The last day of kindergarten is a happy and sad day wrapped all into one! We are all so happy that we have successfully completed our first year in school and are heading to first grade. We are also sad to see our friend leave that we have spent the past year learning and playing together. Mr. Lahr stopped by to hand out perfect attendance and outstanding attendance awards! We spent our last day together playing, packing up all our belongings, going to media and computer, and finished our day reading the story, Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the Last Day of Kindergarten by Joseph Slate. All the students left with a penny and a kiss (chocolate): a penny for success to come and a kiss that they'll be missed. This truly was a memorable year! I enjoyed teaching each and every student in both the AM and PM kindergarten classes. I made 44 wonderful new friends this year. Each one of them will be remembered as they move on to first grade. I thank all the parents for supporting your child at home. I wish them all the best of luck next year in first grade!
We met for a short time on the BIG playground with our 4th grade buddies. The kindergartners were so excited to play on the playground that they will get to play on next year. We wish our buddies the best of luck as they move to the middle school! Kindergartners also brought their animal collages home today. We read the story Oodles of Animals by Lois Ehlert and the students created their own animal picture.
We spent some time outside today with Mrs. Wokasch's class. We played with chalk, paintbrushes and water, jump ropes, monster feet, bubbles, and of course, the playground. Despite the heat and moving many of our activities to the shade we had a good day! We cooled off with a popsicle for snack!
Today we practiced being first graders. Since the real first graders were on a field trip to the Children's Theater, we were able to go to a first grade room and explore. We spent part of our day in Mrs. Ludwig's first grade classroom looking at the similarities and differences between kindergarten and first grade. They enjoyed taking a peek into a first graders desk and looking at all the contents. We read a few first grade stories and wrote a list of all the things we found in a first grade classroom. After coming back to our classroom, the AM class was introduced to Function Machines. They will become very familiar with Function Machines in first grade math. The PM class had a special guest visitor, Betsy Elsen (Grace's oldest sister) who came to talk a little bit about her cancer and treatment she is receiving. She showed us a picture she took with Grace and the poster we sent her earlier in the year. Below is a picture of Betsy and the class. Our best wishes to Betsy for a healthy summer ahead!
On Thursday, students had the opportunity to pet and hold our new baby chicks. We looked at the egg tooth at the tip of their beak as well as the tiny feathers starting to grow on their wings. Today, we say goodbye to our chick friends as they will leave after school to go live on Mrs. Workman's farm.
Please check out the Elementary School Blog for a wonderful video of the kindergartners performing their Bunny Ears songs during music class. Scroll down on the elementary blog until you see our class listed. There is a separate video for AM and PM. http://delanoelementary.posterous.com/
I walked in this morning to see 4 more baby chicks that hatched over night waiting for me in the incubator. That gives us a total of 7 cute, fluffy, baby chicks! We just observed them from their warm box today. Tomorrow we'll get the chance to pet and observe the chicks some more, so look for more chick photos tomorrow!
This morning I walked into the classroom to be greeted by a "Peep, Peep, Peep". Our first chick hatched early this morning. Later in the morning at about 10:30, the AM kindergartners we able to witness our second chick hatching. After much excitement watching little pecks and cracks the school day ended with only two chicks being hatched. After school at about 4:30 I welcomed our third baby chick. Who knows what tonight and tomorrow will bring! It will definitely be an exciting few days in kindergarten!
The Delano Public Librarian came to DES today to tell students about the Summer Reading Program and all the activities that will be occurring over the summer at the Public Library in Delano. A green (AM) or yellow (PM) paper should be coming home with your child that lists all of these events. This is a wonderful program that is free of cost, so please take advantage and visit the Public Library over the summer!
We couldn't have asked for a better day to visit the Children's Museum and Como Zoo. Even the animals at the zoo seemed happy to see the sunshine! Some of the favorites at the Children's Museum were the Lego Castle Adventure, Earth World, the work zone, and face painting. The kindergartners were encouraged to do their own face painting! At the zoo we saw some very active orangutans and polar bears, and some very sleepy gorillas, lions, and tiger. There was a baby orangutan and tamarin too! Thank you to all our moms and dads who joined us for this wonderful field trip!
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