Mini Ms. Widmayer

While we are not together in school, I saw a way for us to still have fun together at home! Based on the Flat Stanley story, about a boy who was flattened by a bulletin board and able to mail himself around the world, I thought I could mail a “mini me” to my friends at home and they could share adventures with me. It’s been so fun to see and hear of all the things my friends have been doing at home! Here are the many adventures we had together:

 

I’m

 

If you’d like to hear the Flat Stanley story, you can see it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkO_qyas7a0

Persistence

The word of the month for April has been persistence, sticking with something even if it’s difficult.  Wow- has that been an appropriate word for this month! We are all learning new ways to be able to socialize and take care of each other this month. I have been so impressed with all of the teachers, children and families willingness to try new programs and new ways to learn at home together. We talk about always trying your best first, and then asking for help if you really need it. It’s okay for something to be hard. We have all worked through some hard things this past month, and our accomplishments have been great.  Along with persistence, this is a great time to talk about encouragement, cheering a family member or friend on. With some kind words, we can all go a long way. At this time in our lives, it is good to be supportive and patient with each other, encouraging all the hard things that we are trying together.

Here is a great story about be persistent, and getting some encouragement along the way, Eric Carle’s The Very Clumsy Click Beetle:

 

 

And, if you want to learn a little more about a click beetle:

Be persistent!

 

51OsXr4lEOL._SY498_BO1,204,203,200_Some More Great Read Alouds:

The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires

The girl has a wonderful idea! She is going to make the most MAGNIFICENT thing! She knows just how it will look. She knows just how it will work. All she has to do is make it, and she makes things all the time. Easy-peasy!? But making her magnificent thing is anything but easy, and the girl tries and fails, repeatedly. Eventually, the girl gets really, really mad. She is so mad, in fact, that she quits. But after her dog convinces her to take a walk, she comes back to her project with renewed enthusiasm and manages to get it just right.

51sUS8DRPNL._AA160_A Visitor For Bear by Bonny Becker 51Toev2LdeL._AA160_ Leo the Lightening Bug by Eric Drachman 61fRWciFWeL._AA160_Try and Stick With It by Cheri J. Meiners

51ZwFo-k6HL._SY498_BO1,204,203,200_

Flight School by Lita Judge

 

51mMUMg8ZuL._AA160_

Long Shot: Never to Small to Dream Big

by Paul Chris

51BI6F3MRlL._AA160_Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus

by Mo Willems

417QHP8L27L._SX349_BO1,204,203,200_Stuck by Oliver Jeffers

41seC7wWPSL._AA160_The Very Busy Spider written and illustrated by Eric Carle

51+64oZqdFL._AA160_I Knew You Could! A Book For All The Stops In Your Life by Craig Dorfman

Below is a fun little animation that illustrates persistence!

Birds and Bird Watching

What makes a bird a bird?

Is it the pretty colors?
No – other animals, like fish and insects, come in all sorts of beautiful colors too.

Is it the bill or beak?
No – other animals, like turtles have beaks.

Is it the eggs?
No – other animals, like fish, amphibians, reptiles, insects and even some mammals,
hatch from eggs

Is it the wings?
No – other animals, like insects and some mammals, have wings.

What is it?
Feathers! All birds have feathers and birds are the only animals that do!

You can learn more about bird feathers by clicking here.

You can learn more about birds in these videos:

Go on a feather hunt:

Who does that feather belong to?

Who does that feather belong to?

Finding a feather is a wonderful treat. So why not try this search for birds’ feathers activity and find a natural treasure in your own backyard?

Grab a paper lunch sack, slip on your sneakers, and head outside.

What You’ll Need:

  • Brown paper lunch bag
  • Gardening gloves (optional)
  • Walking stick
  • Spiral notebook
  • Tape
  • Markers

Keep your eyes peeled. Remember that feathers are light and easily caught by the wind, so carefully use your gloves and walking stick to rummage through piles of natural debris blown against large stones or fallen logs.

When you find your feathers, slip them into your paper bag for safekeeping until you get home. Once you do, ask your parents or adult neighbors if they can help you identify what bird lost each feather.

Use library books or the Internet to find pictures of the birds. Tape the feathers inside a spiral notebook and make a few notes about what secrets

each one revealed.

Be sure to wash your hands with soap and warm water whenever you handle wild feathers of any kind. Feathers can carry germs.

Be a bird watcher!

(From the January/February 2020 issue of BirdWatching magazine)

Keep in mind is that if a child has an innate interest in birds, that interest can be nurtured, and if a child isn’t currently interested, an interest can, in many cases, be sparked. And there are a lot of good reasons for wanting to share the world of birds with children.

First of all, a love of birds gets kids outdoors, and that’s a good place for kids (and adults) to be. Studies show that spending time in nature is beneficial to both our physical and mental health. Among other things, it improves blood pressure, helps lift depression, decreases the risk of cancer, reduces stress, and boosts short-term memory. Ample, unstructured time outdoors provides kids with the opportunity to experiment with activities such as climbing trees and jumping over streams, and this gives them increased confidence, creative problem-solving skills, gross motor skills, and flexibility. A “wild child” has a greater ability to concentrate and, in short, has an academic edge.

Indeed, an interest in birds can be a child’s first step to falling in love with biology and the other sciences. We were, in a sense, all born scientists. That is, babies and toddlers are constantly experimenting and observing in order to figure out how the world works. They throw their toys to see if they will always fall; they mix their milk with their beef stew to see how the consistency and colors change; and they constantly test our boundaries. Of course, much of this is what we generally call “bad behavior,” and we naturally try to curb it. But the trick is keeping our children’s innate scientific interests alive by channeling the impulses rather than squashing them. Exactly how we go about doing this is somewhat individual. It depends on who we are; it depends on who our kids are. Yet there are some pointers we can keep in mind.

For starters, really engage with a child’s questions: How do birds fly? What do crows eat? Are those robins fighting or playing? Don’t be afraid to say you don’t know, but show them how to find the answers to their questions in books, on the Internet, or by observing. Matching games are another possibility. For example, you could gather images of various types of birds plus images of their eggs, nests, and/or the environments where they live. Then ask the child to match them up. Matching adult birds with their newly hatched young is particularly fun since — I think we can all agree — baby birds are quite funny looking.

Now, consider a birdwatcher’s most important tool: binoculars. When you give a child a pair, she’ll follow your lead finding nests or observing how different types of birds have different flight patterns. But then it’s just a matter of time before she trains her binoculars on the moon and begins to discover the wonders of astronomy. So, in that same vein, consider the gift of a microscope for an upcoming birthday. In magnifying feathers and eggshells, children get a whole other view of birds, and then they can marvel at seeing other things up close, too — maple leaves, onion skins, swamp water, and more. By the time your kids use microscopes in biology class, they’ll be pros.

Another reason to want to share the joy of birds with children is because, right now, the world needs green-thinking like never before, and a love of birds will spontaneously spill over into a desire to protect the wild spaces that birds live in. Children have such a good sense of what’s fair and right. Educate them about how their actions have an impact and empower them to make positive changes. Show your kids how human activity threatens birds, and they’ll want to know what they can do to help. Make it clear to children that if they get too close to a nest, the parent birds might abandon it. Tell them that if they give birds seeds that aren’t fresh, they could make the birds sick. And show them how they can keep birds from crashing into windows by putting decals, BirdTape, or other patterns on the glass.

Really little kids like seeing birds that are numerous and easy to find, such as gulls at the beach, pigeons at your local city monument, or chickadees in parks where they might land on your hand for a few seeds. Ducks are another easy-to-spot option for small children, but don’t give into the temptation to feed waterfowl bread — let alone pretzels or chips! (Among other reasons, it encourages the formation of flocks that are too large, and health concerns arise when crowded birds defecate where they feed.)

Older kids enjoy more challenging “bird hunts.” When you go birdwatching with kids, show them that it’s like being a detective or a ninja. To not scare away the birds, you have to move through the forest or meadow stealthily. So, how quiet can you be? Can you creep across the forest floor? Can you use gestures to communicate with each other silently? It’s also helpful if you wear clothes that camouflage you, and you get to use binoculars or a spotting scope. Birdwatching is an exciting adventure!

Serious birders usually keep lists of the birds that they see, and youngsters can do something similar. That is, they can keep a scrapbook where they write down where and when they see different species, add drawings or photos of the birds, or write poems and stories about them. Encourage creativity. Kids, in fact, don’t need to limit their scrapbook to birds they’ve actually seen. They should, instead, feel free to include material about birds that they’d like to see but haven’t yet — maybe a Blue-footed Booby or a King Penguin. Kids can even include material about imaginary birds. Maybe your child dreams of a parrot-ostrich-hummingbird mashup. Get him to draw a picture and stick it in his scrapbook. He’ll particularly love it if you sit down with him and also draw your own crazy avian creations.

Building or decorating a bird feeder is another great project for crafty kids. Around my house, we have lots of feeders and bird houses.We like to see how the birds (and squirrels) are making use of it all. If you do have a backyard, you and your little ones can hang your feeder there, and then your whole family can enjoy seeing cardinals or finches out the kitchen window. Having a backyard bird feeder helps make birds a part of the fabric of your family life.

Tips for bird watching with kids:

  • Keep your cats inside – According to Science News, domestic cats in the United States kill more than a billion birds each year. If you are going to attract birds to your yard with feeders, please keep your cats inside.
  • Create a bird-friendly habitat – Bird feeders are a great way to attract birds to your yard. You can also plant shrubs and trees to provide food and nesting sites and provide a source of water (a birdbath, pond, or fountain) for your visitors. You can even turn your yard or garden into a certified wildlife habitat with the National Wildlife Federation.
  • Play backyard bird bingo – Once your kids can identify the birds that frequent your feeders, you can create a bird bingo game to play over breakfast. Print out pictures of the birds you are most likely to see in your yard, and glue them to a bingo card divided into nine or 16 squares, or you can use the ones here- Bird-Bingo Whenever your kids spot a bird, they can put a penny on the square with the matching photo.
  • Build a birdhouse – A birdhouse is a great way to attract nesting birds to your yard. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to watch bird parents hatch eggs and raise their young. Bluebirds, wrens, chickadees, and titmice will often build nests inside birdhouses. Here’s an easy birdhouse tutorial that kids can build with adult supervision.
  • Join the Great Backyard Bird Count – Participating in a citizen science project is such a great way to put what you’ve been learning to good use. Spend a week in February counting birds in your backyard, and submit your findings via eBird. More than 160,000 people around the world take part in the Great Backyard Bird Count each year.

Visit a zoo

You may not be able to really go visit a zoo right now, but many zoos are open using the internet!  Today might be a good day to explore and learn something new.

 

The San Diego zoo is in California.  You would have to travel for a long time to get there, but you can visit them by clicking the picture below.

You can also visit the National Aquarium, which is in Maryland.
BaltimoreNationalAquarium.JPG

And you can always look at live animal cams- become experts by observing different animals.  Have fun exploring animals!

Monterey Bay Aquarium

San Diego Zoo

Animal Cams- Earth Cams

Smithsonian National Zoo

Explore Cams

A favorite character- Olivia

Olivia is a pig who is very good at lots of things. She can sing 40 very loud songs and is very good at wearing people out. And scaring the living daylights out of her little brother, Ian, particularly when he copies her every move. Olivia might remind you of yourself when you read her stories. You can meet Olivia below.

 

Olivia is in many stories!  In this one, she learns about eavesdropping, or secretly listening to others.

 

 

And in this story, Olivia hears there will be fireworks, but can’t understand why there won’t be a band.  How can there be fireworks without a band?!?

 

 

 

Enjoy listening to these stories and if you’d like to make a book about a pig, you can get one to make by clicking below:

GK-Olivia-Easy

 

Exploring animals from home

When we were still in school, we were learning about and writing “All About” books. Many children had chosen to write about favorite animals, and I was thinking that this may be a good time to learn about animals and write some “All About” books while we are at home. One animal that kindergartners love to read and learn about is penguins! I had seen this story about the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago that had some rock hopper penguins go on field trips in the aquarium. These penguins are so cute!

I wanted to find out more about these penguins, so I started doing some research.  Did you know there are many kinds of penguins?  These are Rockhopper penguins.  The Rockhopper penguins have bright yellow feather tufts that look like eyebrows on their heads.  Their most unusual trait is their ability to hop from rock to rock to their nesting places. They keep both feet together when hopping. by hopping this way, they are able to hop up to four or five feet!  They have red eyes and pink legs and feet.  They are amazing swimmers with powerful flippers and webbed feet to help them in the water.  They mostly eat krill, a small ocean animal, and small fish.  Rockhopper penguins can be at sea for days at a time while hunting and they catch their food by diving deep into the water for minutes at a time.

rockhopper penguinRockhopper Penguin

What is your favorite kind of penguin?  You can learn about different penguins using the links below.  Write an “All About” book telling about your favorite.  Be sure to have an interesting cover that tells what your book is about, 1-3 facts that teaches about your topic, pictures with labels that teach the reader, and expert words that you can teach the reader even more.  Scan or take a picture of your book to and send to me.  I can’t wait to see what you write and draw about!  Then keep scrolling to see more fun animal activities you can do at home.

You can go to Scholastic Let’s Find Out

and log in as a student using the classroom password “veryfan1065” and then search for penguins.  There are lots of activities and videos, as well as many other topics you can check out!

Gentoo Penguins

Adelie Penguins

Humboldt Penguins

Emperor Penguins

 

 

Explore books about penguins:

 

Live animal cams- become experts by observing different animals.  What do you notice? What is something new you learned?

Monterey Bay Aquarium

San Diego Zoo

Animal Cams- Earth Cams

Smithsonian National Zoo

Explore Cams

Go on a penguin yoga adventure:

 

More penguin games and activities

What to do while at home from school

Its been very hard to not be able to go to school and see all of my kindergarten friends.  But there are many ways that you can still have fun at home with your families.  Here are some of my favorites:

Start your day with a song! Our song of the month is Shake it Off, as we are learning about being flexible (now more than ever!)

 

Play a game! Board games are great, but if you don’t have any games at home, you can learn and play a game with just cards or dice.   If you have a deck of cards or some dice, there are lots of games you can play that are fun to play, and a great way to practice so many math skills.  Here are some links that will teach many different games:

12 Card Games to teach kids

Dice games for kids

Make up your own game! Send me a picture or a video of the game.

 

Read LOTS of books!  I have my stack of books ready to go! You can also find many books online to read to you!  Many authors are also reading their books online right now.

Here are a few of my favorite stories:

And check out this list below.  How many have you read or heard?

100 great read alouds

Paint, draw, create some art!  Inside or outside!  I would love to see what you make!  You can also go on a virtual field trip to many museums all around the world and see some famous pieces of art.  The Musee D’Orsay in Paris is one of my favorite museums in one of my favorite cities.  It houses many pieces by Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet, my favorite painters.  You can go on a tour with the link below:

Musee D’Orsay

You can tour the Louvre, the British MuseumVan Gogh Museum, and many others if you have the Google Arts and Culture app.

Or just do some doodling with a favorite author/illustrator, Mo Willems on YouTube.  Be sure to show me your doodles.

 

Go outside!  Go on a nature scavenger hunt.  Oftentimes in a scavenger hunt, objects are hidden throughout the search area and the children then search out these items. However, instead of looking for pre-hidden objects, children can look for plants, animals, and objects found in nature.  Find a spider web, a piece of bark, signs of spring.  Write or draw what you find.

Collect art supplies!  Not only could children look around their surroundings for artistic inspiration, they could collect objects to be included in a piece of art. There are a lot of approaches to this and it depends on what is available in your area. You could collect pieces of bark, dried leaves or flowers to make a sculpture, or even collect sticks to build something with, such as a birdhouse.

Identify plants and animals.  One of the best things to do on a nature walk is to simply observe what nature has to offer. But with the growing prevalence of devices and interactive science apps, there’s a lot more you can do. For example, with an app such as iNaturalist, kids can record, catalog and share what they have found. The app also facilitates connection with thousands of scientists to help users identify the species they have observed.

Collect seeds.  Get kids to gather a collection of seeds from a wooded area. They can drag an old blanket or fuzzy cloth behind them on the ground. They can place a large, old, wool sock over hands or shoes to see what they can pick up. Or they can wear bracelets made of masking tape (sticky side out), to hold the seeds they find. Have children examine their seed collections and invent a system for sorting or classifying them. Explain that plants have developed many different methods of seed dispersal, to ensure the success of their species.

Have a picnic.  Having a snack or meal is a great way to take a break while you’re exploring the outdoors. Use the opportunity to enjoy some bird watching or talk with your children about what they have seen and learned. Or if they have taken photos, be sure to share them with me.

Do some gardening.  As the weather warms up, you can clean out some flower beds and get ready for planting.  Look for worms.  Plant and grow your own vegetables.  Plant a tree.  Plant a rainbow!

 

Get some exercise!  Go for a run (I am making sure to go for a run or a walk every day).  Take your dog for a walk.  Dance!  Here are some of our favorite songs to move to:

 

Do some yoga:

Cosmic Kids has some great and kid friendly yoga and mindfulness sessions on YouTube.

And, most of all, know that we miss seeing all of you! Wash your hands and stay healthy!

Welcome to Kindergarten!

Welcome to Kindergarten! I am so happy to be starting a new year with a fantastic group of new friends! We will have so much fun together this year, learning and growing together. The most important thing we are learning right now is to try everything! We begin each day with a song that inspires us for the month. This month we are learning to try everything, because you never know what you might find out. It’s okay for things to be easy or to be hard- just try!

And to help my new friends learn something new, here is a life changing video that will teach how to tie shoes!

Here is some more information regarding our kindergarten program:
Kindergarten Presentation

I am looking forward to a terrific year together!