Kindergarten Blog 12/2

Dear Kindergarten Families,

This week, Kindergartners welcomed a new student, Sari, to our Kindergarten class! We also began learning a new song, “When I First Came to This Land”, and the Foxes made their own Play-Doh (Penguins will make it next week).

In Science this week and last, we have been learning about taste and smell. Last week, students guessed what flavors of Mike and Ike jelly beans they had based on taste. This week, students observed mint leaves using Sight, Smell, Touch, and Taste. They observed that the mint leaves smelled like mint, and that while the taste was somewhat minty, they still tasted like leaves. They are becoming excellent scientific observers!

In Handwriting and Phonics, Kindergartners learned all about G, S, and A, including the sounds they make and how to write them.

In Phonics we also did a favorite Kindergarten activity: Labeling the Room.  After taking a short tour of the first floor and noticing that all of the rooms are labeled, we made labels for our own classroom.  With a partner they sounded out words like stapler (STPR), babies (BABZ), board (BRD) and recycling (RSK) and wrote the words on cards that they then attached to the item. 

In Math we began studying the numbers 11, 12, 13, building them by starting with ten and then adding on to create the new numbers.  We did some Food Drive Math based on a Food Drive graph and learned a new game called Addition Cross-out. 

In Writing we are working on adding words to our stories in two different ways.  Some are continuing to label their pictures, listening for beginning, middle, and ending sounds.  Some are writing short sentences.  One way to do this is to write a short line for each word you want to write.  For example, if you want to write “I went to the zoo.”  you would add ____  ____  ____  ____  ____ on your paper and then go back and sound out each word. We continue to work on being sure that stories have a beginning, middle, and end. 

In Music class, Kindergarteners have been learning about the difference between steady beat and rhythm. They have begun learning how to read and write rhythms. So far, they know about quarter notes (tas), eighth notes (titis), four beat measures and repeat signs. This week, they learned the chant Bumblebee, and they used their musical knowledge to write out the beginning of it on the music staff.

In Hebrew this week, Kindergartners learned prepositional words – מילות יחס milot yachas. This includes words like על – al- on top, בין – ben – between, and מתחת – me tachat – underneath. We read the book הבית של יעל Yael’s House, which tells the story of a little girl who wants to have her own house, so she tries to live in all kinds of funny places- like a table, a box, and a basket. The book is a great way to practice prepositional words. The Kindergartners then all designed their own imaginary house.

Kindergartners also started learning הפכים – opposites. Like גדול קטן – gadol katan- big small; מהר לאט maher leat- fast slow; and פתוח סגור – patooach sagoor- opened closed. 

In Judaic Studies last week, Kindergartners learned about the Ethiopian Jewish holiday of Sigd. It’s a holiday that always takes place 50 days after Yom Kippur, and is about gratitude for the Torah and yearning for Israel. We listened to an Ethiopian Israeli song, and watched a slide show about the Ethiopian community in Israel. We also read a book called Pumpkin Pie for Sigd which taught us about some of the traditional Ethiopian foods people eat at Sigd. Kindergartners talked about the connection that both Sigd and Thanksgiving have to do with gratitude.

This week in Judaic Studies,  Kindergartners continued learning about the many different plants and fruits created on the third day of creation. They made mosaic-style collages depicting the third day, and also learned to say some of their favorite fruits in Hebrew. News flash: (insert hebrew) avatiach – watermelon seems to be a class fave! 

Shabbat Shalom,

K Team