March Highlights- Seuss, Springtime, and So Much More!

March came and went quickly and yet it's once again amazing to see how much we did together and how much each of the children grow as people and as learners each month!  A huge part of the month of March this year was a celebration of one of the most beloved children's authors of all time- Dr. Seuss.  

Seuss's birthday was March 2nd and he would've been 112 years old this year.  Although he is no longer alive, his legacy lives on in his many wonderful books that have so much to offer a Kindergarten kid!  So much learning and fun happened during a Dr. Seuss themed two weeks!  Dr. Seuss's books are a wonderful way to introduce rhyming words (even when he uses silly made up words,) imagination, creative characters and so much more. The children either fell in love or reaffirmed their love for Dr. Seuss's books throughout the month of March, and are seeking them out to read independently more and more each day!

Here are some snapshots from just a few of the activities and books we read and celebrated in the month of March:

Fox In Socks

We designed our own wacky socks to wear while walking around without shoes on all day.  Check out all of the personality and individuality that was expressed on our toes!

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

We did some sorting, graphing and adding a yummy and colorful goldfish snack! Dr. Seuss inspired math activities too.

Wacky Wednesday

A wonderful look and find book that had us looking for wacky things all day! It wasn't hard to find...check out these outfits.

There's A Wocket In My Pocket

We wrote clues about the small special things we brought in our pockets.  Our classmates guessed our items based on the clues!

Bartholomew and the Oobleck

We made OOBLECK which is a Non-Newtonian substance.  When in motion it acts as a solid, and when still it has the properties of a liquid.  This science activity gave us an opportunity to get a little messy too!

Which Pet Should I Get?

This is Dr. Seuss's newest book! On this day we got a chance to spend the day with a special stuffed animal or character.  We wrote about them, shared them with our classmates, and named them too!

Oh the Places You'll Go

We wrote about a special memory or place we visited.  This book also taught us that we are in control of the "places" we will go throughout our lives!

Hop On Pop

 Popcorn word bingo was an awesome way to review our Word Wall Words! The yummy popcorn pieces as bingo markers made it even more fun.  At the end of the day we even got to POP, POP, POP some bubble wrap!

While Dr. Seuss was a large part of the month of March, these wonderful activities were only a small part of all of the growth and learning in the month of March.  In reading, in addition to learning about rhyme, we began retelling our stories using three parts of a book, the beginning, middle and end.  Being able to summarize a just right text is an important skill for comprehension and understanding what we are reading and our readers have done an awesome job developing this skill!  I am constantly proud of their growth as readers and I know that in the next few months it will only continue.

In writing the children have absolutely blown us away! This year the kindergarten team decided to develop a more comprehensive Non Fiction Writing Unit and boy were we amazed by both the process and the final product.  The children spent time researching...yes KINDERGARTENERS RESEARCHING... Arctic Animals and learned important and interesting facts about these animals.  The children then used the information they found through their research (it continues to blow my mind!) to write what they learned into what became the pages of a non-fiction book.  Not only did they complete the amazing research and writing but they even included non fiction text features like a table of contents, a glossary, sub headings and of course gorgeous illustrations to go along with each page.  It is hard to even comprehend the unbelievable amount of hard work, organization, learning and dedication that went into the publication of these books.  As families I hope you are incredibly proud of the amazing word that they created.  To celebrate the culmination of our writing unit, we shared the published works with our 5th grade buddies.  The 5th graders were completely blown away by the information that the kids included, their level of writing and the gorgeous products that they created.  Nothing made our authors more excited than making their 5th grade buddies proud!  All in all it was a tremendously successful writing unit that the children enjoyed and we look forward to doing year after year.

St. Patrick's Day was another fabulous and fun day of activities and laughter in Room 4.  We participated in some awesome center activities that included CVC word memory, picture and word recording,  rolling and compare a pot of gold and of course my favorite- Lucky Charm math! The children came to school dressed in green and even enjoyed a yummy green bagel breakfast together.

The very best part of the day happened at the very end when the children came back from Art, only to find that our classroom had been invaded by a LEPRECHAUN! The books were a mess, he wrote on our tables, dumped our crayons, typed on our computer and even paid a visit to our bathroom!  The kids had a great laugh and even earned some "gold" he left us by helping to clean the mess up.  It's smiles and fun times like these that add to the long list of unforgettable kindergarten memories!

At the end of the month, Cantiague as a school participated in our annual Positive Post It Day.  On this day the children wrote and received positive messages on Post Its to people all around the school.  The children were encouraged to write messages to friends in our class, friends and siblings outside of our class and teachers.  They loved delivering these post its all around the school to spread kindness and positivity throughout the walls of Cantiague and beyond.  The children also wrote positive messages to themselves. It was so wonderful to see the children identify their own positive qualities and the things that they love about themselves.  All in all Post It Day was a class-wide and school-wide success!

As you can see March, was another amazing month of exploration, growth, fun, learning and LOTS and LOTS of SMILES!!!  Now that the spring has arrived, and we only have a few months left together, we appreciate every magical kindergarten day and the time that we now spend getting ready for first grade!

Peace, Love, and Kindergarten,

Miss Grossman