10/22 Kindergarten Blog

Dear Kindergarten Families,

 

This week, we got creative with our greetings! We’ve gotten used to greeting each other individually in our Morning Meetings, but now we’ve added in fancy waves and movements to our greetings for friends to mirror back to us. We also learned a new alphabet song called “Alligators All Around.”

 

As part of our continued study of sharing about ourselves and learning about others, we had an interesting discussion about what Kindergarteners can do!  We made three lists, things that all Kindergartners can do (draw, play), things some Kindergarteners can do (read, ride a bike, do ballet), and things that no kindergartners can do (drive a car, cross the street alone). Children then drew a picture of something they are already good at and something they would like to get better at. We also talked about all the different ways that people can be smart.

 

In Phonics we studied three new names and letters: Leah, Heidi (the music teacher, and Kindergarten! Children are increasingly including this letter knowledge in their writing. Handwriting was coordinated with Phonics as we began our Starting Corner Capitals (letters that start in the top left corner but don’t include a frog-jump back to the corner), learning of letters: L, H, and K. The children’s handwriting is getting better and better with each letter we practice! 

 

In Writer’s Workshop we are wrapping up our first unit on information books, with students  going back to their favorite piece so far and working to make it stronger with the following steps on an early editing checklist: 

 

I added details to my pictures

I added letters

I made a cover

I practiced reading my book. 

 

In Reading we read the big book version of the Three Billy Goats Gruff and then took turns retelling the story. We also made puppets who will tell stories about themselves. This storytelling will support our new narrative writing unit as we begin to think about the importance of stories having a beginning, middle, and end and characters that we get to know. 

 

This week in Science, we learned all about touch, and generated a list of observation words we could use during our experiment like: soft, fuzzy, smooth, flexible, spiky, and many more. We explored materials with many different textures to help us generate this list. With our Secret Boxes (bins with fabric taped across the top with a small slit in the center), we took turns in pairs placing an object inside and having our partner guess the object.

 

In Hebrew, we are continuing with our colors by playing matching and guessing games. We are incorporating short phrases to talk about the colors we wear: “Ani lovesh(et) michnasa’im/chulzah/simlah b’tzevah ___” (“I am wearing pants/shirt/dress in the color ___”). Last week, we read a story called “Ma’asah b’chamisha balonim” about balloons in different colors, and this week we continued with it to create beautiful textile art using strings in different colors glued to paper to represent the different balloons. This helps the kids recognize the different colors using different sensory input. We just introduced “Eich at/atah margish(a) hayom?” (“How are you feeling today?”), answers include: tov, kacha-kacha, atsuv, and same’ach (good, so-so, sad, and happy).

 

In Judaic Studies, we reviewed the first and second days of Creation, and are moving onto the third day. We are learning a new song in Hebrew all about Creation, Ma Barah Hashem? In Tefilah, we do Modeh Ani, Matovu, and Sh’mah, and we always take the time to break down the meaning behind them and share our own interpretations. We learned the Parshat HaShavuah and did Kabbalat Shabbat.

 

Shabbat Shalom,

 

Atalya, Dawn, and Anat