Temporarily closed until further notice...

Dear Families:
I have appreciated your support and enjoyed posting the absolutely adorable activities and moments in kindergarten that make one's heart sing...
With the times as they are I am not going to be posting to our web page until a policy/site is more firmly in place from which to post.
Have a nice day...and live your life like a kindergartner...with joy and innocence!
Sincerely, Carol Engels

OOOPs!

OOOPs apparently TUESDAY is Pinwheels for peace day in honor of  International Peace Day not Friday like I wrote in my Friday News! Sorry...it's an NBD I hope! Have a nice weekend!

for more info go to  http://www.pinwheelsforpeace.com/pinwheelsforpeace/home.html

Summer Reading Party and new Reading Challenge

The R. C. Buckley Elementary school celebrated the culmination of the summer reading program with rewards and an ice cream party...at the party they were given another challenge...to read 2 million minutes by June!
If the school reads 2 million minutes there will be a June carnival where kids will be given an opportunity to "dunk" a teacher or the principal in a dunking booth and various other carnival games- but I believe the dunking is the highlight!
On your mark...get set...start reading!

Kindergarten celebrates Constitution Day!

The Kindergarten classes at R.C.Buckley  made their own "Play Ground Constitution" today. We celebrated constitution day by gathering in the cafeteria to create our own rules, laws and ultimately promises for the playground.  It was adorable to see the children raise their right hands and "promise" to follow the rules! They will be posted at the Open House on Wednesday. Hopefully it works! :-)

Constitution day is Friday and Ice Cream reading party!

Yes, I sent home a note telling about the events this week but realized after the fact that they changed "ice cream Friday" due to the reading celebration. Ice cream Friday will now be Thursday this week. We don't want to miss out on ice cream :-)

Constitution Day will be a little celebration that we hope to tie into the development of our own classroom "rules" and laws to live by in kindergarten. Please dress your child in red, white and blue or any patriotic color you might have. Thanks!

Welcome to a brand new blog for a brand NEW year!

Yes, we have started the year off with a bang and are excited to have a bucket filling year! We have used "Courtesy Kids" in the past and the heart chart and the Courtesy kid graph but this year we added an important new book to our classroom. Have You Filled a Bucket Today, written by Carol McCloud and Illustrated by David Messing, is an important new book in our class. The Second Steps program uses harts in a jar but we will be using the "heart chart' or courtesy kid graph to catch kids doing acts of kindness and following directions. It's contagious!

Because of the nature of the blog I will update and post events in the classroom as well as pictures of the class as I am able. Children whose parents have signed releases will be included. I never use children's names on the blog and it will all be exciting, tasteful and FUNNY kindergarten material! Yes out of the mouths of babes...and it will be here...it's not quite the same in the re-telling but still very funny things that kindergarten children say :-) so stay tuned!

Yes...I did ask for pantyhose!

Yes...if your child came home today asking if they could have your pantyhose...they are telling you the truth!

Today in class I explained that my families alpaca farm is sending fiber from our alpacas to help in the gulf oil spill. I figured as long as I am sending fiber I might was well send pantyhose too! This is where you come in...we need help collecting panthose:-) The overall response was..."yeah, my Grandma wears them"! Nice :-) Out of the mnoths of Babes!

We watched a video of how the "Booms" of hair are absorbing the oil. It is incredible. Our class made signs and placed donation boxes at the entrance to school and to our classroom. Unfortunately the copied note didn't make it in the backpacks before dismissal.

We will be collecting them and putting them in the boxes of fiber we are sending to the gulf so that the volunteers can continue to make the "booms"to contain and collect the oil.

Thank you! We will keep you posted.

WOW...look at our frog now!

When I came into school on Sunday afternoon (my daughter was having a Regents Review session at the HS from 4-6!) I arrived and what to my amazement did I see but our frog...which had almost completely lost it's tail...take a look. When we left on Friday it had quite a bit more tail and was still in the water most of the time. It was crouching behind the rock because it now has lungs instead of gills but it definitely now enjoying time on the rock. We will no doubt check it out first thing in the morning when we arrive!

Our Pond Adventure!

On Friday afternoon our class took a hike on the Lansing School districts nature trail. We took our bucket, container, pencils and frog booklets to observe the pond. Once there we found some tiny little frogs...or toads...(we are still researching!). There were hundreds of them! We collected just a few samples and put them in containers on the benches to observe. We saw some tadpoles, dragon flies and other forms of pond life! The kids even found a little hole in a thicket where they think a dear may have slept...you never know! We added a few pages to the back our frog books about what we saw at the pond...and decided it would make a pretty nice classroom! It was a fun day at the pond which will no doubt produce a nice classroom book about our pond adventure!

Let Project ACES begin!

On Friday our school participated in Project ACES...All Children Exercising Simultaneously. It was fun! Mrs. Livigne and Mr. Elberty led us in warm up exercises and then we all ran around the track to exercise and stay in shape. It was a nice school-wide activity! The weather was perfect slightly overcast but nice and cool...not too hot! :-)

Happy Birthday to ME!

Thanks for the birthday wishes, cards, flowers and gifts. It was a fun day and I always LOVE my birthday books!

The Art Show is here! May 20th 6-8 pm

Please come to the R.C. Buckley Elementary Art Show May 20th from 6-8 pm. It will be a chance to see some incredible art made by our very own kids! They have all worked hard to make their creations...as well as Mrs. Stratton! It promises to be a fun night...we hope to see you there!

We grow plants!

We have been enjoying growing all sorts of plants in class. We put seeds in zip loc bags in the windows, documented their growth and enjoyed learning about the life cycle of plants and how very important seeds are. We planted a variety of seeds and predicted which would germinate first? The radish? The pea or corn? It was the radish!

We learned about the seed coat, germination, roots, stems,leaves, flowers and the role of each of them in the plants life.

We enjoyed looking at different foods and talking about which one's have seeds on the inside and the outside and what foods in our refrigerator have seeds.

We really enjoyed learning about how seeds travel? Ask your child how many ways they can remember!

Bountiful BoxTops!

Thank you for sending in your Box Tops! As a class we enjoyed building our collection through the math lesson in Everyday Math. It was a fun thing to collect while at the same time contributing to the R.C.Buckley school's collection! We counted them in piles of 10's then counted by tens into the hundreds! I think we collected over 350 boxtops! Thank you for your support!

It's Dandelion Season!

Yes... this child came in from recess...decorated in dandelion! He is not the only one. I hope the families have stock in ERA:-) Nothing like dandelion rubbings...sorry! Like everything else kindergarteners are washable! Good thing!

Shhhhh....come back mommy robin!

After the recess period our class watched to see if the mommy robin returned to her nest. Sure enough she snuck back to the nest as we watched quietly from the wall by our classroom door. Too bad Head Start is next on the playground. We are talking about how much time she spends off the nest and wonder if this will effect the hatching of the eggs? Hummmmm?

Our Seeds!

We came to school bright and early Monday...and we found that "germination" had taken place. We could see the seed coat, small shoots and even some roots! We write our observations down and can't wait to see what will happen next. The seeds are growing fast in the window.

Put it on Facebook!

Yes... this is what I was told when I took this picture this week..."put it on Facebook"!

Four Blue Eggs!

On Wednesday we checked our nest and there were four small blue American Robin eggs in the nest. We did our research and found out that robins usually lay their eggs mid-morning. We checked the nest at 8:45 (3 eggs)...11:05 (she wouldn't get off the nest!) and 3:00 (4 eggs!).They usually only lay about 4 eggs...so we checked the next day and no more eggs. So we think she is ready to start sitting. Unfortunately we keep the playground pretty busy so she comes and goes to her nest. We are not sure she picked the best spot for her nest? :-) We will mark our calendar and watch to see when (and if? :-( ) they hatch. We will keep you updated!

We LOVE Dirt!

We had a great time making "dirt pudding" in class this week for snack. It was delicious! First we opened the pudding...then we crushed the cookies...added "dirt"...the worm and then ate it! It was fun. Thank you Kyra for the special snack!

Dirt really is good...just ask the kids about our worms and how they make dirt good (castings!).

Planting Day!

We planted seeds in our classroom as part of our science program...we will watch to see which seeds germinate the fastest. We are talking about the life cycle of plants and what plants need to grow. We are also doing an experiment in our window to see the germination of a seed (bean and pumpkin). It is fun! We like to grow things...hopefully we will get some healthy plants to share with our families! We planted vegetables, fruits, flowers and herbs. Ask your child which flower they planted (Zinnia, Sunflower or Marigold)?

Happy Everything!

We have had birthdays...births and weddings in the families of our students...congratulations to all! It is very exciting! :-)

Happy Earth Day!

Every day is exciting in kindergarten which is why I love it! We had a great day celebrating earth day in our classroom. We have been practicing our "green ways" since our school went green a few months ago. Yes we are excited to say that we have gone from 13 bags of garbage at lunch to 2! Yes 2! The composting has worked perfectly alongside our worm study. We have red worms (composters) and a few earth worms in our worm vue. We enjoyed studying them, performing experiments and making a worm story book. We of course covered the three R's...reducing (which we do!) reusing (which we do a lot in class!)and recycling (which we do!). Our class is very green conscious. We have two recycling bins and have even been saving our snack to compost.

We took a walk and collected garbage along a tree line and in the field. We found a lot of materials that were litter but that also could have been used by our robin in her nest. It was interesting to see that some types of litter could be used as nesting material for birds. When we got back to class we sorted the garbage into true garbage, recyclable materials and nesting material...take a look!

We have been talking a lot about saving our trees and made happy Earth Day cards on reused paper from our recycle bin. They get it...trees help us breathe and ultimately help us live...

We also planted some plants and will learn about plants and their life cycle over the next few weeks. So much to do!

Robin, robin in your nest...

Robin,robin in your nest...

where you've built it...is it best?

The kindergarten kids have been watching a robin building her nest in one of the towers of the kindergarten playground. It has been fun to watch her...we saw her try to use a piece of plastic. She decided better of it though and took it back out...promptly dropping it on the playground where she found it!

This act of nature has caused us to think about predators, places to build a nest, nest making materials(we put some yarn on the playground and are anxious to see after the season if she used it! We have been taking digital pictures since day one and will be writing a book about building a nest and the life cycle of the robin. I fear we may learn about survival of the fittest. Our best lesson has been about the Life cycle in regards to our earth worms, robins, chicks, monarch caterpillars and also soon plant life cycles...yes it is dandelion season. I got my first one last week!

Here's the proof!

**See previous post regarding our Tulip project! The deer did it...and we know it...they left their tracks. We learned all about animal tracks from our tracking lesson this past winter. Now what to do about it?

Spring is here!

We couldn't celebrate spring without observing chicks! The kids enjoyed seeing and touching the new little chicks from our farm. Soon they will be roaming the farm with the chickens!

We love Mashed Potatoes!

We had a great time making mashed potatoes for our St. Patrick's Day celebration...just look!

Ummmmm good!

Thank You Mr. Fenner!

It was a special day in kindergarten. I had a happy accident... and ended up in Mr. Fenner's office... when what should I spy but a pencil sharpener...well we have been in dire need of a new pencil sharpener in our classroom (and even tried to order one from a catalog!) Mr. Fenner had some shiny new pencil sharpeners and he came right down the hall and put a new one in our classroom. Mrs. Volbrecht was REALLY wanting a new sharpener so we decorated it with a bow and surprised her! It never could have happened without Mr. Fenner. He made our day. Kindergarten helps you to remember the importance of the small stuff in life!

Kindergarten's Crazy Composters!

We are super-duper composters. Now that we have been composting in the cafeteria we are super composters. We sort our food on our trays then go and dump in the correct bin! We are GREEN!

Tulip Time...Tip Toe through the tulips...oh no!

The kindergarten children were so excited to go to the bus and see that our tulips from the tulip project (through Journey North) were beginning to peek up from the dirt...we watched for a few days...then began to notice some footprints. Footprints from our local deer! The locals have decided that our tulips are mighty tasty. This is disappointing because we enjoyed planting them and have been looking forward to seeing our beautiful red tulips this spring. Have faith...we have a plan. Stay tuned to see if we are smarter than the deer! Our little plot of tulips is just behind the Lansing Elementary sign in front of the school.

Hey Bobcats...It's Swim Time!

We have been enjoying our time in the pool! The kids are very excited about swimming. I am sure you have heard all about it. They enjoy playing Simon Says and learning about swimming. You will be so surprised at the progress they make in just a week or two. On April 1st we will have the parent preview day. You may come watch at the Lansing High school pool from 12:40-1:20. The kids will be very excited to see you there and are looking forward to it if you can make it. They are doing a great job! The past few days we have been practicing swimming with noodles and racing (swimming) across the pool. We are turning a few "scardy cats....into future Lansing Bobcats (and possibly future kids on the swim team)!!! Go Bobcats!

We're Lucky!!

This past week we celebrated St. Patrick's Day. We enjoyed writing about why we are "Lucky"...listened to Red Grammer's song "I'm Lucky" and made these adorable pictures!

The children and I made a list then they chose three things from the list why they thought they were lucky. We heard incredible things like: I have food, I have toys, I have God, I have video games...we were very impressed with the list!

In honor of the day we cut up potatoes (after we weighed and measured them of course!) and made mashed potatoes. We graphed our favorite ways to eat potatoes. Ask your child their favorite way to eat potatoes. We talked about Ireland and the fact they they grow potatoes there. We were shocked that when we came back to our classroom after specials there was a mess and some riddles leading us to a pot of gold candy (a Rolo!). We think we were visited by a leprechaun!

Class Picture Day!

This picture represents our year so far...fun and smiles! This was taken on our class picture day. We all donned blue shirts (yet to be decorated!) and thought we'd look great...and we were right! We plan to wear these class shirts on field days in June. Last year the class picture was taken on "green" day so we were all dressed in green...and it was earth day so Mrs. Volbrecht and I were dressed in earth day shirts. This year we did it on purpose...we hope you enjoy our pic's!

We love Dr. Seuss!

On Tuesday we celebrated famed author...Dr. Seuss! (Theodore Geisel) We began the day by making hats like Dr. Seuss, we played with words like Dr. Seuss...puzzles, pictures and stories galore...

they just kept asking for more and for more!

It was destined to be...green eggs and ham for everyone you see!

We ate it, we graphed it,we tried it you see....

turns out we liked it it was meant to be!