Willy Nilly Weather

Lands, that ol' saying, "If you don't like the weather in the Ohio Valley, stick around it will change."
Boy, will it ever!  Today is seventy, but by midnight it supposed to get wild and wooly and by the end of the week, back to 20.  Oh, my poor head.
This week at school is about like the weather.  Nationally, it is Catholic School's Week.  Our principal requested we take our service out into the community.  If you haven't ever tried it, I'll warn you- it is difficult to find a place willing to let 22 children come and "serve" for a whole morning.  My wee Bugg had been bugging me about a visit to her class. That sparked an idea!  In support of literacy, we could be pen pals with her class.  I'm blessed to be friends with her teacher and she agreed.  I knew Bugg was beginning writing, such a challenge for some kindergarten kiddos.  I am a big believer in writing for an authentic reason and prompt writing is something I only do during testing prep.  So we started to write back and forth.
Next we prepared for our visit.  My kids made the little ones a bunny adventure book to put a story in.  Then they made several sets of storytelling cubes for the class.  We took a big stack of bunny books.
I taught my kids to sign "This Land is Your Land" for Veteran's Day and Bugg learned that for their celebration as well, so we prepared to sing it with our pen pals.
So, in our lime green Fiesta shirts, we boarded the bus for another school.
First we sang, then I read Knuffle Bunny to the class.  After the book, my kiddos helped their pen pals create a storytelling manipulative to retell the story. Together they colored and cut out laundry and a knuffle bunny to put in the washing machine, on which the door opened.  There was a pocket in the back to store the items.

 Then we accompanied our pals to lunch.
After lunch we continued the bunny theme with four centers.  In the center below, the student's chose a bunny book and their pals read to them.

This was the Bunny Tale Adventure, where my kiddos helped their pals write a story of a pretend bunny of their own. Bugg's buddy Livvie, is writing down her ideas. 

 My kids had stamped wooden blocks.  Together they rolled the blocks, then made up a story using that pictures that came up on top.

A special vistor made an appearance in the last center.  Bugg wanted Mr. Merry to visit.  Each little one who wanted to patted the bunny and learned about bunny behavior.  We made a list of words that described our fluff ball.

Lastly, we shared a cookie- a bunny one of course, and a juice box and bid goodbye to our pals.  When we returned to class, my kids wrote a note about the day to their pal. It was sweet how the letters changed after actually meeting and spending the morning together.
I have so many adorable pictures, but I don't show faces of other kidlets on the blog, especially ones who don't even know me.
An exhausted teacher/Gramerly, a happy Bugg!