Catching Up With Room 13

Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.

—Rainer Maria Rilke

After spending two days this week helping out in a kindergarten room with some special projects I have come to these conclusions

1. Kindergarten teachers deserve merit pay.

2. Do not expect children to be attentive for activities after lunch.   

3. Only glue sticks should be allowed in a kindergarten classroom-never glue in a bottle!

4. On any one activity there are always 24 different approaches and opinions.

5. It's rare this time of the year for studens to have a sharpened pencil with an eraser or more than a few crayons left in their school box.

Kindergartners are currently on a The Three Little Pigs unit. Their teacher is reading several different versions of the story and has planned many enrichment activities to coordinate with the story. Each student has been making their own The Three Little Pigs book. By my standards it was an ambitious activity. It required a lot of preplanning by the teacher with several days set aside to complete it. There were many steps to the book making; reading, writing, drawing, cutting, gluing and trying to follow all the teacher directions.

This was a very earnest group completing their books. 

On these three folded out pages they had to fill in the blank, glue, cut and draw. On the far left they had to glue on straw and here is where the project took a messy turn with over gluing, Big globs covered some of their paper. On the second fold they were to glue on sticks which were toothpicks. Oh my, the opinions on this part-some were emphatic teacher said only four sticks, some seven, some wanted to fill the whole page with glue and sticks!!    

And here on this back page it showed the wolf going down the chimney. Then there was more gluing, writing, cutting and drawing. But in the end the finished product was quite cute. They were all excited to read their book. I just hope when the book gets home someone sees it since each student put a lot of effort into making it. 

This is a Pinterest project for Mom. Students were really proud of their garden that bloomed just in time for Mother's Day. This project was spread out over several weeks since it required small cans (like tuna cans) to be brought in. Dirt and grass seed was planted in each can. They had fun watching their garden grow. Clothes pins were purchased to represent the fence. A room mother made flower picture buttons for each child for their garden.

Imagine being the mom to receive one of these gardens. 

Perhaps you can see why I suggest kindergarten teachers should get merit pay for their work.

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Chutney and Boursin Cheese Appetizer

Cook's notes: This is the perfect appetizer for the busy hostess who needs an appetizer but short on time. It can be assembled in less than 15 minutes

Ingredients;

• 1 jar chutney (I tested with Major Grey's Chutney)
• 1 container garlic and herbs Boursin
• toasted baguettes or crackers
• chives

Directions:

• On low heat warm up chutney
• Optional adding in 1 TB bourbon
• Spread Boursin cheese on bread or crackers
• Top with chutney
• Optional adding a halved grape tomato