Good News!!!

We received official word today from the Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence about their visit to our school last week. We have received the highest award!!! We are a Blue Ribbon Lighthouse School! This award is very prestigious and we are very proud! Everyone is a part of this award - the faculty and staff, the students, the parents, and the community. Thanks so much for your support and be sure to share our exciting news with everyone!

Remodeled Room

We are so proud of our newly remodeled room. It has been a work in progress for the past month, but we have now declared it a finished product for the rest of the school year. The children are enjoying the new Book Nook and the new arrangement of tables. I like it better because we have more space without the loft and all of the children are closer to the interwrite board. Along with the new look of the room, the rest of the school has been updated. We have more displays in the hallways, the courtyard is beautiful, and we are enjoying the new Science room. I  have been at Walnut Grove for 35 years and I can honestly say that this is the most "alive" and "kid-friendly" that our school has ever looked. We already had a great instructional program, but we needed to make the effort to do a lot changes to the culture and environment of our school to make it the best school in the world! We have been successful in doing that and I hope you enjoy the pictures!

We Love to Read

Last week was an exciting week in our classroom. We kicked off the All-Star Reading Incentive Program and the new furniture for our reading nook arrived. Five of our classmates met the goal of reading 20 books and received their t-shirts! Congratulations to Skyler, Madilyn, Isabella, Allie, and Savana! The couch, chairs, and table for our reading area make reading so much more fun and comfortable. After the children at that station had been seated for about a minute, they had their feet up on the table getting very comfortable! Where had they seen that before?!?!

Happy Easter!

I've just returned from the early worship service at my church on this beautiful Easter Sunday morning. As we celebrated the sacrifice our Heavenly Father made for us through His death and ressurection, I was reminded of another true story from the Kindergarten past. On the Monday after Easter a few years back, we were busily working when I overheard two little girls talking about going to church the day before. One said she heard at church about Jesus dying on a cross and then coming back to life. Without hesitation the other one replied, "Yes, He does it every year." Oh, don't you just love Kindergarten Kuties?!?! Happy Easter!

Outdoor Music Lab

With the warm weather this past week the children really enjoyed having music class in the outdoor lab. The only problem was the kids weren't the only ones enjoying the warmth, the red wasp were also! Nothing makes kindergartners duck, dive, and squeal like a wasp! Hope you enjoy seeing your favorite kinderkutie making music!

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

We celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday last week. We read several of his books, worked on the Seussville website at computer lab, and watched videos of the Cat and the Hat and Horton Hears a Who. The final fun project was to make a Cat Hat on Friday. About the time that I got out all of the ingredients, the alarm for the tornado warning went off. Needless to say after all of the excitement of sitting out the storms in the hallway and then in the bathroom and early dismissal, we had to make the hats today. The kids still enjoyed making and eating the hats even though the actual birthdate was over. Earlier in the week, I told them we would be making something to eat on Friday. They all guessed that we would make green eggs and ham. I think they were relieved that they were not eating green eggs and really like the hats made of cookies, gummie candy and icing!

Our Busy Week

 

This has been a very busy four-day week for us. We have learned about Antarctica in reading, taken our second comprehension exam using clickers, worked on joining sets in math, used our newest technology, the Elmo (document camera) during phonics time, learned about dinosaurs in unit study, had a tornado drill, had a fire drill, enjoyed using the new interactive learning games on the interwrite board and too many other things to mention! Wow, it's a busy job working and learning in Kindergarten! And the best part - it is so much FUN!