Kinder Class
Hello Everyone,
I previewed much of the curriculum we'd be doing in December and now I have some pictures to post of these activities and a bit more to add besides. We didn't do much in the way of academics, at least in the traditional sense since much time was spent with the play and with holiday craft making.
With student evaluations due this month, teachers won't be blogging again until the end of February.
Students made the sweet little acorn babies and felted Mother Earth blankets pictured here. This involved tying a knot out of sheep wool roving, wet felting wool using warm water and sushi mats, and a little sewing. Kathleen performed a puppet show of a story about Mother Earth and her blanket that keeps the seeds warm in the winter, and these creations gave the children a chance to further bring this story to life, as did all the planting we've been doing in the garden.
The kids decorated the beautiful wood rounds to hold their holiday candles. They had a chance to work with pure beeswax and had to be very patient in warming this wonderful material up with their hands so they could work it onto the candles.
They gathered rosemary and lavender from the garden to make the holiday sprigs that also came home.
They made paper snowflakes, paper chains and learned how to finger knit (some are also fork knitting which is more complex as it uses two prongs and requires attention to left and right. I have 4 and 6 pronged knitting to engage them with individually when they are ready and perhaps someone will advance to knitting with sticks also, although this is a skill most are not ready for until 1st or 2nd grade).
They also made mini apple pies and holiday cookie starts in cooking class with Kathleen and wrote out holiday cards to families.
In Science, we made maple seed fliers out of paper, to demonstrate one way that nature has of transporting seeds far and wide. They spin like helicopters and the kids had a lot of fun experimenting with this. We also discussed other ways that seeds are disseminated (through poop, by the wind, by hooking onto the fur of animals or clothing of humans etc.
We played dreidel in math and even though Hannukah is over, I'll keep this game out as it's a wonderful math game for teaching about odds and evens, adding, halves, as well as an opportunity to play a game of luck that requires good sportsmanship. We'll play lots more board games in the next few weeks to practice winning and losing. We only got to the number 4 in math and will be delving into the rest of the "golden numbers" (numbers up to 9) in the next few weeks. Then we'll move onto some project-based math to do with geometry, adding, and odds and evens and later still, we'll start to explore two-digit numbers.
In Language Arts, we'll be focusing on family names, continue learning the alphabet and phonics, look at rhyming and various word families and the kids will get lots of writing, drawing and reading practice.
Upcoming dates
January 11th: Bring your favorite toy to school day. Anything goes except it must be able to fit in the student cubby, should not be electronic, and should not be something that can easily break or needs to stay pristine. The rule is, also, you can bring something that only you can handle, or you can make rules for handling, but you cannot offer it to one friend to play with and not another friend, i.e. not be exclusive about it.
January 15th: No school. Martin Luther King Day.
January 22nd: No school. Teacher Work Day.
January 24th: Field trip to the Aptos Library. We will be taking the bus from the bottom of Trout Gulch. I need at least two parent volunteers for this trip. Permission slips and library card applications will be in cubbies on Wednesday. I'll need the applications back by Friday so the library has time to process them before our trip. Do let me know if your child already has their own card.
January 26th: Student evaluations are ready for parents to take home. Schedule a parent conference with me after this if you have things you'd like to discuss in more depth.
