Hello Everyone,

Another month has zipped by. It’s been a bit of a strange one in the sense that many kids have been absent and there’s been quite a teacher shuffle as well to accommodate my needed time off. However, much growth has happened with this class socially. Friendships are solidifying and kids are branching out more and enjoying the company of peers they weren’t initially bonding with. Overall, it is feeling like 12 is a better number than 10 for this kindergarten — though a tight squeeze sometimes and sometimes we are spread a bit thin, in general, it’s really nice for the kids to have more friendship possibilities and for there still to be a good-sized cohort even on days when several are absent.

I didn’t take as many photos as usual so my apologies — sometimes I get tired of documenting and it’s nice just to be in the moment…

Language Arts:

We have spent most of our time this month with various phological awareness activities. This is a building block for reading and includes phonemic awareness (the ability to hear and manipulate various sounds in words) as well as deciphering syllables, rhymes, beginning and end sounds, and just generally playing with language.

We’ve add the sound “t” to our repetoire and kids are sounding out the words “cat” and “at” and “tac” and we will go from there. Several kids in the class are reading and our work will be to meet these kids where they are at and keep them engaged, while still giving them handwriting practice, a systematic overview of all the phonemes (sounds).

The kids have been immersed in stories this month. We had our Halloween play practices and then performance. They’ve been going through nursery rhymes with Tara and then doing mini-re-enactments of these including Little Miss Muffit, Hickory Dickory Dock and Jack and Jill. They’ve been creating original stories inspired by Kathleen’s oral renditions of stories using felted characters and props. We practiced and performed the verses, songs and poems at our back to school afternoon. And everyday, we discuss the stories we share with the children at rest time. We have kinder level book clubs and the comments and observations from these guys are so often so insightful. It amazes me how a five or six year old can be so wise, perceptive and thoughtful. It is pure wonder and it’s enriching to be around.

Math:

We continued with symmetry and patterns. Kids made designs with pattern blocks and then practiced one to one correspondence, spatial sense and counting by replicating their design exactly using paper cutout shapes that matched the 3D objects. They painted symmetrical butterflies. They sorted beads into categories and then made a necklace masterpiece with the task of it being a pattern that was also symmetrical on either side of a pom pom serving as the center of the necklace (line of symmetry).

They’ve been working on dot to dots periodically to strengthen number recognition and will be moving into practice with the golden numbers (1 to 9). Again, some of the kids are at an advanced level in math and we will be borrowing materials from Kenza who teaches 1st-4th grade math to try to keep our mathematically inclined children mentally satisfied. They also made a pair of dice and we will use these for various games.

Science:

Tara has been leading the way with science experiments. The kids did the classic sink float lesson, guessing which common objects would sink or float and then testing these. The fact that pumpkins float is always good fodder for a discussion about weight and air and molecules. I showed the children how to make boats out of walnuts and they enjoyed floating these in a big tub of water.

We began our observational study of the persimmon tree and the kids did their early fall visit to the tree, studied it closely and then drew it to the best of their ability, being sure to notice and then record as many details as possible (shape of trunk, bark texture, leaf color, is the sky showing, what’s on the ground etc. We will go back at least two, maybe three more times to draw the tree again as it changes through the seasons.

The children studied the lifecycle of pumpkins and apples and made little booklets about these. They also made leaf rubbings and apple prints. And they made an apple tree collage using construction paper that they could only tear, no cut. They are on display and soon to come home. Come in to the class to see if you haven’t already. They are quite beautiful.

P.E.

We had a lovely hike to the redwoods where the kids explored the tree stumps and fire hollowed trees, and the forts made by the older kids. Tara taught them Duck Duck Goose in PE.

Gardening:

The kids planted the nasturtium and parsley seeds they sprouted up in the chicken coop. We’ll see if we manage to keep them alive as it’s far away and hard to remember to water them.

handwork:

Between me and Kathleen, the children have learned to finger knit, needle and wet felt, weave, and they also had their first sewing lesson: they sewed popcorn and cranberries onto a necklace.

Buddies

The kindergarteners met their big buddies who came to read and play with them. Lots of smiles. Thanks Erica, Orchard science teacher, for helping make this happen.