Earth Day & Music Concert

Earth Day Learning
Taking care of our planet was a huge focus for the class last Tuesday, but it's something we should do every day out of the year. At Jeffers Pond, we have plenty of resources and ways that we can help improve the Earth. For example, our trash sorting: paper, organics, plastics, and trash. I grew up as a kid recycling at home, but seeing it utilized at school is simply awesome! Throughout the year, my students and I have reused garbage that we would normally throw away, such as using cardboard boxes to make our leprechaun traps, using plastic bowls to sort money, and planting our seeds in milk cartons. I had the kids stretch their creative thinking skills during our morning meeting one day. I put a selection of different trash items in the middle of the carpet. One at a time, each student got to pick one item and say, "This isn't trash, this can be a _____." They had to think of one way they could re-use it. It was difficult at first, but eventually they started to stretch their thinking. For example, one student picked up the powl and said, "This isn't trash, this can be a hat."

Another Earth Day-centered activity that we did is pick up litter outside with our third grade buddies. We didn't find a whole lot of garbage, which shows that we here at Jeffers Pond work hard to keep our school clean and green! Kudos to us.

I showed the class Google Earth and we explored what our planet looks like from outer space. Then we explored where Minnesota is on the map and got to see Prior Lake from a different perspective. The students loved it!

We wrote a poem about our planet to add to our Poetry Book.

Beyond Earth Day things, we did another poem where the class got to choose the topic. Easter was on a lot of their minds since we wrote this on Monday so we went with a bunny poem.

What I've really loved about poetry writing with my kindergarteners is that it's not formal writing with complete sentences. It's fun to see how each of them think and how it looks on paper. Poetry writing is more opened minded in the sense that kids are not restricted to write on lines or use ending marks. Students aren't worried about how their poem looks because it's a form of art: it has the freedom of expression. We put all of the poems that we wrote over the last 2 weeks into a journal  and shared our poems with one another. Sharing and reading our writings with others is EQUALLY as important as writing the poem. Encourage your child to share their work with you as much as possible!

K-1 Music Concert
The students did such an AMAZING job on Friday at the concert. We had a huge turn out of families and it was nice to see all of you there. Our class looked adorable and I am still singing their catchy songs!

April showers bring May flowers...
Rain seems to be on the forecast over the next few days, so we've been doing a lot of April Shower activities. One day, I read Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (one of my favorite children's books) and had students write down what they would wish for if it could rain anything!!! Their answers were pretty creative and entertaining.

I wish it would pets because everyone can be happy.

I wish it would rain cake and ice cream because we need food to make us happy.

I wish it would rain Legos and Ninjago because I can build a castle.

I wish it would rain M&Ms because chocolate is yummy.

I wish it would rain homes because everyone can live in them.