The First Week - whoah.....

At HBW, we do the typical phase in schedle that most schools do for Kindergarten.  There were 3 days where we focused on Chester and The Kissing Hand, 3 days where we hunted throughout the school for 'escaped' letters from Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and our final two half days will be filled with Brown Bear, Brown Bear activities.

The Kissing Hand

Love this idea!  After creating our own 'Kissing Hand', each child drew a family portrait.  The child will take their creations home and retell the story to them.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom! 

After reading Shiver Me Letters to my little Caroline this summer, I came up with the idea to do a letter hunt around the school.  I have to say, this is the BEST back to school activity I've ever done.  Pirate Jack (aka Mr. Josh Cooper, my husband) sent all of our kindergarten classes URGENT SECRET MESSAGES. Our secretary, Ms. Sherry,  called down to the room and said that we needed to rush to the office to retrieve the message (we just finished reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom to the students).  Attached to the letter was a Flip camera message from Pirate Jack.  (My husband is such a trooper with his Disney Pirate Hat!)

The letter and video explained that the letters had just escaped from Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Island. It was our job to retrieve them and send back word to Pirate Jack.  If we didn't help find all the letters throughout the building, he might be fed to the crocodiles by his captain!

Mrs. Orndorff let everyone visit the inside of her office.  She just knew we could find all of the letters before Jack was fed to the crocodiles!

Mrs. Grissom explained everything that goes on in the office.

This is just 1/3 of each of our 3 classes together.  We are averaging at around 17 right now.  

When we came back we made our own pirate hats.

After going outside, we came in for a quick snack.  LOVE these letter cookies from Kroger.  They held up the letters as we retold the story and sang our ABCs.

This is our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Tree outside of our room.  Super easy to make and oh so cute next to our displayed work.