Kindergarten Class November/December

Hi Everyone,

Here is a belated and abbreviated run down of classroom activities the past two months. We had so many student absences, and then the play, that it’s been challenging maintaining any kind of rhythm with our days or through-line with our projects. Nonetheless, just being in our beautiful space, with resources, intention, and time is enough to have full and meaningful class experiences. Flexibility is one of the many ways in which a kindergartner (and his/her teacher!) benefits from the school journey.

Math:

Practice counting by tens and fives

Sorting acorns into categories

Number explorations: #4 (four seasons), #5 (five-pointed stars), #6 (six-pointed stars), #7 (rainbows, 7 colors, 7 letters in rainbow, 7 days in a week)

Introduction to cuisinaire rods — these will be used for adding and subtracting exercises moving forward. They provide a great visual for numbers to make ten.

Dreidel Game — a fun way to practice adding, subtracting, counting and halving

Montessori insets — shape stencils that familiarize students with geometrical shapes and give good practice with fine motor control as they trace and then decorate shapes.

Language Arts:

Introduction of first two sets of sight words — words for your child to recognize on sight, without needing to sound these out. Words include: cat, dog, I, love, you, a, Mom, Dad, like, house, my, me etc.

Practice writing some basic sentences using sight words like “I love you” and “I love my dog”.

More practice writing names

A look at the “at” family — words like cat, rat, mat, sat etc.

Worked on our first class book — a compilation of the Question of the Day answers.

Some practice with beginning reader books for those who are ready. For those who are not, they started keeping alphabet dictionaries so they have a place to look up letters they forget.

We have a wide range in the class from children who know a handful of letters to children who are beginning readers. It’s important that every child feels successful in their reading journey, wherever they are at along this continuum.

Every kid wrote or dictated a letter to their penpal (one of the Orchard 3rd/4th graders) and had practice writing their big buddies’ names, as well as To and From. This will be a bi-weekly activity — one week they get a letter and the next week they write one. We’ll also be doing some buddy activities like playing games together, reading stories, maybe creating a collaborative book.

The kids heard the classic tale, “The Mitten”, as interpreted by Jan Brett. They laced and decorated paper mittens to fill with the animals featured in the story. They will bring these home soon and use them as prompts so they can tell you the story.

Science:

We began a nature study of the persimmon tree on campus. The students drew the tree in the fall using observational skills to notice the tree’s structure, texture, color and other details, focusing on a scientific rendition as opposed to using their imaginations. We’ll revisit the tree three more times so they can document the change through the seasons and draw what they see.

The kids planted seeds in sprouting jars and made charts with the days of the week to keep track of the watering schedule. Unfortunately, the winter break interrupted the project and I ended up with 8 jars of sprouts (I brought some to the chickens and had lots of sprout sandwiches). We’ll do this again this next week and hopefully some children will discover they like sprouts.

The kids did a “leaf report” after finding a special leaf and recording the details on a worksheet. They also created seed books documenting the cycle of seed to flower.

They learned to cut snowflakes and showed just what a dexterous artistic bunch of children they are!

Other activities:

They sewed pouches and winter gnomes, all in preparation for a more involved sewing project where they’ll sew pillows to use at school during rest time.

They’ve been working on their yarn weavings.

We continued with color exploration with wet on wet watercolors.

We made acorn cake and acorn chocolate chip cookies using the acorn mush the kids pulverized and I had taken home to leach for about 10 days. In a kindergarten first, every child gobbled up these treats. Usually there are at least a couple who don’t like the strong acorn flour flavor. If it didn’t take weeks to prepare, I’d say acorn flour is a great nutritious option for baked goods.

The kids chopped celery for the all-school Stone Soup reenactment and then mashed potatoes for the Thanksgiving feast where every class contributed a dish to this spectacular banquet. In the photo gallery below, you’ll also see a photo of the watercolor Christmas trees the kids painted, Ananya lighting the Hannukah candles, and a glimpse at Genevieve’s birthday celebration preparations. We also celebrated Ananya’s birthday.

Adventures in animal care:

We’ve spent some quality time up with the animals on our designated animal care days — bringing mulch to the chicken coop, cleaning out the roosting boxes, weeding. Being farmers, stewards, caring for our animals, teaches invaluable lessons. And, children love to work with their bodies, to feel the satisfaction of accomplishing a big task like moving a pile of mulch, and especially to do something that is appreciated and that benefits others.

Luna getting in character before the winter play