Poetry Slam

A few weeks ago in Writing Workshop, we completed the final draft of our poems.  One day while Ms. Arboe was here, she published our writing by typing up our poems.  We then illustrated the poems using black flair markers.  Our finished papers reminded us of the Shel Silverstein books we reviewed while learning to write our poems.  Today, thanks to Mr. Ball, we were able to use a microphone and speaker system to have our very own Kindergarten Plus Poetry Slam.  We each got a chance to read our original poems to the class using the microphone while our classmates got to be part of the audience.  It was really cool!

   

   

   

We each got to have our own copy of Our Class Poetry Book to keep.  We are now published authors and illustrators.  Sweet!

Hats Off!

This week, we bid farewell and happy retirement to two dear staff members.  Mrs. Marilyn Hemsey, our Media Specialist and Mrs. Kathy Carl, our principal are both retiring at the end of this school year.  They hosted a staff breakfast this morning with the theme "Hats Off to Northview".  Although we will miss these two All Stars, we wish them both lots of happiness and good health in the years to come.  Thanks to both of them for their years of service to Northview Elementary School!

Dodge Nature Center

It turned out to be a beautiful day for our field trip to the farm at Dodge Nature Center in West St. Paul. We had a tour of the farm, which included seeing lots of animals, such as sheep, donkeys, bulls, chickens, pigs and goats.  We got to pet many of the animals and feed some of them too.  We toured the barn, jumped and played in the hay loft, got to see the pastures and toured the chicken coop.  It was awesome!

   

Our tour guides were amazing!  We learned lots from them.

   

   

   

   

We would not have been able to go without the help of our outstanding chaperones.  Thanks so much to (left to right) Tyler's mom, Chloe's grandma, Sophie's mom, Liam F.'s dad and Ryan G.'s dad.  You rock!

Outdoor Fun

Since it was so nice last week, I did manage to get outdoors during a recess time to take some playground photos.  These kids LOVE playing on the playground!  It's great exercise and gives them opportunities to play and get along with each other.  They learn how to solve problems and how to be a good friend!

   

   

   

Of course, we had to take a group shot…

…and one with our silly faces, too!

Art Adventure

Over the past two weeks, Mrs. Lynn Stein has visited our classroom for Art Adventure.  Art Adventure is a program offered through the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and is sponsored by the Northview PTO.  Volunteers attend training at the Institute and then visit our classrooms to teach us about pieces of art on display at the Institute of Art.  Admission to the Minneapolis Institute of Art is free, so if you are interested in seeing some awesome art, head on down!

   

Many thanks to the Northview PTO and Mrs. Stein for bringing this great program to our classroom!

Saying Goodbye!

Thursday was our last full day with the chicks.  They were picked up on Friday morning and went to the farm at the Minnesota Zoo where they will be much happier then they would living in a box in our classroom.  We did manage to spend lots of quality time with them on Thursday, though.  And we even had some very special visitors in our classroom to see the chicks…our principal, Mrs. Carl and Dr. Jane Berenz, Superintendent of Schools.  Pretty cool!

   

   

   

We also worked on a painting project.  We painted ten yellow circles.  Once they were dry, we added some details and made chicks!

   

   

We do kind of miss our chicks, but we know they will be happier at the zoo.

Fun With Chicks

Last week was a busy, but fun week in Kindergarten Plus.  We got two more additions to our classroom…two yellow chicks!  It was lots of fun to have three chicks in our classroom!

We spent lots of time getting to know them, observing their behaviors, journaling about them in our chick journals, and just playing with them.  They are a lot of fun…and pretty noisy, too.  They sure did get tired quickly when we did have them out of the box to play!

   

   

Some of our friends really liked holding the chicks.  Some of us were not as comfortable.  

   

   

Earlier in our chick unit, we listed the things we already knew about chicks and the things we wondered about them.  This week, we made a list of all the things we learned about chicks while they were here.