Freebie - Tuesday is Cooking Day!

Every Tuesday in our classroom is cooking day! Keep in mind that we do not have access to an oven, so when we say "cooking," we really mean creating something spectacular and fun to eat with food! Sue, my co-teacher and I take turns every week bringing in the ingredients needed for our culinary delights and occasionally we will send home a letter asking families to send in donations to stock our cooking closet.


This week Sue's idea was one that is commonly used around this time of year, but she found a fantastic recipe to go along with it! We usually have a short recipe that the students follow, but the recipe today was very special.  Since I am new to blogging, I am not sure that I am going to be able to share it with you, but  I am going to try really hard! We are not sure the original source of this...please let me know if you have seen this recipe displayed like this before so that I may give proper credit. 

Click on the title below

How to Make Dirt Pudding

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Mother's Day - Looking For New Ideas

     Like many of you, Friday was our Mother's Day celebration. The students worked hard all week preparing for our Mother's Day tea party. We invited Moms, Grandmothers, Aunts and all other special ladies into our classroom for a tea party. We began with each of the "Moms" receiving a tissue paper flower that the students made when they arrived. The students were all gathered at the carpet singing several of the Mother's Day songs that they had learned. The students then took turns reading "The Top Ten Reasons Why I Love My Mom" to the audience. We then ended with cookies that the students had decorated and iced tea as well as giving out our presents (which were adorable - check out below)

     Even though this is a very well attended event and seems to be a favorite, my co-teacher and I are looking for something new to do for Mother's Day. It seems that many of the grades in my school are having Mother's Day tea parties, so we would love to have a new idea. Please let me know if you do something special with Moms for Mother's Day that you could share with me.  Thank you!!

Tissue Paper Flowers For Mom!

Our Mother's Day Tea



These are Nilla Wafers decorated by the students after I failed miserably at making sugar cookies!

     For our Mother's Day projects this year, Sue (my co-teacher,) came up with such a cute idea! We had found some small clay pots at the dollar store, but of course did not plant anything in time for Mother's Day. We had the students decorate them, but they were kind of hanging around. Sue then found flowers at the dollar store and using classroom materials we made these adorable pen and pencil holders!!  Can you make out the bee and the butterfly on top of the flowers?

                                               

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Service-Learning in Kindergarten!!

Friday, May 4th was the third annual Trike-A-Thon for our kindergarten! It is such an incredible event, I have to share it with you!

The Trike-A-Thon is a service-learning project for our grade level. Our school requires that every grade participate in at least one meaningful service-learning project. Even though we do participate in several throughout the year, this is our main event!

The Trike-A-Thon is a culminating activity to our bicycle safety unit. Prior to the Trike-A-Thon, students take home a pledge sheet and ash their family members for pledges to support them to ride a trike, bike, scooter, etc. around the gym for an entire hour. (We of-course stress the safety of our students is our main priority and that we do not condone students asking for donations outside of family members.)

In addition to pledges, we ask local community organizations for donations to purchase each student a new bike helmet that they can wear for the Trike-A-Thon and take home with them. We find that many of our students do not have helmets of their own.

On the morning of the Trike-A-Thon, we have a State Trooper come to the classrooms to review bike safety with the students. The Trooper also stresses the importance of wearing a helmet and riding with a grown up. For the Trike-A-Thon, we gather in the gym where we have a variety of trikes, bikes, scooters, and other fancy vehicles the students can ride on. Each class forms two lines and the students take turns riding back and forth for an entire hour! Every few minutes the lines switch vehicles so that every class has the opportunity to ride each one.  We also have a teacher who is the MC of the event and who is in charge of the music - so it becomes a dance party as well! The MC starts the Trike-A-Thon by reviewing the hand signals to use when riding your bike.

Monies raised are donated to a local children's hospital. This year we raised close to $1500.00! Which we think is amazing!!  Last year we raised $2500.00! Here are some pictures of our incredible day!!

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