Kindergarten

Today in the library, students enjoyed one of my favorite books from my home library. Wacky Wednesday is a story told in rhyme about a day when all kinds of things go topsy-turvy. “It all began with a shoe on the wall. A shoe on the wall shouldn’t be there at all!” Theo LeSieg (aka Dr. Seuss) has filled each page with clever illustrations of tigers in baby strollers, chimneys that grow out of trees and legless people… and that is just the start! We enjoyed listening to the story and identifying all the “wackies” on each page of this book. Students concluded with book browsing and check out. Happy Reading!

This week saw the successful hatching of our butterflies!  We fed them for a day and then released them so they could begin their long journey to Mexico.  Our unit has ended with the completion of our butterfly life cycle posters, and each child did a fabuous job.  They’re on the bulletin board – come and take a look!

A monarch on its way!
(photo: Amy Hilliard)

 

Buen viaje, butterflies! Have a good trip!
(photo: Amy Hilliard)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our new unit is a study of the human body.  We start with the skeleton, learning the names of the major bones of the body, and move on to the major organs and their functions.  This month will be a mix of the factual and the fanciful, for as Halloween approaches we’ll start seeing more skeletons and other ghoulish creatures appear.  Sometimes these images are disturbing or scary to young children, and so we spend time exploring feelings this month as well.

Yesterday my 30-year-old daughter visited the school.  Monica is part of a dance and choreographic trio based in Minneapolis, and she and her two colleagues were in town doing research for their next project.  In the afternoon, they led a theater workshop with Amy Brentano’s 7th and 8th grade theater students, but in the morning, kindergarten got to enjoy a mini-workshop, too, where they got to enact the life cycle of a butterfly, and move like other animals, too – grasshoppers, lizards, elephants and giraffes!  The class had a great time.

Grasshoppers!

Chrysalises at rest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lumbering elephants

We had fun moving! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In math, we continue to work on identifying and extending patterns.  This week we got pretty complex – ABBC, ABCCC, ABAC.  The class is doing a terrific job!

BCD has started a school-wide drive to collect fleece outerwear that will be donated to a girls school in Nepal.  If your child has any fleece that they’ve outgrown or no longer wear that is clean and in good used condition, please send it in.  Donations will be accepted until Tuesday, Nov.  26.  Thank you!

Have a great weekend!

Andrea

Wow, the last two weeks have been full of activity.  Last week, along with Preschool and Grade 1, we went on our first school trip.  At Windy Hill Orchard, we hiked up a big hill, saw a cider press, and picked lots and lots of apples.  We’ve made delicious applesauce and today we made a graph by tasting three different kinds of apples (red, yellow, green) and then describing how they tasted, sounded, smelled, and felt in our mouths.  Each student then chose their favorite and graphed their answer (yellow was the class favorite).  We will continue to do apple activities until all the apples are used up.

Yesterday I read a book called Apple Picking Time, which gently tells the story of a little girl whose family are migrant workers.  All must pitch in during the apple harvest.  This brought up a lot of questions and a great class discussion followed, which included lengthy talk on what people need to live, as opposed to what people want, what life was like for that little girl who couldn’t go to school because she had to help her family earn money, and what we as a class could do to help anybody who might be struggling to earn enough to cover their needs.  When I described Open Table, and how every Thursday people prepare a free meal in Stockbridge, the children immediately agreed that we too could give them food.  So yesterday we baked a dessert and sent it off with cards and pictures that the children made – “We hope you enjoy our cookies!”  Have a happy Fall!”  I am anticipating that we will bake for them every month.

Our second trip, this past Tuesday, was to Project Native’s Butterfly House in Housatonic.  We went on a “Bug Safari,” observed the nest of a paper wasp, found a lot of wooly bears, danced and wriggled to songs about insects, and then spent some time in the Butterfly House itself, where we saw several different native caterpillars, observed three or four different kinds of chrysalis, and saw several butterflies.   A big “thank you” to Samantha Halley for meeting us there as our chaperone.   The weather was beautiful and we all had a great time!

Last week, on International Peace Day, the kindergartners did a wonderful job singing and then adding sign language to a song called “Peace Is the World Smiling.”  Ask your child to sing and sign it for you!

In math, we’ve begun our Pattern Books.  Using unifix cubes the children first create and then record AB patterns.  As the unit progresses, they will also practice AAB, ABC, AABB, ABCD patterns.  It can get pretty complicated and the class usually loves it.

Creating patterns

and recording them

as accurately as possible!