Rockin' Out with Jack Hartmann and Up and Away with Balloons!

Not because I had to come back from Spring Break today necessarily, but we had some exciting things happen in our classroom today!! Of course, learning everyday is exciting; but it is not everyday that Jack Hartmann comes to your school to sing and dance with you!  Our kids (K-2) had such a great time singing and dancing with him. 

Getting ready to sing the Hip Hop Tooty Ta Song! You MUST do this dance with your class. We always do this dance with some soul and funk in it! They LOVE it! Click here to watch it!

Even some of our teachers got into it!!! 

Look who I see! Leigh, The Applicious Teacher, got called up on stage to do the Chicken Count! How fun! 

He really puts on a great show and our kids were up and dancing. He was even nice enough to take some pictures with us! 

Please visit Jack on his website or youtube channel and see all the great songs he has for kids! I really love his math and movement songs. I did see that he has one for science! Super exited to get that one!

Today was also a gorgeous Florida day! Of course it was because we are back from Spring Break (last week when I was on break it was cold and rainy!) and a great day to start my creative writing project for:

I took a writing workshop with Melissa Forney once and one thing (of the many wonderful things she shared with us about writing!) that I really came away with from her and writing with young students is that they need to draw on their experiences. Sometimes we ask kids to write about somethings and they simply can't because they've never done that before! How can you write about a trip to the beach if you've never been there?? Good point, right? So, in her workshop she discussed making a shared experience with young writers to help them in their writing process. So, I came up with this project that I shared with you in a previous post! 

I took some Mylar balloons from the Dollar Tree (the regular rubbery ones don't work as well and don't last is the best way I can describe it) and I tied a small note to the ribbon. If you downloaded the note, please re-download as the balloons I used before were huge and the ones I used this time around were smaller. Use what works for you. Click on the picture to grab it! 

Now, LOOK at all these excited faces after I told them what we were going to do. They each got to hold part of their string as we walked out into the courtyard. They were the cutest "Balloon Gang" ever! Their faces just say it all! Love them! 

I spaced them out in the courtyard and had them huddle around their balloon. They said a little wish for their balloon and on the count of three we LET.THEM.GO!

Going! Going! Going!!!

So, now we wait and see if someone finds them. One year, another teacher did get a response from an airport 30 minutes from where we live. It was found on the tarmac. Pretty cool that it traveled that far. It was totally cool. Now we will be working on the creative part. We've shared an experience and hopefully now, we can write all about it! 

Where did our balloon go?

Who found it?

What did they do with our balloon?

I cannot wait to see their thought processes! We will be writing our final drawings on balloon papers. I really do not have a tracer but you get the idea! I will attach a string to the bottom and have them floating in our room to display them! 

I'll keep you posted throughout the week!