Our Favorite Birds

The students drew and wrote about their favorite bird.

Read Across America Day

It was a crazy day of learning in kindergarten!

Each year the nation celebrates "Read Across America Day" on March 2nd, which is Dr. Seuss's birthday.  Elementary students across the United States focused on the joys of reading by reading extra books, being read to, and doing other language arts activities.  The kindergartners were so proud of themselves for reading 100 books today!  It was a fun learning day!

Today we did the following fun activities:

• students wore pajamas to school
• made headbands urging people to read
• watched a short video of If I Ran the Zoo by Dr. Seuss
  
• read 100 books!
• colored in a stripe on the Cat's hat for each book read
• had a cupcake
• had popcorn and juice during the movie - thank you to RaeLynn's family
• four teachers read to the kids and this teacher read a lot to the kids 
• made a "Cat in the Hat" with rhyming words on his hat for a hallway display 

  

  The kindergartners are in the 1st grade room being
  read to by a para.

  

  I felt like the kids really put forth their best effort today!

  

  Center activities are always fun for the kids!

  

  Here they are reading books and coloring a 
  stripe on the cat's hat to reach our goal of 100 books!
  
  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

Backyard Birds

I took this photo of an American Goldfinch 
at my feeder.  It is a beautiful bird!

This is the perfect time of year for you and your child to watch birds in your backyard with spring migration beginning!   Attracting birds to your yard is a  way for your child to see what is in his/her habitat and it is a great way for these kindergarten birders to put their bird knowledge to use.  Backyard birding is fairly inexpensive and its an educational activity that triggers discussion and research for the child and family.  Here are some pointers:

• Put the bird feeder in the yard where you can view it from a window.
• It sometimes takes a week or so for the birds to find your feeder.
• Remember to keep the feeders full and clean.
• Adding a bird bath will attract even more birds.
• Have a camera ready to take a photo of the different birds.
• Your child could get a notebook or journal to place the photo in.  Then they could write the birds name and the first time that they saw it and anything else they'd like. They could share their bird journal with family and friends. Its a great way to work on writing skills during the summer.
• Make a bird blind by building a stick fort or putting out a toy tent for your child to spy on the birds.
• Keep a yard list.  Birders often keep a list of all of the birds that they see or hear in or near their yard - including fly-overs.  I keep my list taped to the inside of my cupboard door and I add to it as I go.  This yard list is kind of fun to view.  
• Your child will probably be able to identify most of the birds, but if they are unsure you could look up birds at "All About Birds".

Visit our local business, "Fairway Seeds" and they could help you get set up with the kind of bird feeder and seed that you would like.  There are finch feeders that you fill with Nyjer thistle seeds.  These feeders will attract American Goldfinches.  Many other birds don't have the correct bill for eating out of these feeders.  Black oil sunflower seeds work in most other feeders.  There are other seeds you could use too. Don't worry about the seed that falls to the ground as it will not go to waste.  Some birds do their feeding only off of the ground.

You may feel frustrated with squirrels or Common Grackles that come and seem to eat too much, but the squirrels are entertaining and they are just doing what squirrels do.  The Common Grackles are only here in large groups for a short time and then most of them will move on.

Watching bird behavior is both entertaining and relaxing.  I hope that you will consider attracting birds to your yard.  I'm sure your child would love it!

Popcorn Party!

To help the students gain a bit more self-control and be able to follow the rules a little better, I have started a new reward system.  If they follow the rules from one recess until the next, they earn a golf ball for the jar.  Once the jar is full they can have a "golf ball party".  This week it was a popcorn party.  Using this incentive and "catching them being good", things are going a bit more smoothly.  

These girls are holding the jar of golf balls.

They LOVED having a popcorn party!

You can see that some Cheetos 
also made there way into the popcorn.

They are funny little people!

ABCYA - Good Learning Activities!

Check out this link for ABCYA.  It has educational activities for K-5 students.

Cornell Lab FeederWatch

There are feeders set up at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York.  This is a live cam.  Sometimes not much is happening, but sometimes it is quite active.  We check in occasionally at school and the kids love it!

Cornell Lab FeederWatch

Starfall Books Activity - All About Me

The students loved this activity that I used to practice reading on the Promethean board.

Starfall Books - All About Me