I spent the end of January and half of February reading James Dean and Eric Litwin’s Pete the Cat books, singing Pete the Cat songs, and making Pete the Cat pictures with the kindergarteners. I love the Pete the Cat!!!
Tag: kindergarten
Here are some of this year’s crop of Pigeon drawings! I think I have done this activity every year since I became a librarian.
It’s that time of year again, that most joyous of seasons, when I start my Mo Willems author study with the kindergarten classes! We started today with the Pigeon books, and I am pretty elated.
Mo Willems Season doesn’t fall on the calendar at the same time every year, but every Mo Willems Season is like Second Christmas to me. Everyone seems a little nicer during Mo Willems Season; a little wittier, a little more delightfully absurd. There’s an extra spring in my step the week I teach the kids how to draw The Pigeon. I am almost deliriously cheerful the week a new crop of kindergartners is introduced to Reginald Von Hoobie-Doobie. And I always need to take a moment to collect myself during Knuffle Bunny Week, when Knuffle is passed on to the next generation. Elephant and Piggie, Cat the Cat, Leonardo, Amanda, Goldilocks. This year I have decided to extend the festivities into June.
What makes this year’s Mo Willems Season even more awesome is the fact that April is the 10th anniversary of the publication of Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, Mr. Willems’ first book. I know I’m down to the wire here with one day of April left, but I am still celebrating the start of the festive season during anniversary month. And there are some pretty great ways for anyone to be celebrating the big anniversary.
Like this new anniversary set, with smaller editions of 3 Pigeon books in their own bus box:
Disney Hyperion
We’ve had quite a rash of snowstorms since the new year, with none of them turning into snow days. Which is just as well, since a snow day at this point will mean a longer school year in June–we’re still making up days from Sandy. But, I still have winter snow fever. So a few weeks ago I read these two stories to my kindergarten and Multiply Disabled classes:
It’s February 1st, a month and a day from the start of my maternity leave. And things at school have kicked into high gear since New Year’s while I wind down my school year and try to fit everything in with the kids before I go. I’ll be back for 2 weeks in June, but really this is my end-of-year in a lot of ways.
Yes, it’s been more than a week since I’ve posted anything. The holidays are snowing me under a little bit, I’m still in denial that Christmas is a week away. And it’s not that I don’t have a ton of stuff to post, it’s that I’ve just been running on full holiday steam since Thanksgiving.
And I was so calm, it was great.
A lot of my bulletin boards and displays still needed to be finished, and since I can no longer easily/safely scramble on top of my bookcases like I normally would, I saved them for this week so the older kids could help. They’re so helpful, I love it. The 3rd and 4th grade classes took my “Spotlight On” bulletin board from this:
To this:
I can’t believe the end of March is finally coming this week. It’s always such a long month, but it’s also a great time with my students, knee-deep in library projects. Here’s what’s been happening in library class this month:
My special needs classes have been reading Dr. Seuss stories, and we made these Horton ears last week.
This week in kindergarten library classes we’re illustrating our “If You…” circle stories. As I’ve said before, I adore this unit. This year we’ve written “If You Give a Ladybug Some Pasta,” “If You Give a Cow a Wig,” “If You Take a Bear to DisneyWorld,” and “If You Take a Wolf to the Library.”
I love Laura Numeroff time. This unit with the kindergarteners is one of my favorites. We read all the If You… books, then we author our own story. This is one we wrote together in class last week. Next week we’ll illustrate it.