10/8 Kindergarten Blog

Dear Kindergarten Families,

Our fourth week in, and it was finally a full week of school! The children had their first music class, we continued with our Morning Meeting singing and getting to know each other, and are growing more and more accustomed to school!

In Writer’s Workshop we continued working on information books. It has been exciting to see children begin to add letters to their work, usually labeling items that they have drawn with their first letter of the item.  They are also beginning to add more details to their pictures.  As mentor texts we read Where Do Animals Live, What Animal Has These Feet? and How Crayons are Made.

In Phonics we introduced three new names, Penny, Rumi, and Baby Beluga!  Since we don’t have anyone in the class with a name that starts with B we went to our favorite little white whale.  Children continue to count the letters in the name, count the beats, look for repeating letters, and generate a list of words that also start with that letter.  Children are developing a bank of letters to use in their writing.

In Reading we talked about the fact that readers read books carefully, studying the cover to determine what the book is about and then looking carefully at each page different information books to determine what the book is teaching us about. Children began reading their own copies of Mrs. Wishy Washy.

In Math we worked with the numbers 6-10, carefully counting objects and recording how many there were. We played a BINGO game matching different arrangements of dots, tally marks, fingers with the correct number.  We had our first count around, as a group and with support counting up to 70.  And in Morning Meeting we introduced the calendar, pointing out the new month, the day of the week, and the year. 

In Handwriting, we learned how to make P, B and R, and practiced all of our letters we’ve learned to write so far: F, E, D, P, B, and R. We worked on starting at the top in the starting corner and taking the time to practice clean straight lines.

In Science this week, we asked the question “What materials are waterproof?” in order to design the best rain jacket. We placed small squares of four different materials onto paper and placed a few droplets of water on each to see which materials absorbed the water and which materials didn’t. In our discussion about our observations, children shared their ideas for other materials that might work as rain jacket material. Maybe this weekend you and your child can see what else is waterproof, coming up with hypotheses and testing them out!

In Social Studies we continue to look at ourselves, noting skin, hair, and eye colors for classroom self portraits.  At Morning meeting we shared the different ways we know to say hello (Hola, Bonjour, Privet, and Shalom) as well as favorite foods and activities. 

In Hebrew, we continued practicing and getting to know our colors, and added sagol (“purple”). We learned “Ani lovesh hatzevah ____” (“I am wearing the color ___”) when we talk about color. We learned ze and zot (“this” masculine and feminine) for our morning introductions. We started some new Hebrew songs that incorporate some words for different parts of the body that we’ll get more familiar with over time. We’re continuing to learn about stav (Fall), learning the words alim and etz (leaves and tree).

In Judaic Studies, we practiced our tefilot and continued learning about Creation. The children learned about to’u vevo’u (chaos) and seder (order), choshech (darkness) and ohr (light). We also talked about Rosh Chodesh, which is the head of the month in the Jewish calendar. The parshat hashavuah (Torah passage of the week) is Noach and we ended our week with Kabbalat Shabbat.

Important Reminders and Notes

• Please make sure that your child’s mask fits snuggly on your child’s face. If your child’s face is too small for a child-sized mask, try tying the string into a knot behind your child’s ears.
• We do a lot of moving around throughout the day in Kindergarten! Please be sure that if your child comes to school in a skirt or dress that they have leggings or shorts underneath.
• If children need a fork or spoon to eat what is in their lunch, please be sure to send one.