Sometimes things are so simple and glaringly obvious, I just don't see them.

We have been thinking like Mr van Gogh and painting Starry Night.  The movement of the swirling wind, the twinkling stars.  


We talk about how you can almost feel the movement that Mr Van Gogh was trying to paint.


Feel.  


There's the word.


And the simple and glaringly obvious - a Starry Night sensory tray.




There's something quite intriguing about reindeer.

They are both real - and make believe.


Here is a quick kid friendly video about the [reindeer of Lapland].


Lots of info about Santa's reindeer [here].


And the Reindeer Cam app crosses between fiction and non-fiction. Feeding time is pretty cool; we have taken a kindergarten break to watch Santa feed his reindeer.





Turkey is a country that is a feast for the senses. 

The colours of the landscapes, the local produce and the wares sold at every market.  The bustling noise of the markets.  And the food.  I was not prepared for how delicious the food would taste and smell.  


Walking through the markets, I knew that a bit of Turkey would come home to start off a Turkish Bazaar Sensory Bin. 





Every year we talk about why we wear poppies for Remembrance Day.

I tell my kindergarten kids that we wear them to honour people who risk getting hurt or dying so that we can be peaceful.


We also make poppies.


(These poppies were inspired by poppies created by Crafty Morning.) 

This year my student teacher was in charge of a poppy picture  (I was in charge of a poppy wreath).

It was a day for red and black paint.



Miss Jane showed the kidlets how to make poppy petal prints.

,

Thumbs for the petals

and (supposed to be) pointer fingers for the black centres.


When they were dry, Miss Jane showed them pictures of real poppies to inspire the creation of grass and leaves.



Green crayons made stems and leaves.

Beautiful projects remembering ultimate sacrifice. 






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Halloween has come and gone for another year.  I love it (so many wonderful books to read!) - but I am exhausted.  So grateful that Halloween landed on a Friday this year.  
I will 'fess up that I did not not dress up as a character from a book.  Thought about it.  Thought that it might be fun to be Captain Underpants.  But my K students would not have "got" it - and would just wonder why on earth I was wearing a towel like a diaper and a cape (yes, unlike the real Captain Underpants, I would be wearing a shirt too).  And the parents might quietly ask each other if it was okay to leave their kids with me every day.  Maybe if I taught grade 2 or 3 ....

But this year, I wanted to wear a tutu. 


And that led, naturally, to being Starry Night (in a tutu).  

Now you know too much about my rather random and haphazard thought processes...

Donalyn Miller, closes her book with her thoughts about assessment. And her students moving on from the community that they have built together through their mutual excitement about and love for reading and books.


The final chapter of Donalyn Miller's book The Book Whisperer is titled:  Letting Go

To me, the book has come full circle.

We started off by needing to let go of our beautifully manicured lesson plans that offer students wonderful extension activities to the class book that is being read (likely popcorn style) by the entire class.

Teachers need to let go of our tightly held control of what is read in the classroom.  And how it is read. And what work/activity is required as a response to reading it.

Instead, we need to coax, nurture, fan the flames - whatever it takes - of a love of reading. 

We need to see our students as voracious readers - even if they don't - until they grow into that expectation.

We need to delight in books and reading ourselves. So much so that it is contagious.  We need to be reading role models for our students. 

How does this look in kindergarten since we are still learning to read... 


It is my responsibility to nurture a love of story, of curiosity what we can learn from books, a delight in the surprises and gifts that a new book can bring - so that every one of my students sees themselves as a reader of pictures, a reteller of stories and a just-about reader of the words.  


I need to nurture to a community who revels in the mystery and joy and soul expanding-ness of reading.

And once we have shared that joy and mystery with our students, we have to trust that it will stay with them.  We can hope that they have future teachers who will grow it again. But we have to trust that the community build with our students will stay with all of us, even if we don't get to spend every day together.

We have to 
let them go, let them go
we can't hold onto them any more


yes, we did have a few Elsa's at school on Halloween


more thoughts ...







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