Happy May Day

 May Day: on Monday we celebrated May Day.  This was one of my favorite days when I was a child.  I grew up in a small town and we would walk, as a class, around town delivering homemade May Day baskets to people in town.  I always loved delivering one to my great grandma who lived close to my school.  I have continued this tradition now that I am a teacher and have shared this day with my students every year for my 19 years of teaching.  It is such a wonderful way to teach about spreading kindness and doing something out of the goodness of your own heart. We hope all the classrooms or faculty who received one were as excited about receiving one as we were delivering them!  I love how it teaches that the feeling of kindness is the true gift and we don't do it to receive something on our end. Never heard of May Day?  Learn more here. 

Science: this week we participated in a "Project Lead the Way" science unit learning about the weather.  Mrs. Fitch, our media specialist, and I co-taught this unit all week.  Our days were a bit off schedule as she was in our room for several hours each day.  We  discussed the sun, temperature, weather, etc. At the end of the week the students worked in groups to create a mock shade structure that would protect Milo, a character we referenced this week, from the hot sun.  Yesterday your child brought home a "launch log" aka journal of their studies this week and you can see all the fun things they learned and completed.  If your child wasn't at school certain days this week, their launch log may not be complete. Ask your child to tell you all about it and what they created.  A few pictures are below, but more are on our class Facebook page.  

Makerspace: on Thursday we participated in a Makerspace activity with our 3rd grade buddies in Ms. Cohen's class, Mrs. Fitch and Mrs. Canepa.  What is Makerspace?  Click here to learn more. We created a "waking buddy" that was able to walk down ramps without a motor, simply by friction!  So cool!  Your child brought it home on Thursday.  A few pictures are posted below, but even more are on our class Facebook page. 

Spelling:  next week will be the last week of introducing new spelling words. We will take a normal spelling test next Friday.  We will take an end of Kindergarten spelling test on Wednesday, May 17th that will include ALL 50 words we have learned this year. Although long, this test should not be difficult, as they should already know how to read and write these words. These will be sent home with their report cards on the last day of school.

                                        Next week's new spelling words:

                                                                  by

                                                                  my

Special celebrations: this week we celebrated Principal's Day on Monday and Nurses Day on Friday.  Thank you to those who sent cards or small tokens of appreciation to all of those hard working people!  I know they greatly appreciate it as well! 

We made Dr. Woods and Mrs. Nickens their own books called What Does the Principal Do All Day? They were a great mixture of silly and serious responses!  We made Nurse Bridget and Mr, Cameron a poster to show our love and thanks.  

Lunch with the Principal: today was our final "Lunch with the Principal" for the Kindergarten school year.  Congrats to Eleanor for being chosen for the month of May! 

Butterflies:  all of our caterpillars have come out of their chrysalis and are beautiful butterflies! We will release them on Monday.  

Jefferson Middle School Zoo:  CPS is blessed to have something as awesome as the Jefferson Middle School Zoo and the coordinator Mike Szydlowski.  We had so much fun seeing all the different animals today.  It is completely student led by the middle schoolers who attend that school.  They have Open Houses from time to time and I encourage you to take your family and check it out when they do! 

Here are a few photos, more are on the class Facebook page. 

Countdown to Summer: this week we enjoyed telling jokes on Monday, random acts of kindness on Tuesday, lunch outside on Wednesday, a movie on Thursday and new names today.  Even more pictures are on our class Facebook page.  

Behaviors: Dr. Woods addressed the whole school on Tuesday during announcements about behaviors the past couple of weeks.  There are two big areas that ALL students in ALL grade levels need to work on: Kindness with words and actions and keeping our body to ourselves.  Teachers will be cracking down on any incidents that involve these two things.  Students will have immediate consequences if they are not being kind and have hands/body on others.  Please help reinforce these expectations at home.   If students cannot do their best during these final weeks of school, they can and will lose fun privileges'.   

More fun from our week...