Saturday, August 27, 2011

Under the Big Top

When the Circus Comes to Town


What an exciting day! 

We all arrived Thursday morning to the hustle and bustle of circus performers preparing for a day under the big top...and it happened right in our own backyard.  Our parish / school was the host to the Culpepper and Merriweather Circus for one day! 



After Mass, we all gathered outside the school in the back play yard to watch as the playground was transformed. 


We were entertained by the "man on stilts", learning all sorts of fun facts about the show.


We got to touch a real lion whisker.  (No, Father Don didn't pull it out.  He found it on the ground!)


We enjoyed a sneak peek at all the animals that would be performing.


And we were enthralled as we watched the workers raise the tent.




Many of the munchkins, their families, parishioners and other community members came back out on Thursday evening for a night of fun.


And by Friday morning, it was gone...as quickly as it arrived.

But what an amazing memory!


Until next time...
Giggles,
Mrs. D.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Getting to Know Each Other

Funny Faces and Puzzle People

Getting to know all our new friends during the first week of school is always so much fun.  We play so many games to help us learn names & faces and form new friendships. 

One of my favorites is creating Funny Faces. 

Each munchkin creates his or her face on a paper plate.  We talk about who has blond hair and who has brown.  Who has green eyes and who has blue.  Who has glasses and who has braces.  It helps create an environment that celebrates the things we have in common and honors the things that make us each special. 

This year's funny faces were, as usual, something to behold!






The most fun was putting our funny faces "on"!
Can you tell who's who?


We also created a classroom puzzle with some adorable little Puzzle People.  Each munchkin received a blank puzzle piece in the shape of a little person.  The pieces were decorated to look like all our new friends.








































After each puzzle person was complete, we put them all together to show what a beautiful class we have!  The munchkins had a blast creating a perfect
"boy, girl" pattern with the pieces and trying to guess "who was who".


We finished off all these projects with something amazing!  The munchkins, after working very hard with a few new concepts, wrote a full and complete sentence!

We have been working with the concept that letters work together to form words.  After playing several games with the letters "s", "e", and "e", the munchkins became very good at creating and recognizing the sight word "see". 

So, we took it one step further and began exploring the idea that words can work together to make sentences.  With that new knowledge under their belts, it didn't take anyone very long to create the simple sentence:

"I see."

Of course, because we are working so hard on learning each other's names (and spelling our own), we added one more important word and got something like this...
(Be sure to note that we even have the proper "stop sign" at the end!)


All of the pieces put together made for a wonderful bulletin board display that will "WOW" Mom and Dad when they come to visit for Open House.


Great job to all my little munchkins!
I'm so glad you are all part of our special class. 

Until next time...
Giggles,
Mrs. D.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Welcome Munchkins!


Our First Day


It's always so much fun to see all the bright and beautiful new faces each year!   Welcome to the munchkins that will make this year's kindergarten a fun and wonderful experience...





Here's to a great year!

Until next time...
Giggles,
Mrs. D.