Researching Kindergarten Meanness

After a long weekend, the Turtles went right back into investigating the origin of the meanness that has been occurring in the classroom.  Morning Meeting began with Tamara and Fran performing a puppet show about two friends who were faced with a major problem--Giraffe not letting Lion have a turn with the  kaleidoscope, so naturally Lion exchanged mean words such as "I'm not going to be your friend anymore!"  Instead of the puppets acting out the solution for the kids, they turned to the Turtles for help.  The Turtles came up with a variety of different approaches to solve the problem.  Some ideas included saying sorry or finding another friend to play with.  The solution that we all liked the best was getting a teacher for help and taking turns with the kaleidoscope!

Later on, Kathy and Beverly's Kindergarten class visited our classroom to talk about the meanness that they have been experiencing in their classroom and different ways to get rid of the meanness that has been taking control of the Turtle room.  We even performed different scenarios dealing with meanness and their solutions with puppets!  Some ideas that were shared included:

Aidan: Before...if someone does something you don't like, you can use your words.

Clancy: If someone hits you, you can talk with them and if it doesn't work, get a teacher.

Gabby: Some are using mean words and it hurts their feelings.

Calid: If they hit you, you use your words.

Kathy then presented us with a question that both the Kindergarten class and the Turtle class decided to investigate further! How can you solve the problem when two kids have different ideas of what happened? After studying this question more and gaining more research, the Turtles promised to write a letter to the Kindergarteners and meet again!

Other things we did this morning and for Inside-Outside day included:

Making a "Missing Cat" sign and thankfully the sign worked because we found the cat!

making patterns with our snack

making different letters with our new magnetic writing board

ice skating to the Nutcracker sound track

painting with water colors

racing around the playground playing police officers

pumping our legs to see how how we can go on the swings

And, finally we got ready for lunch by playing our letter mystery bag to see what table we sit at that day!  This is a new idea that the Turtles love because it gives each of the Turtles to sit with different friends everyday.