Celebrating our earth

With Earth Day behind us, we realize that we should celebrate and take care of the earth 365 days a year- not just one day in April.  Our service learning project has been going wonderfully, and the week before vacation we began working on a chapter book we are writing to help other children understand ways we can all take care of our earth.  We brainstormed lots of ideas and so far have a title and a chapter list; we are getting down to the nitty-gritty writing, illustrating and photographing this week.  This is all very exciting!  The title we have come up with is "Kindergarteners Can Help the Earth!"  I won't give any other details away... you'll have to read it when we publish it :)

Today we read one of my favorite stories, The First Feud by Lynn Plourde.  It is a beautifully illustrated fable about Katahdin, the Atlantic Ocean, and how Maine came to look the way it does.  It also teaches a great lesson, and was a big hit; I was happy to see many of us have already read this at home too!

The earth is in our hands.  Check out our creations by the classroom entrance!

Our opinion as a class is that this book is GREAT!

Also, in the coming weeks you will be receiving numerous permission slips for field trips that are contributing to our service learning conservation project (and to just plain old Kindergarten fun)! We have already scheduled a visit to the COA museum on May 23rd, a trip to Seal Harbor beach on June 7th, and two hikes (one to Flying Mountain and one to Beech Mountain) in May.  You will be receiving a notice about the Flying Mountain hike tomorrow, but now you have a heads up.

One more thing: The Conners Concert, grades K-2, will be next week on Thursday, May 3, 2012.  Wow!  Please encourage your child to sing "Oh Mister Sun," "Nature Baby" and "What do you do with a water waster?" if he or she feels so inclined; otherwise, just wait until the concert and I will see you there!



~Mrs. Fournier

"Hug O' War" by Shel Silverstein

We'll be writing some poems of our own soon, so I thought I'd share one of my favorites for you to read to your child sometime!  Enjoy :)

Hug O'War
from the book "Where the Sidewalk Ends" (1974)

I will not play at tug o' war.
I'd rather play at hug o' war,
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles
And rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses,
And everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles,
And everyone wins.