Hop Along the Nonsense Bunny Trail

Teaching children nonsense? That's right! Being able to read nonsense words is an important skill for kindergarten and first grade students. These students are decoding nonsense words and hopping along the nonsense bunny trail created by their teacher.

On each spring cut out, there is a nonsense word. It doesn't mean anything, but students try to read it by blending the letter sounds together. Then, they hop over the word and onto the next nonsense word on the trail. Students are enjoying their new learning center and practicing this important literacy skill along the way.

Native American Culture

Fire Bear playing a Native American Flute.

Clays Mill Elementary was excited to host a Native American by the name of Fire Bear on Monday. Students learned about the Native American culture from Fire Bear. He is a member of the Choctaw Nation from Oklahoma. Take a look at some of the interesting things students learned from him and Acorn Woman today. 

Fire Bear told us the Native American legends "Why Rabbits have
a Short Tail" and "The Rabbit and the Possom" using his drum. 

Native American Instruments.

Native American masks and instruments.

Students learning about rhythm while listening to the beat of the drum.

Terribly Tacky Ties

Our kindergarten students continued working on reviewing letter sounds in phonics this nine weeks. One of the ways we help them truly internalize letter recognition and letter sounds is by making crafts to go along with those letters. For the letter Tt, they made "Terribly Tacky Ties" with pictures of things that start with the letter Tt. They did a TERRIFIC job!

Kindergarteners sporting their terribly tacky ties.

Lucky Little Leprechauns

To celebrate St. Patrick's Day, students wrote about what makes them feel lucky. They each responded to the prompt, "I feel lucky when. . . " Then, students made leprechauns for a display. These lucky leprechauns are displayed on a bulletin board outside our classroom. Just as they did last year, while students were in special class we had a visit from some mischievous little leprechauns that messed up our classroom. Student chairs were knocked over, turned upside down, and flipped on top of the tables. Students were surprised to find that the little leprechauns left a package of "pot of gold" candy for each of them. So, that was nice of them. The children were excited that the leprechauns visited our classroom. Look for your child's leprechaun writing to come home soon.

Students' leprechaun writing is displayed outside our classroom.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

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Book Character Day at CME

We celebrated Read Across America today by dressing up as book characters. The students and teachers looked great! Our school also participated in the Read Across America AR Palooza as we tried to take as many AR quizzes as we could. Teachers read in small groups, students read to other students, and we watched books on video. Thank you to the parent volunteers that helped with AR quizzes.

Our Kindergarten book characters.

Ladybug Girl, Viola Swamp and Miss Nelson from
Miss Nelson is Missing, and Tina from Smelly Socks

Pinkalicious

Little Red Riding Hood and The Cat in the Hat

I Ain't Gonna Paint No More

For snack, we had green eggs and ham as we listened to the book, Green Eggs and Ham. Miss Swamp made them herself and fixed each child a plate. That was a little out of character for her, but the children enjoyed it. 

Check out those great book characters!