We Love David Shannon's Books!

Our class just did an author study on David Shannon. We read all his books and did fun things to go along with them. He is a really funny guy. We voted and the children like his "No, David" books best. We made "No, David" pictures for the hall. We also made a poster and graphed our votes for the hall. David Shannon also has two fun pirate books ("How I Became A Pirate" and "Pirates Don't Change Diapers"). They also enjoyed these. We made treasure maps to go along with these two books. I kept a big bag of David Shannon books on the floor for free reading for the last two weeks. They all chose from the Big Bag of Books instead of the book shelf. I love seeing them do this. It really shows their enthusiasm toward reading. That is the real treasure.

Welcome Grandparents and Grandfriends!

We hosted our annual Grandparents and Grand friends Day at our school. It was so much fun for both the children and our guest. We first watched a play put on by our 5Th grade class. After our guest watched the play the came back to our rooms for some fun and snacks. In our room we set up the children's favorite learning centers. The Grandparents and Grand friends got to experience the centers first hand with their grandchildren. The children were excited to show off their games and talents. The Grandparents/Grand friends were excited to try them themselves and see how excited the children were about learning. Many commented on how "fun" learning can be when done with centers. I was really surprised to see how many of our guest stayed all the way to the end of the day. What a great way to bring generations together.

"Our Very Best Kindergarten Talents" By Mrs. Freeman's Kindergarten Class!

Our class has been working very hard this month. We decided to write a classroom book and have it published. WOW was this a lot of work. The children did amazing. They made their own title and made illustrations. While working our ideas into our writing the students decided that sloppy copies are important to get their ideas down. We had to rewrite our pages several times to get it neat enough to write on the final paper. This is exhausting but we did survive this ordeal. The students were so proud of themselves when they got the final draft done. We have a special mom in the room who is an amazing artist who helped integrate our illustrations on our pages. She also put a secret twist on the book that the students won't see till it come back from publishing. Last, the book had to be put in order and sent out for publishing. The students decided it is really hard to be an author but would love to do it again. What a wonderful experience we have shared together. So move over Eric Carle our Kindergartners are authors now!

"If You Give A Mom A Muffin" for Mother's Day

We did an author study on Laura Numeroff's books in the beginning of this month. After reading all the books I wrote "If you Give a Mom A Muffin" on chart paper. I then placed it on the board for the students to read. I asked them to brainstorm some ideas for us to make our own story. We made a story map and the children had me list lots of detail options on the paper. After this they decided which details would connect with each other to come back around in our story. Just like our author Laura Numeroff does in her stories. I was amazed at how well they connected the details. In the end we wrote our own story "If You Give A Mom A Muffin" for our moms for Mother's Day. On Mother's Day we decorated our room in pink (a mom color) and performed for our moms. We sang them a song and presented them with awards (the children got to make them up themselves). We then read our new story for our moms. Last, we had muffins with our moms for Mother's Day. Our children and moms loved their time together. What a great day!