Kindergarten

Today in the library, Kindergarten students learned about Earth Day. We talked about why it is important to keep the earth healthy, and in what ways we can make a difference. We also shared Shel Silverstein’s classic story, The Giving Tree. Students created an Earth Day necklace to spread the message of green living in our community. We concluded with book browsing and checkout. Happy Reading!

We’ve had a wonderful time these last weeks.  The class is hard at work in so many different areas.  Read on!

Everyone has been practicing writing their first and last names, beginning with an upper case first letter and using lower case for the rest.  Our second short vowel – /i/ has been taught.  In addition, “Spaceman” has been introduced and many children are beginning to put spaces between words.  The children are also practicing writing using a sentence frame (all sentences begin with an uppercase letter and end with a piece of punctuation).  With the help of Kathy Clausen, Kindergarten now has a leveled library and the children are enjoying taking books out that they can read by themselves.  Literacy is alive and well in kindergarten!

In math, we’re practicing doubling numbers and writing these number sentences as well (1+1=2, 2+2=4, etc.).  Next week we’ll add number comparison and introduce the symbols > and < (greater than and lesser than).  Our current math manipulatives include dominoes, tangrams (pattern block puzzles), and attribute sets.

We’re learning about the  ocean and now have languid jellyfish and pinching crabs decorating our room.  Everyone has begun an ocean diorama – great excitement about this project!  We’ll continue to work on these next week.

In preparation for the Art Soiree Cinco de Mayo festival, Emily Bernard has taken on the monumental task of creating a paper-mache’ pinata with the class.  We’ve had three work sessions already, and there’s still more decorating to go!  The class has thoroughly enjoyed this.  Yesterday, Emily also planned a special Mexican celebration for the children.  We read several books on Mexican festivals and learned about the life and art of Frida Kahlo.  Emily also brought in Mexican music which played as we enjoyed eating cheese quesadillas, chips with salsa and guacamole, fresh mango and strawberries, and drinks of mango, peach, and guava juice.  We thank Emily again for all her work in making this project come alive for the children – it’s been great!

We ended this week with our final Lunch Bunch, courtesy of the Scribner, Slater, and Steven families.  All enjoyed the open-face pizza sandwiches, PB&J sandwiches, wonderful fruit salad, and very grown-up veggies and dip (with fresh asparagus being the surprise hit!)  For dessert we had scrumptious mini-cupcakes.  Thank you Lauren, David, and Sarah for coming in and preparing such a lovely lunch for us.  It was delicious!

Calendar items:

Please note that the Pizza Friday scheduled for 4/20 has been moved to 4/27.

This is the same day as the Spring Concert (1:50), and Kindergarten will be performing first.

Enjoy the long weekend!

Today in the library, Kindergarten met the Grandmas…Grandma Sal and Grandma Nan, that is. These two grandmas NEVER agree and they never seem to let their grandchildren get a word in edgewise. Emily Arnold McCully’s Grandmas

series is full of awkward situations and humorous resolutions. These books are part of the I Can Read Book series (Level 2) and are geared toward beginning readers in Grades 1-3. In library today we shared Grandmas at the Lake and Grandmas at Bat.

We concluded with bookbrowsing and checkout. Happy Reading!