Katie's School Projects

Kindergarten has been a wonderful experience for Katie, just as it was for Madeline. She has made many friends, been chased by the "mean" boys on the playground, become a voracious reader and a confident writer, and developed what I hope is a life-long love of learning.

This spring, after the field trip to the Wildlife Zoo, which was an obvious highlight, there have been many exciting activities in the classroom.

They brought in an incubator full of eggs and began a countdown on the board: 21 Days to Hatching. In the meantime, the kids had to guess what would come out of those eggs. They did art projects and journal entries with their guesses. They read books with myriad possibilities. It was very exciting!


Finally, the eggs hatched and little chicks made their entrance.

The kids were able to hold them a couple of days before they were returned to the poultry farm from which they had been borrowed.

Each class worked on a series of plays, as well. They were small, short plays with up to 6 students and everyone was involved. Katie was Mother Duck in one and a Narrator in another.

The parents were invited to watch the final "performance" in the classroom. The kids used microphones and read from their scripts.

You can see that Katie was quite pleased with herself.

Somehow I didn't get the paperwork the teacher sent home originally about the bug project. I happened to read in a weekly email from the teacher that their 3-D models and reports were due that Thursday and I freaked out a little. It was a busy week, and I had no idea what she was talking about!

She was able to get me another copy of the paperwork on Tuesday, and we quickly bought some modeling clay to make a Katydid, at Katie's request. We filled out the questions on the report after doing some internet research, and Katie memorized some facts. She was particularly interested in the following:

• Albino katydids are actually hot pink.


• People in Africa eat katydids. (They can be up to 6 inches long there!)


• They have ears on their legs.


• Some of them are carnivorous, eating snakes, lizards, and other insects.

She did a great job on her report and now proudly displays the katydid (which we fired in the oven to harden it) on her dresser top in her room.