December in the Kinder Classroom
Hello Everyone!
December was an anything but routine month. With many student absences, the play and all of the. holiday festivities, we lost track of some of our routines. It was an action-packed month, nonetheless. Below, you will see photos of some of the curriculum highlights.
Holiday Celebrations:
We lit Hannukah candles, played dreidel (a great math game), and sang a Hannukah song. I read several Christmas stories and we watercolored Christmas trees with a wax resist tree outline and a five pointed star on top. The kinders decorated gingerbread people with their big buddies. They also wrote Christmas cards to you and made the candle centerpieces for the holiday table at home.
The Wizard of Oz — Kindergarteners sat through several rehearsals and were patient, interested and respectful of the process. With only a small part on stage, they learned a lot from watching the older children and got good practice being listeners and audience members.
Sanding the candle rounds — the first step in a project that spanned many days. This kind of purposeful work is important for young children. It develops their intention, their focus, their stamina and pride in accomplishment. Children like to do real things. In Orchard kindergarten, we give the chance to use tools and be responsible. This helps build well-rounded, capable, confident children. Animal care is another way this happens. We have been really enjoying getting to know our new goats. In the photo below, Solh has a special moment with Ginger.
Persimmon Tree Study
We spent time looking closely at the persimmon tree, a truly gorgeous specimen that goes through dramatic changes seasonally. The children touched the moss covered bark, looked at the lichen and fungus growing on branches, the fruits and the leaves of so many colors, some blowing to the ground as we explored. Then they drew the tree just as they saw it. Their drawings are up in the classroom and are really lovely. We’ll visit this tree again soon for a winter drawing and then one more time in the spring to notice differences. This is the beginning of a unit on observational drawing.
The children pounded acorns to pull the meats from the shells and then ground these as finely as possible with mortar and pestle just as the Native Americans in our area did long ago. The Amamutsun tribe would then leach these in baskets suspended in streams so the water could run through them and remove the tannins. I took the acorn mush home to wash, soak and rinse daily for several weeks. I then baked the acorn mush to dry it and next week we’ll grind it more finely in an old fashioned grinder so we can make acorn cake!
The children made a design with 16 pattern blocks and then shopped for the same number and shape of paper replica shapes to glue down on paper showing symmetry with the original design. This was easy for some and very hard for others.
Sewing Lesson #2: The kids practiced sewing down through the Xs and up through the Os on a sewing hoop. They used fabric they had watercolored earlier to create a drawstring pouch filled with lavender.
Archery with Bryan was a big hit with these guys. What a way to build strength, confidence and hand-eye coordination! They were quite proud of themselves and improved in the course of a couple of short lessons.
After watching a series of Kathleen’s puppet shows over the past months, the kids had a chance to create their own story worlds and puppet shows to share. They got very involved in these tales and showed some excellent story-telling chops. Here’s to children and their wonderful imaginations.
Friends