There was a lot of energy this week so we spent a lot of time outside, where the children were so busy buzzing around with the bees.  They were digging a giant hole in the back end of the playground, biking all over, playing catch, watching the cable guys work on the lines, having pool noodle battles, playing in puddles, hunting for and collecting worms, slugs, snails, beetles, moths, and toads, building fortresses and forts and hideouts, picking flowers, creating collections of nature items, examining flowers and insects with magnifying glasses, and going on adventures.

The children worked with Michelle to plant flower seeds in the bollards out front.

The Seeds and Sunbeams students had their final session with Emily on Monday.  They picked dandelions and made dandelion chains and crowns and necklaces and bracelets.

We began work on end of year self portraits to compare with our beginning of the year self portraits (for those who did them).

We practiced our bee songs and started to finish up our projects for our Bee Presentation.

During sign language with Rose we practiced the alphabet and insect signs, then read the Piggie and Gerald story, I Am Invited to a Party!.  We wrapped up with the Five Little Butterflies song, and five different students had a turn to wear the wings and be butterflies.

We played an insect action game.  The children took turns rolling large dice, then turning over the corresponding number card and everyone did the insect action on the opposite side, such as flutter like a butterfly, pollinate like a bee, buzz like a fly, hop like a grasshopper, chirp like a cricket, etc.

We celebrated a fifth birthday. The birthday girl very, very, very slowly orbited the sun as we slowly listed the seasons and counted her birthdays. She shared tasty popsicles to celebrate and the children were excited to lick up a grape, tangerine, or cherry pop.  Happy Birthday, birthday girl!

Kindergarten students read a series of poems, then wrote their own, brainstorming about rhyming words to create rhyming poems.  They practiced identifying numbers into the hundreds, taking turns both guessing and writing them.  They chose their own math and/or literacy work, with many students choosing to create story books or reinforce their number learning.
During Friday science we explored our sense of touch.  We touched jars that were hot or cold to different areas of our skin to feel temperature, we lightly trailed our fingers up our arms, then gripped our forearms tightly to feel varied pressure, we felt texture that was rough or smooth, and we felt the soft rug and the hard floor.  We then pulled items from a feely bag, using our sense of touch to guess what they were. We discussed how we use our different senses to experience the world, and that through these experiences, we can use our other senses, such as sight, to identify “touch” senses without actually touching, such as hardness, temperature, and texture because our brains have learned what these “look” like through our experiences with wood, snow, sandpaper, etc.

xx