Before our break!

Here's what happened the week before our break.

On Monday, we took the children to the book fair preview at Kawaiaha'o. The children looked at the books for sale, then told the teachers which books they would love to buy. Thank you to the Shuto family for the generous donation of books to our class library. We will be reading the books soon.

The children are still wondering when Tasha will return. The children each wrote her a note, asking questions and telling her what's happening in the class. The children sounded out the words, using inventive spelling. They also drew pictures.

Ms. Jordan took the class to Wilcox to see the Kindergarten class display on non-verbal communication. Ms. Jordan wrote the children's words as they described what the photographs communicated to them.

On Tuesday, we visited the Contemporary Museum in Makiki Heights. Ms. Tagan showed us the different art displays, telling us about the artists and how they were inspired to create. After touring the museum, the children created their own tree sculture. They used their small motor muscles to twist the pipe cleaners and cut out paper leaves.

The children found the Bubba Gump dramatic play things and were inspired to create their own restaurant. JD wrote a menu, while MF put on the apron and took orders.

Wednesday brought us leprechauns! MF's mom and sister shared the art of clogging. They danced to two songs, then taught us some simple clogging moves. They also brought us shamrock-shaped cookies to help celebrate St. Patrick's Day and told us about St. Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland.

After MF's family left, the children drew pictures of leprechauns and wrote thank-you cards. The children sounded out words as they shared their thoughts on what they wanted to thank MF's family for; some children where thankful for learning a new dance, others were more interested in the green cookies!

Ms. Hitomi's class invited us to a preview of their inquiry presentation that they will be sharing with their families on Thursday. Each Kindergartner read a fact from their insect book and also shared their creative movements as they recreated the life cycle of a butterfly.

Our Golden Owls were very interested in Kindergarten. What else do they learn about besides insects? Do they use the computer? How did they learn to read? Looks like we have a new inquiry group of our own! We will be researching Kindergarten when we return from Spring Break.

Ms. Wiel, a middle school drama teacher, put on a special puppet show just for us! She had one of her 8th-grade classes write stories and create puppets out of socks. One of the stories recreated Dora the Explorer. Another story was a remake of The Princess and the Pea. A clever skit showed our children what went on "behind the scenes" as the puppet curtain was turned around so our children could watch the 8th graders as they manipulated the puppets.

On Friday, BW brought in a book about chocolate chip cookies and a special treat to share with the class. We read the book, then...surprise! Cookies for everyone! BW loved sharing with her friends. Thank you, Wong family!

The children were so inspired by yesterday's puppet show that they created their own show using stuffed animals/puppets during after-school care. The show continued during Friday's discovery time. Hopefully the children will remember the puppet show when they come back from spring break so they can make their own puppets!

Before we headed down to the Ho'olaule'a, we wrote down the children's lunch options. The children then chose what they wanted to eat. We then counted the names under each item. The children noticed which one had the most (pizza) and which one had the least (chicken skewers).
Thank you to Henry (CH), Colleen (KO), and Tracey (BM) for helping us take the children to the Ho'olaule'a. It was hard to leave the festival to come back for a nap.

Have a safe and fun Spring Break! We will only have nine weeks when we come back, and we have soooo much to do.

Please come to our Parent Night on Tuesday, April 17th. Our Kindergarten teachers will talk about Kindergarten readiness and we will share how we are preparing the children for Kindergarten.

Posted on April 2, 2007 1:30 PM | Permalink