Kinder Class

Here’s the day I only had two kindergarteners at school!

Well, it’s been quite a month. Unfortunately, the pertussis outbreak has effected our kindergarten in a big way, as you all know, making curriculum difficult and affecting the cohesion and bonding in the group. Nonetheless, we have plugged on and wherever you have a beautiful place and lovely people, good things continue to happen, despite the circumstances. So here is the rundown.

But first:

At home, if you are so inclined, please continue to work on having your kids write their names with lowercase letters following the first letter, writing the numbers 1-10, matching uppercase letters with lowercase letters, penmanship, and the mathematical concepts of sorting objects, patterns, symmetry, and counting up to 20 and beyond. Read and tell lots of stories, give small chores so kids can feel part of the work of running a household, invite school friends over to give kids experiences one on one with classmates, and please continue to reinforce good manners (pleases and thank yous). Thank you!

Math:

Our main concept this month has been sorting objects into different groupings. This is a vital skill necessary for all kinds of mathematical endeavors later on. We used acorns as our medium here. So, first the kids came up with different ways we could organize the acorns (fat, fuzzy, thin, shiny, with caps, rotten etc. etc.) Then each child sorted their own set of acorns. Then we consolidated the categories with consensus. And the kids made descriptive signs. The best way for the children to get a grasp of their letters, by the way, is to have them copy down letters frequently and to name the letters they are writing, eventually moving in to just dictating the letters. This happens throughout the kindergarten day. Anyway, back to acorns. Creativity abounded, even with the simple task of sorting. Some, like ChetanWin, sorted her pile into various shapes, like a rainbow arc. Some, like Isa, had very creative categories, like bald acorns, acorns with short wigs, long wigs, mommies, daddies and so on. See the gallery of photos below to get a fuller picture of this activity.

After the acorns were sorted, we began the first step in processing the acorns as food, just like the Ohlone people who lived in this region long before us, did. Here is a sweet video of the kids pounding the acorns to get them out of their shells so that next we can grind them with mortar and pestles. Then we will leach out the tannins, grind the remaining mush into a finer flour, and make a very un-Native American acorn cake with sugar and eggs and oil too. It will still be jam-packed with nutrition however as acorns are one of the most nutritious foods.

Also, in math we reviewed how to write the numbers 1 through 3. For 2, we discussed symmetry and all the parts of the human body that come in twos (eyes, ears, nostrils etc.) For 3, we also studied triangles and how no matter where you plot 3 dots (except in a perfectly straight line) you can connect the dots into a triangle. And, lastly, we did an apple taste test and worked on beginning graphs to document results, analyzing how to read the graphs, as well as discussing concepts like more and less.

Language Arts:

Our main focus this month was writing letters to pen pals. Each child has a pen pal, a preschooler from Bonny Doon Community Preschool. We hope to have a correspondence with this class of 11 all year and perhaps culminate the exercise with a face to face meeting in the spring. The children drew pictures for these pals, dictated a narrative about their pictures, and practiced writing their pen pals names. We had a productive group discussion about the components of a good letter, as well as about the postal system and how that all works (postage, transportation of mail etc.), and how to fold a letter. The kids came up with descriptive information about themselves and some really creative questions for their pen pals. Here’s one example below. Zoe’s. I have made copies of each child’s letter and will collect the back and forth correspondence for you to see at the end of the year (or sooner if you want to stop in).

Other language arts activities have included continued work on writing names, as well as lots of writing, tracking from left to write practice during science and math activities. We read many stories and told a few too. Kathleen performed a Halloween puppet show (The Naughty Hobgoblin) and helped the children perform their own collaborative puppet show using her handmade dolls. I read a very entertaining chapter book, “Princess Cora and the Crocodile” by Laura Amy Schlitz. The kids loved this story but unfortunately many pieces chunks, including the end, due to absences. I’m happy to lend the book out for another at-home read if you are interested. I also told them the story of Bony Legs, multiple times so that by the time we started rehearsals for the Halloween performance, they knew the story like the back of their hands. It went well, don’t you think? Here is a gallery of photos from the play:. Scroll through to see these:

Science:

We worked on more graphing in science to document the results of a sink/float experiment. First, the kids hypothesized which items would sink or float and I used tally marks to record their guesses. Then we tested each item in a tub of water with the grand finale, big surprise, being that pumpkins float despite the fact that all kinders guessed the pumpkin would sink. Actually, Taytem almost went with his gut that it would sink but was influenced to change his mind when he saw everyone else thought differently! After we processed these results and speculated on why certain things float or sink, the children made little walnut boats to float on the pond. Here are pictures.

Fishing the pumpkin out of the pond.

Also in science, we got to witness, almost in real time, the formation of our monarch caterpillars into monarch butterflies, right outside the kindergarten kitchen window. Below is a photo of one of two monarchs, moments after emerging from its chrysalis. There are other chrysalis’ growing quietly around the kindergarten as I write. Anyway, Kathleen had the children draw and write about the lifecycle process in their La Mariposa, Butterfly books.

Cossette’s mom, Elizabeth, brought in their Russian Box tortoise, Perfect, and gave the group an interesting lesson about these creatures. Unfortunately, Perfect’s mate, Genghis Kahn, did a disappearing act and did not make the field trip to Orchard School. Anyway, I learned several things, one of which being that tortoises are the only creatures with an endo-skeleton and an exo-skeleton!

Nature Studies: The children planted calendula seeds in the big garden, they gathered collaging materials in the willows, preserved branches of colored leaves in a glycerin solution, and gathered milkweed seeds.

Thank you to Taytem and Zoe’s family for purchasing us sets of Magna Tiles. The kids absolutely love them.