April Poetry

April is poetry month.  Our class is reading and writing poetry this week.  We created this poem together this morning.  We hope you enjoy it!

Spring

S unny and warm

P lants are budding.

R oses bloom.

I  am playing in the mud.

N ow it's time to cut grass.

G reen grass growing. 

Signs of Spring that students brought in today:

tadpoles, worms, branches budding, leaves from plants & chives.

Spring at RES

Our class had a great time looking for signs of spring at RES.  We began our on site spring discovery by looking at and discussing different bird feathers and bird calls.  Then Audubon naturalists guided us through the trails and woods behind our school.  We found many signs of spring including a few snails, lots of mud, small plants growing and buds on bushes.  We even heard a bird call or two, which we were able to identify.  Our on site field trip was funded through a Four Winds professional development project that all three RES kindergarten teachers are taking part in.  In addition, students in our class were able to take pictures of signs of spring using s camera purchased with funds raised from Donorschoose.org and a gift certificate from Horace Mann.  Students enjoyed using the camera to record their spring observations.  We plan to use some of these photographs during writing and science time next week. 

Shape Mural

As part of our Shape unit in math students created a beautiful Shape Mural.  Using many of the shapes we are learning about students built a Spring scene complete with grass, birds, trampolines, bikes, playground equipment, ponds, a basketball court and much more.

Tapping Maple Trees

Spring must be right around the corner!  We were outside tapping maple trees today.  Doug Brown and Autumn from Slopeside Syrup came into our classroom.  They explained about tapping trees, collecting sap, and boiling sap into maple syrup.  Students loved going outside to tap three trees.  Kindergarten students drilled holes, hammered taps in and hung buckets and lids.  They even took pictures of the process.  What a fun experience!  Now when the weather finally warms up we are ready to collect sap for Slopeside to boil down into syrup for our school.  (We are so excited about sugaring that we are making pancakes and having pancakes with maple syrup in class this week.)

First Graders Share Informational Writing

Friday morning first grade students from Mrs. Hackett's class came in to share their informational writing.  Each first grader wrote a book that included a table of contents, glossary and all about the author section.  The books were designed to teach us something.  The books focused on a wide variety of topics from math to animals.  We were very impressed with the writing and illustrations.  Mrs. Hackett's class did a great job!  We were thrilled that they shared their writing with us.  We might try writing our own informational books.

Farm/School Correspondence

Kindergarten classes are corresponding with local Vermont farmers.  The Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) connects classes with local farmers.  Our classroom corresponds with Mary and Onan Whitcomb in Williston.  They have a large farm with about 350 dairy cows.  We have written a few letters back and forth at this point.  Our class is very interested in the way Mary and Onan milk their cows.  Their fist letter to us mentioned that they had robots milking their cows.  As you might imagine kindergarten scholars were fascinated by the idea of robots milking cows and wondered what that might look like.  We all wrote back to our farmer friends asking many questions about their farm and especially about their robots.  We asked if the robots had names, how they were made, how the robots knew when the cows wanted to be milked, etc.  We even drew pictures of what we thought a robot milking a cow might look like.  Mary and Onan were nice enough to write back and answer all of our questions.  They even sent pictures of the robots milking the cows.  We are excited to continue writing to our farmer friends and learn more about them, their robots, and their farm.  We hope to visit their farm in the spring.

Second Grade Visit

Second graders from Mrs. Riggs' class came to visit with us on Thursday morning.  They had been working with Mrs. Rankin, Enrichment teacher, for two months on a very special project.  Each second grade student wrote and illustrated a book for a kindergarten student.  In addition, second graders created reading fabric buddies for kindergartners.  What thoughtful gifts!  We are so lucky to be part of such a caring school community.