Kindergarten Blog 10/23/20

Dear Families,

This week, kindergarteners began letters in Handwriting. Students are practicing their pencil grips, and remembering to start letters at the top.

We are also practicing our “turn and talks,” where students chat in pairs, and practice conversation skills and taking turns (see pictures below).

In math, we are working on counting accurately and checking our work. We have learned that good mathematicians always count again! Students are teaching each other counting strategies, for example using their fingers, or circling a picture that has already been counted.

Kindergartners are finishing up their information books and will share them next week. They made a title page and completed an editing checklist with their final copy. For an “About the Author” page they completed the sentence “I Am a Rock Star At…….” and did a small project to show this skill.

We read the Carrot Seed several times and each child is bringing a copy home so they can tell you the story. We talked about how much you can tell about the story by looking at the pictures.

In Phonics we practiced rhyming by changing the first letter in many different student names. So Lev became Bev and Rev, Sam became Ram and Bam, and Benji became Menji and Kenji.

In Music, kindergarteners have been practicing reading, saying and playing quarter notes and eighth notes. They creatively organize them within a four-beat measure to build new rhythmic patterns. They are also playing with a mechanical metronome to learn about tempo. This week they learned about different kinds of mallets. Using recycled materials, they turned their rhythmic sticks into softer mallets, which will make our rhythmic play just as fun, but quieter for other groups that are studying in the gym at the same time.

In Hebrew kindergartners are continuing with their morning routine. We are teaching the students about the season, Fall. The students learned about the weather, what you wear during this season, and the change of colors on the trees.

In Judaics, the students learned Modeh Ani and they shared who or what they are thankful for. Some students shared that they are thankful for their parents, food, school, and more. We added another tfilah, Ma Tov-vu. They are continuing to learn about the story of creation.

Vocabulary:

עצים Trees

עלים Leaves

גזע Trunk

ענפים Branches

Shabbat Shalom,

Talia, Dawn, Anat, and Atalya

Questions to ask at home:

What is a Frog Jump Letter?

How do you write “F” the Kindergarten Way?

Can you tell me a story that has 3 in it?

What are you are a Rockstar at?