Kindergarten Blog 11/18

Dear Kindergarten Families,

This week, Kindergarteners were excited to bring in donations for our Thanksgiving food drive, and graph out all of their donations. One thing the K Team learned was that Kindergarten brought in more donations than all other grades combined, so thank you so much to you all for your generous donations! Kindergarteners were also very excited to have another Buddy activity this week. They shared their recently completed Information Books with their buddies, played Racing Dice together, and read books from our library.

In Science this week, Kindergarteners learned all about Touch. We learned that we have sensors all over our skin to tell us information we learn about what things feel like. Kindergarteners then found three objects in the room and paired up, taking turns guessing their partners’ items using only touch. We discussed what information touch can tell us (is it soft/heavy/pointy/cold?) and what information it doesn’t (its color, taste, smell, etc) which we have to rely on other senses for.

In Handwriting and Phonics, Kindergarteners learned all about T and J, our first Middle Start letters! We studied the names: Teddy, Tessa, Jesse, and Jordan, made lists of words that begin with T or J, and learned how to write them the Kindergarten way, practicing our Sky Writing and Pinch Grips.

In Hebrew, Kindergartners started learning some opposites: קטן וגדול /katan ve gadol/ small and big;/נמוך וגבוה /namooch ve gevoah/ short and tall; מהר ולאט/ maher ve leatt/ fast and slow; סגור ופתוח sagoor ve patooach/ closed and opened. 

We also learned words to describe people in our family משפחה mispacha:  אח אחות /ach achot /brother sister ; דוד דודה /dod dodah /uncle aunt; סבא סבתא /saba savta /grandfather grandmother; בן דוד בת דודה /ben dod bat doda/ cousin.

In Judaic Studies, we continue studying בראשית Creation/Genesis. We learned that on the Third Day G-d created the seas, trees, flowers and plants. We also spent time talking about our school’s namesake, Hannah Senesh, learning about her life and the kind of person she was. 

 In Writer’s Workshop we started a new unit on writing true stories. We will be focusing on making sure that our stories have a beginning, middle,and end and will be working to record as many sounds as possible and to include details in pictures. Topics so far include trips to Legoland, injuries, celebrating holidays, a trip to Coney Island, and vacations. 

In Social Studies we began working on Venn Diagrams, recording similarities and differences between ourselves and a classmate. Categories include hair and eye colors, favorite ice creams, pets, number of people in our families, and languages spoken at home.  A very visual way to see that we are both the same and different. 

In reading we introduced Book Baggies,  Each child has a bag of ten books that are a good reading level for them. Children practice looking through the books, figuring out what they are about and seeing if they recognize any words.  Teachers move around the room working one on one with children, helping them decode books that they would like to learn how to read

We are looking forward to an exciting Kesher Day next week!

Shabbat Shalom,

K Team