversations with the kids to make sure they feel comfortable moving on to first grade. They are all extremely smart, creative and wonderful students who will do so well next year! But sometimes there is a lot of anxiety around what's coming up. This year we paired up with a first grade classroom, and got to visit their room as a class, including doing a few activities with the first grade teacher. We also wrote letters back and forth, with first graders explaining what to expect for their grade, and kindergartners asking questions. Here is a glimpse at what is on their minds!

Healthy eating and our school garden

We learned a lot about healthy eating this spring. We had several visits from our resident classroom farmers, who taught us about the different plant parts we eat, as well as how bees make honey. We also did two tastings, of honey and our choice of vegetables from different parts of the plant. You should see these kids gobble up their vegetables! Only a few of them end up throwing away their tasting, but I'm proud of them for trying it!

We are also very lucky this year to have a school garden that we can plant in! We got to plant tomatoes and peppers as a class, plus watermelon seeds that we can harvest next year. We read about gardens, and created our own imaginary gardens. Hopefully our plants will do well enough to survive through the fall, when this class will be first graders!