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!).