Week of May 6th

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

What an amazing "behind-the-scenes" tour we had at Miller Park led by Tom, Randy, and Mr. Werner!  We felt pretty cool coming in the entrance that the players take and heading underneath the stadium.  Our first stop was the players' locker room.  We learned what the players do to get ready for a game and looked at some of their equipment.  Holding a real bat was fun even with all the sticky pine tar.  We saw all the players' lockers filled with jerseys and cleats, and we tried to read all the names and numbers of the players.  In front of each locker was a duffle bag full of their equipment ready to go on the road trip to Cincinnati.  Mrs. Jeffers was particularly excited to have our picture taken in front of Ryan Braun's locker!  Next we headed through the tunnel to sit in the real dugout, and we were greeted with a huge surprise on the scoreboard - it said, "Welcome to University School of Milwaukee's Junior Kindergarten" - how cool!  We learned about the stadium, the roof, and how the grass is kept so green.  Standing near first base for a picture felt like we were part of the team!  Last stop was the bullpen where we got to touch real baseballs that are used for warming up the pitchers.  Just when we thought our tour was coming to an end, the Racing Sausages joined us for a photo.  It was a great morning, and we thank Andy and his dad for such a special trip!        

Mother's Day Surprises
Five-year-olds just love parties, so when the JK children got to plan the party for their moms, they were quite enthusiastic and had all sorts of ideas, of course!   We wrote great journal pages about what makes our mom so special, but we needed some large scale artwork to go along to make our big book.  We combined a math lesson about quantity and shapes, an outdoor lesson using our playground, and an art project with collected materials to make these very creative portraits of our moms.  It was a fun challenge to match the portraits to the real moms around the table at our party!

Hosting the Mother's Day Celebration

Each day we tackled an item on our "Party To-Do List" so that we would be ready for the big event.  We gathered our watercolor paintings and cans of fresh growing grass to be our placemats and centerpieces.  We cut and glued pretty craft paper on recycled bottles to make our flower vases, and Mrs. Jeffers offered some daffodils from her garden.  Mrs. Keppler shared colorful boxes that she had discovered in the Recycling Room, and we thought they were the perfect size to hold the sparkly heart pin that we made.  Room cleaned, table set, and the big day was here!  We hope all the moms enjoyed the party and the time with your precious JK child!  And as promised, here is one last Mother's Day present for you from my Grandma Swiatek's recipe box - enjoy!

Pumpkin Squares

2 c. flour                    1 t. vanilla

1 t. baking soda         1 c. oil

2 t. baking powder    2 c. canned pumpkin

1/2 t. salt                    4 eggs

1 2/3 c. sugar             

2 t. cinnamon

1/2 t. nutmeg

Frosting:

3 oz. softened cream cheese

6 T. softened butter

1 t. vanilla

2 c. powdered sugar

milk 

Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.  Add wet ingredients and stir until smooth.  Spread batter evenly in a greased jellyroll pan and bake for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees.  Cool completely.  Beat frosting ingredients adding enough milk to make it easily spreadable.  Spread frosting over cool bars.  Cut into squares.  Best kept covered in the refrigerator.