Kindergarten Blog 1/14

Dear Kindergarten Families,

This week, we learned the last part of the song The Dream of Martin Luther King to sing for Friday’s Tekes. We had a very special visitor, Professor Joel (Nitzan’s grandfather) Zoom in to talk about what it was like to be present at Dr. King’s I Have a Dream speech. Here is a recording of part of his presentation. Link 

In addition to learning the song and Professor Joel’s visit, we spent time reading about and learning about Dr. King’s work.  Children learned a lot about the unfair laws that he tried to change through three forms of peaceful protest: marches, sit-ins, and a bus boycott. 

In Writing we began a new unit called Show and Tell Writing. In this unit children will look closely at things that are important to them and sketch them, noticing many details.  They will then label and write about them, becoming Brave Spellers and working to include beginning, middle, and ending sounds.  We also learned some new snap words (at and see) and read a poem that includes many of the snap words that have been introduced thus far. 

We also introduced a new unit in Reading called Super Powers.  This unit takes children where they are in reading and adds a toolbox of strategies to help develop their reading skills.  Today we introduced Pointer Power which emphasizes the importance of reading every word on the page. 

In Science, we began our unit on plants. We read a book called A Pumpkin Grows, and made plant booklets of the four things plants need to grow: sun, soil, water, and air.

The children are continuing to learn all about Tu B’shevat, the birthday of the trees, and how this holiday signifies the start of a new year for the trees. We are continuing to talk about why we celebrate this holiday, and why we are thankful for trees. This week, we talked about the seven species that hold special significance. The kids did a special art project that will be sent home this week. We are learning some songs for the holiday including Tu B’shevat Hegia. To go along with the holiday, we are continuing to learn vocabulary words for Winter, like what we wear and what the weather is like.

In Music class, Kindergarteners read and had a discussion about the book “We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song” by Debbie Levy. They learned about the history of that powerful song, how it changed over time and the lives it has touched. They also learned to sing the song in both English and Hebrew.

The week ended with a planting activity for Tu B’shevat led by the eighth graders (perfect timing for our science unit) and the Martin Luther KIng Tekes.

Shabbat Shalom,

Atalya, Dawn, and Anat