If you Give a Butterfly a Diploma...

Another school year, flown by. And now it's time to graduate!

 My apologies, but it seems I have no pictures to share! I will search my other camera, and put them up if I can fin any! Last year we a had a Lorax themed graduation that was pretty cool too!

I really wanted my class to be involved in the planning and decisions for this year. If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff was one of my favorite stories when I was young, and I thought "What a great template for the class to write their own graduation play in this style!" And so, a theme was born.

First we decided what songs to sing. I asked the children to vote on their favorite songs that they learned this year. Out of a few that were requested almost daily, they decided on "Twinkle Twinkle Hanukkah Lights" and "I'm a Little Penguin". For a prop to hold while singing, the children each made a dreidel and penguin.


We worked on, "We Are Here to Graduate", to the tune of London Bridge. This is what we sing as we walk into graduation.

"We are here to graduate, graduate, graduate.
We are here to graduate, on this special day."

Then we learned "I'm a Little Graduate", to the tune of "I'm a Little Teapot".

"I'm a little graduate, Aren't you proud of me?

I know my numbers and ABC's.

I made lots of friends and had fun too,

Now, I'm off to the big kid school!"

Then we needed to talk about a performance to do. Since we were going with a If You Give a .... theme, what better thing to do than write our own!? Each day for a week, we "wrote" a story, each child giving what would happen next in a chain of events. I'll admit, some of them were pretty out there, but in the end, we focused in on a story centered around things in our own school.

To go with their part of the story, I drew simple illustrations of their part for them to color. At our ceremony, when it was their turn to speak, they held up their illustration too! Their parents LOVED it!! 

I turned the pages into a class book, so after graduation, I went back and wrote their spoken part on the page that they colored. It is something that I will treasure forever because I know how hard they all worked on their parts and I know that future classes of any age will love to see it.

I made little goodie bags with their names on them filled with some pieces of sidewalk chalk that I handed to each child when they got called for their diploma.  They were so happy!

It was such an amazing afternoon and I was so, so, SO proud of my kids and all the hard work that they did. This was the order that we followed for our graduation ceremony.

"We Are Here to Graduate"

School Owner and Director Speeches

My speech. =]

"Twinkle Twinkle Hanukkah Lights"

"I'm a Little Penguin"
"Telling: If You Give a Butterfly a Diploma"

Graduate: Diplomas!

"I'm a Little Graduate"

End!

Next week: Summer Camp!!

 Leave a comment below and let me know that you stopped by!

The Lorax: The Graduation Edition!

My class graduated last week, and it was such a special day that I would love to share with you!

This year my kids really developed a love for all things Lorax (by Dr. Seuss); books, movie, soundtrack, pictures... everything! So when we sat down as a class to figure out what we should do for graduation, they wanted to have a Lorax graduation! (I was A-OK with that!!)

First we decided what songs to sing. We decided that our "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" song would be perfect as well as two graduation songs that my class sang last year.

We worked on, "We Are Here to Graduate", to the tune of London Bridge. This is what we sing as we walk into graduation.

"We are here to graduate, graduate, graduate.
We are here to graduate, on this special day."

Then we learned "I'm a Little Graduate", to the tune of "I'm a Little Teapot".

"I'm a little graduate, Aren't you proud of me?

I know my numbers and ABC's.

I made lots of friends and had fun too,

Now, I'm off to the big kid school!"

We practiced "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" that I found here. 

"Reduce Reuse Recycle

Are words that we all know

We have to save our planet

So we can live and grow

We might be only children

We have to try, you’ll see

We will save our planet

It starts with you and me!"

Then we needed to talk about a performance to do. Since we were going with a Lorax theme, what better thing to do than tell the story of The Lorax? I shortened the story and assigned each child 2-3 sentences as a part to memorize. We worked on it every day for 3 weeks and I know all my awesome parents worked with their children at home.

To go with their part of the story, I bought tracing paper and traced some of the illustrations from the Book. I turned them into a coloring page that the children colored. At our ceremony, when it was their turn to speak, they held up their illustration too! Their parents LOVED it!! 

I decided to turn the pages into a class book, so after graduation, I went back and wrote their spoken part on the page that they colored. It is something that I will treasure forever because I know how hard they all worked on their parts and I know that future classes of any age will love to see it.

I made little goodie bags with their names on them filled with necklaces, graduation bubbles and assorted candy that I handed to each child when they got called for their diploma. As soon as the ceremony was over it was so cute to see them tearing through their bags. They were so happy!

It was such an amazing afternoon and I was so, so, SO proud of my kids and all the hard work that they did. This was the order that we followed for our graduation ceremony.

"We Are Here to Graduate"

School Owner and Director Speeches

My speech. =]

Our Retelling of The Lorax

"Reduce, Reuse, Recycle"

Graduate: Diplomas!

"I'm a Little Graduate"

End!

Next week: Summer Camp!!

Painting to Music

 Our theme this week was "Painting to Music" and we focused on getting ready for graduation! This is one of my favorite themes, because it's so fun for the kids to listen to and react the the different genres of music.

We also spent time this week getting prepared for our graduation ceremony on Friday afternoon!

We read this week: The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
                               Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss
                               Oh, The Thinks You Can Think by Dr. Seuss
                               The Night Before Kindergarten by Natasha Wing
                               The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
                               The Night Before Summer Vacation by Natasha Wing

Our question of the week was "What was your favorite thing that we did in school?"

And we wrote in journals about this question too.

For our themes of the week,  we painted to 4 different kinds of music; Classical, Country, Rock and Blues. Each day the kids listened to the music for about a minute and then we talked about the way it made them feel. Then we talked about how those feelings should be be reflected in our paintings.

For classical music we listened to a playlist of Tchaikovsky's The Seasons, and we painted with purple, green and orange. Most of the kids said that the music made them feel sleepy.

For Country music we listened to a playlist of Lady Antebellum, Rascal Flatts and Keith Urban. We painted with yellow, orange and brown. The kids really liked the country music!

For Rock music we listened to a playlist of The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi. We painted with purple, orange and yellow. The kids just wanted to dance!! So, we had a little dance party after everyone finished their paintings.

For Blues music we listened to a playlist of Mississippi John Hurt and B.B. King. We used green, purple and blue paint. They told me that this wasn't really their favorite =/, but I enjoyed it!

For our practice activities, we matched shapes with worksheets from Summerbridge Pre-K-K. I love these books because they have such great worksheets for keeping the learning going at home over the summer as well as worksheets that I use throughout the year.

Dot-to-dots are such a fun way to practice counting! We did this really cool one of a cat from The Complete Book of Numbers and Counting.

Also from that book the kids followed a number maze from 1-20.

Practicing colors with raindrops is so fun! They kids have to use their letter knowledge and color words to complete the worksheet. This came from Alphabet, Colors, Numbers and Shapes.

We played beginning consonant sound Bingo!

We kept working on our sight words! Every morning we go over around 10 of them. Once we've mastered them, they will go on our sight word wall! So exciting! We're working our way through the 220 Dolch sight word list.

My new favorite thing is adding glitter to playdough. So pretty!