Adults and Books we LOVE!

It's been another BUSY week here in the Learning Garden! Our intern, Mr. Mihajlovic, joined us Monday through Wednesday. He worked with some small groups. The kids are enjoying having yet another adult in the room. On Tuesday, we were really rocking and rolling as Mr. M. and Grandma and Grandpa Nations came in to work with us!

Here are some of the kids playing an alphabet mitten game with Mr. M.

And speaking of people we LOVE coming to see us....Chitra and Lindsey are back!  We are preparing to complete a FUN mural project here at Southside this semester.  The artists are working with the kids on filling space and adding details to their art work.

You can see we are also learning to work on something that is "tile sized" so that we can get "dimensions" in our pictures.

And, just as important to our Learning Garden FUN are you wonderful parents!  The "Mystery Readers" are back...Here's our first Mystery Reader of 2012 coming in to share a VERY FUN book with us.

This book is called "Finklehopper Frog" by Irene Livingston and it is a FUN read with a great message about being kind to others and understanding differences.  I'll be looking for it REAL soon on "half.com" (my favorite online bookstore).  

The sweet audience enjoyed every moment of this story as much as their teacher.

Here are some of the sweet illustrations. 

And speaking of great books...we read another "new favorite read" of mine this week called "One Winter's Day"...also a book of kindness and friendship.  I love this one too because it has a TON of great vocabulary in it and blends so nicely with our Storytown series this week.  We decided to try our hand at a new activity...making B,M,E flip books.  These kids did a GREAT job illustrating (and writing about) the beginning, middle and end of this story.  

Can you see how this artist depicted the wind in the first illustration?  I love how they are mimicking what they see in other illustrations!  

Here's the front cover of the flip books:  

And check out some of the others:

I love this one "Woo" (for the blustery wind) then "We need help" for the friends who needed to get out of the storm.  And "home' for the home the animals built for hedgehog because he showed so much kindness.

And this one:  "He is blowing away" (B), "He is giving the mice his hat" (M) and "Badger is showing the hedgehog the house." (E).