We’ve had a great three weeks! The kids are adjusting well to being in kindergarten. They are learning to work and play together and learning how to be responsible members of the larger school community. I even got a card from their P.E. teacher, Mrs. Gorman, commending them on how well they work together as a group: “A big thank you to you and your class for the best first day ever with a group in 37 years. Wow, what a treat!”
Today the students finalized their own list of rules for the classroom. They've spent a lot of time discussing the need for rules in communities. They've also discussed the particular needs of OUR classroom community. They eventually created a list of eighteen rules, which some students thought was a bit much to remember! So this morning the class boiled the list down to four essential rules:
1. Talk Nicely
2. Wait Your Turn
3. Be Safe
4. Use Things the Right Way
Over the past few weeks we read several books written and/or illustrated by Eric Carle. The children loved his stories. We started to pay close attention to the elements in his work that made him an effective storyteller. We examined and discussed his style of illustrating and also noted recurrent themes in his story subject matter. Then we employed these techniques to create our own "mini-stories". We worked together to make art that mimicked Mr. Carle's painting style and then we assembled story collages using scraps of this community paper.
