It was the perfect Spring morning...

So we had reading time in the sunny outdoors!

I LOVE Spring days when everything is in bloom!!!

Scavenger Hunt + Spring Day + Rita's = Fun Field Trip!

Today my kiddos and I went to Kalmbach Park for an afternoon field trip. My brother, Andy, works there, and was ready to give us the "grand tour"!

To make the nature walk more exciting for people, the park created a scavenger hunt. There are 12 letters hidden around the park. If you follow the clues to find the letters, you will be able to figure out the answer to a particular question.

{Andy handing out the scavenger hunt pamphlets and pencils}

{Following their leader to where the scavenger hunt begins}

{Going through the woods, trying to find the next letter clue}

{Letters were hidden on benches, trees, buildings, birdhouses, gazebos, etc. My kiddos did really well finding all the letters! Whenever they spotted the next letter, they would quickly write it down in their pamphlet.}

{To find one particular clue, they had to run all the way to the cherry trees in the corner of the park. What a great way to get energy out!!}

{I love this picture! They're following the leader, wherever he may go....}

{After the scavenger hunt was over, Andy gave them each an opportunity to feed the birds and the squirrels}

{I had to post this picture of Aidan! Andy gave him the big bucket of birdseed to carry because he was the "man" with strong muscles! Boy, did that make him feel special! It was rather heavy, so Andy and he carried it together to the bird feeding station. However, when we were done feeding the birds, he got to carry the bucket all the way back to where it belonged all by himself.}

{For the last part of the "grand tour", Andy showed us the barn where they keep all the machinery and tools}

Before we left, I decided to do a quick "photo shoot" with my kiddos.

They then picked the flowers they wanted to get a picture by. :-)

{In the gazebo}

{On the bridge}

The next part of our field trip was going to Rita's Italian Ice. The kiddos each enjoyed a yummy lemonade ice!

{Their original positions}

{Their second position...trying to keep the ice from dripping all over them!}

{Their final position, which was next to Alayna, who had come along on the field trip to be an extra set of hands, ears, eyes. etc...you get the idea :D}

I hope you enjoyed the many, many pictures I posted of our fun day! This is actually only half of the pictures...it was one of those snap-happy days for me! :-)

Every Last One...

The other week I posted that Spring is now official because I got my first dandelions after recess. This was apparently only the beginning....

Today my kiddos brought in a HUGE bouquet of dandelions. Their hands were so sticky with dandelion...umm..juice? When I saw them walk in with this huge bouquet, I realized that they must have spent almost their entire recess collecting all of these.

Oh yes, I do believe the playground must have been yellow-less once they completed this task...at least for a short time! :-)

This picture just doesn't do it justice (lots of little ones stuck inside!)

Our Transforming Classroom Pets

Two weeks ago, my kiddos were delighted when 5 new caterpillar "friends" entered our classroom.

They started off so tiny!

In just a couple of days they were bigger and more "creepy-crawly" looking...

On Monday, my kiddos noticed that one of the caterpillars had entered the next stage of its life - the chrysalis stage.
(better known as a cocoon :-))

I think the others were feeling like their friend was leaving them behind because yesterday they were all hanging upside down, trying desperately to be like their friend! :-)

When we walked in the classroom this morning my kiddos discovered that their caterpillar friends had all successfully entered the chrysalis stage.

It was now moving day!!

They are now safely in their new home - "Butterfly Pavilion". My kiddos are looking forward to soon meeting their new Painted Lady Butterfly friends!

Birthday Princess

Grace was Birthday Princess today! She will be turning 6 tomorrow and was super excited to wear a birthday princess tiara all day! Her Mommy even brought in a Birthday Princess balloon which matched her tiara perfectly. :-) Grace definitely LOVES being a princess!

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What a full month of birthdays in the Kindergarten classroom! In a classroom of just 4 students, what are the odds that 3 of those students would be celebrating their 6th birthday in just 1 month??!

So now my classroom will be full of *mature* 6 year olds for the last month of school!

Oh! So that's my problem!

This afternoon Juliana was showing me how she can write with both her left hand and her right hand. Because I like to see eyes widen in amazement when I use big, impressive-sounding words, I attempted to say, "Wow, you are ambidextrous!"

But my tongue wouldn't let me.

After several unsuccessful attempts to get my mouth around the word, Leah looks at me in sympathy and says, "Maybe you have to be married in order to say that word."

:-)

Who would have thought THAT was my problem??!!! My kiddos teach me something new every day! :-)

(After some tongue exercises, I am now able to successfully say "ambidextrous". Apparently, this does not fall under the "Married-Only" word category after all!)

Birthday Boy

We celebrated Aidan's birthday today because he is turning 6 on Saturday. For the girls, I have them become "Birthday Princess" for the day, and they get to wear a tiara. When I offered to make Aidan a birthday crown today, he decided against it. :-)

Aidan definitely puts up with a lot of "girl drama" in Kindergarten! I definitely need a stable , down-to-earth guy in there to keep the girls balanced. ;-) The girls enjoy playing Little House on the Prairie a lot, and what would they do if Aidan wasn't there to play "Pa" or "Albert"???!! Also, its nice to have a young gentleman who opens doors for the young ladies and for this older young lady. :-)

A New Friend

My siblings and I were asked to dog-sit for friends of ours this weekend. I thought it would be fun to introduce my kiddos to Beatrice today. Needless to say, it was love at first sight! She was all they could talk about all day long!

"When are we going to visit Bea again, Miss Follett?!"

They loved running around with Bea as she chased after her tennis balls, they each added some food to her dish at lunchtime, and they took turns giving her a "walk" in the afternoon (It was actually more of a run!).

The poor dog was simply worn out by the end of the day! :-)

Spring Is Now Official

I received my first bouquet of dandelions after recess today. Spring is officially here! :-)

Birthday Girl

Leah was soooo excited to be celebrating her birthday today at school! She was Birthday Princess for the day, she got some special treats from teachers, and she handed out some yummy cookies for her friends to enjoy at lunch. Her birthday was actually yesterday, but you can never celebrate turning 6 too many times!!! Yesterday, when I wished her a Happy Birthday in Sunday School, she informed me that she actually wouldn't be 6 until the afternoon. She was pretty sure it was at 12:40pm. Yep, she was counting down the days, hours, and even minutes till she would be turning 6 years old! :-)

Painting in the Great Outdoors

Do you ever have one of those, "What in the world was I thinking???!!!" moments? This afternoon was one of those moments for me! Because it was such a nice, warm day, I wanted my kiddos to be able to enjoy the great outdoors. Painting was to be our afternoon activity, so I had the *brilliant* thought that it would be fun to paint outside instead of just in the classroom. The kiddos were pretty thrilled about the whole idea. We brought out poster board instead of just regular paper because I thought the heaviness of the paper would defy whatever breezes decided to blow (ha!).

Now this just wasn't any old painting activity. It was "out of the box" painting. We weren't going to use just boring ole' paintbrushes. We were going to use combs, toothbrushes, hair things, sponges, toy cars, cups and whatever other random things I had inside the container.

I thought ahead and brought out a small container of soapy water so messy hands could be cleaned. Well, by the end of this painting experience, the water was black...or at least a really dark shade of purple!

Oh yes, it was messy. I kept reminding them to watch where they leaned on their paper because I didn't want paint-covered clothes. I was pretty impressed with how well they were doing, when suddenly the wind decided to be quite blustery. Of course, Juliana and I were standing in just the right location to be smacked with a flying poster board. Did you know that green and pink paint add such style to a jean skirt and brown shoes?! Well, it does! Thankfully the paint lived up to its name and was indeed washable! :-)

Ahhh, yes...you live and learn. Next time I will be sure to check the wind speed before I take out a project such as this! If there is indeed a next time....

But hey, it was a unique experience and it was fun (minus the clean-up at the end!).

{Their Abstract "Out-of-the-Box" Masterpieces}

That Bad Fox!

Today I discovered that I need a "refresher course" on classic children stories. On the bookshelf in my classroom, there are some classic storybooks such as The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, Jack and the Beanstalk, etc. These particular books are fun because they are a "read-together" type book for young children. Sometimes pictures replace the words so the children you are reading to can help fill in the story.

Today for story time, two of these classic books were selected - The Story of Henny Penny and The Gingerbread Man. We read the Henny Penny story first. I wasn't really familiar with this story so I was enjoying reading about Henny Penny with her friends, Goosey Loosey, Turkey Lurkey, Cockey Lockey, and Ducky Daddles. The kiddos and I kept laughing at their silly names. Then along came Foxy Loxy. I should have known that a fox entering the story could mean trouble, but that fact didn't click right away for me. Well, as the story continued on, the look on my kiddos' faces changed from smiles and giggles to looks of utter disbelief. Yeah, the story basically ends with the fox eating all of Henny Penny's friends. My poor kids were in shock, utterly devastated!

I then turned to our next story. I thought I knew the Gingerbread Man story pretty well, but soon discovered I had forgotten an important detail - the story ends by the Gingerbread Man getting gobbled up by...yep, you guessed it...a fox.

Oh yeah, it wasn't a good day of "happily ever after" in my classroom! My kiddos and I tried to come up with alternate endings for these stories, but the damage was already done.

Seriously, why do so many classic children stories have to end in such a sad, violent way?!

{Parents, if your children have nightmares of foxes gobbling up their friends tonight, I am truly sorry!}