Marbles and Miss Carrots

Eagerness is the word I choose to encapsulate this week in Kindergarten. It seems that everywhere I turned, students had "I wonders" for us to discover. It was wonderful!

Highlights from this week:

Monday

We had a donation of a marble run! Students engaged wonders: I wonder how the chain lift works, I wonder why that one got stuck, I wonder how we could make a new one, I wonder how we could all use it... With that last one, they decided a line up would work; they organized it and self-ran it so everyone could enjoy it! I've been encouraging students to use their 7 Habits to problem-solve, and that is exactly what they did. Our run also only had one marble, so GR said he could solve that problem and bring some from home (with mom's permission, of course.) He brought varying sizes in the next day, which led to I wonders about size, fit, rolling, and how we could make a run for the big marbles!

Monday also say the welcome of Miss Carrots, our new classroom pet! We left her in quiet for most of the day, but students did get to see her. They did an excellent job remembering how to interact with a new guinea pig!

Tuesday:

Our devotions were on thankfulness to God for all the ways He blesses us, including through people. To act on this, we painted and wrote cards to people who left "God fingerprints" on our class and school.

We also got to hold Miss Carrots! Lots of I wonders about the sounds she makes and how God made her - we looked closely for special ways that she was made. 

This week, the SK's have been working hard on sounding out words when they write in their Big Beautiful Book! We use the popcorn word wall (for high-frequency words like you, the, and we), our morning message, and other text around the room. GR was working on his page of our guinea pig book, and realized he knew where to find a clue for "ing" - The King of ING, who sits on my cabinet as a reminder of how to spell the suffix ing. GR decided to shake his hand and get acquainted before using his new-found knowledge.

Wednesday

Miss Carrots is getting comfortable. We had time on the carpet with her... LA was wondering what her teeth were like, so he quietly peeked into her hideaway while she was eating. 

W also talked about God caring for the Israelites in the desert, especially looking at the Ten Commandments this week - God's wise ways to live.

Thursday

Thursday's devotions were again on fingerprints, so we used our own fingerprints to make pictures of things that show us God's fingerprints.

Friday

The Grade 3/4 buddies came and read with us! They came prepared with books they had chosen specifically for their buddies and their interests, and did a wonderful job reading and discussing these books. The Kindergartener's gained valuable one-on-one time building book-talk (comprehension) skills (More I wonders.... I wonder what this page is about, I wonder what will happen,..).

We also had more I wonder questions, this time about books. We finished our final drafts of our pages, on special paper, and compared our book with other books in our classroom. We decided we still needed something to cover the staples (I wonder what that could be), the binding, and we also decided we needed a back cover (I wonder what back covers have). Next week we will finish up these stages.

Here are some examples of their beautiful work.  

First draft on the right - suggestions were to make it a bit bigger and add a guinea pig, which KI did!

First draft on the right. Suggestions were to have just the one thing and make it bigger - HO went to look at the hay rack in the cage and used the suggestion to make the picture on the Left. 

We also read the book Only One You. The author, Linda Krantz, had an interesting method of illustration that peaked student questions. They asked if we could have a centre to make our own pictures that way. They brainstormed what we would need for a center and we started collecting. This will be another interesting inquiry into authoring, illustrating, and publishing! 

Be blessed!