March, April, May in the Kinder Classroom

Well, this is it. The end of kindergarten. The years just fly by but hopefully these 8 children have memories that will live inside them forever from this special time in their lives. I will remember each one of their smiling faces and the joy and intensity they have brought to each day we’ve shared together in class.

The past three months have been full of learning, growing, bickering, vying, laughing, crying, nurturing, pushing, pulling, and everything in between. There have been so many absences and it’s been hard to maintain a rhythm. I could probably count on two or three hands the days all 8 have been present since March. Also, with circus practices and performances, routines haven’t been routine and this particular group does best with predictability and the comfort of knowing what’s next. So, they’ve struggled to maintain a collective equilibrium and have been at loose ends sometimes. Combine that with spring fever and Kathleen and I have been on our toes and a bit worn out, to be frank! Nonetheless, here are some of the lovely things we’ve done lately:

Math:

Students completed the 3D projects and brought home the Snuffle’s villages. I won’t hold it against you if they found their way to the garbage (it was big, I know) but perhaps children are still playing with these. I had one child who played with hers for years until it fell apart. Anyway, hopefully the children will retain the names of the 3D shapes they used in construction (cones, cubes, cylinders, pyramids, sphere, rectangular prisms) or at least that their imaginations were stimulated.

We’ve been practicing counting by 10s and most children can count to 100 with skip counting. I read the Napping House and the children folded origami houses and then drew all 2 and 4 legged members of their household and counted up how many feet live in their houses. This is a first step in teaching skip counting by 2s.

We worked a little with the concept of odds and evens and have continued to work on tally marks and the idea of counting in groups of 5. The children built towers of 10 snapblocks and we amassed 10 together to see what 100 of something looks like. Then we put the strip in the 10s column and other numbers in the ones column for a beginning look at place value and two digit numbers. See photo to the left.

Science:

We delved deeply into rocks. I read several stories about rocks including, Everybody Needs a Rock by Byrd Baylor which describes 10 rules for carefully choosing a rock that speaks to you. Also, Rick the Rock of Room 214, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, and A Stone is a Story. Some of my favorites. The kids brought in their special rocks, created mini reports on them, made posters showing the journey of a rock. We explored the idea that the Earth is a giant rock recycling machine and a pebble you pick up may be as old as time. We talked about sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks, as well as the make up of our plantet and magma and lava. We made volcanoes in the sand box. With Kathleen, they felted Earth balls. We labeled and sorted rocks and then invited the big buddies to come for a tour of the rock museum. We even made fossils using plaster of Paris and tiny objects like shells an plastic animals.

Making the Earth balls

volcanoes

With the coming of spring, there was gathering galore in the garden. Kathleen and the kids talked about birds and nests and then created the amazing nests that came home recently using natural found materials like twigs and moss. They studied an old nest she had found in the the eaves of her father’s house when he died years ago. It even had cigarette butts the industrious bird had pulled apart and woven into the twigs. They also sewed colorful birds to live in the the nests, wet felted eggs too and needle felted butterflies and flowers.

With Kathleen, the children gathered calendula and plantain and made healing salves. They also did crayon rubbings of comfrey leaves.

language arts:

We continued with letter sounds and have to date completed half of the alphabet. This isn’t as far as I had hoped but then again, it felt important to spend the necessary time on social/emotional issues that seemed to pervade classtime like who sits where, who was tired, hungry, suffering from hurt feelings, not in the mood, found it too easy, too hard and so forth. Without the foundation of classroom etiquette and without the stamina for such academics, there hasn’t seemed a lot of point in pushing the kids forward in this way. Some children know the whole alphabet and are early readers. Others are not there yet. This work will continue in first grade and there is not a hurry. It felt more important to take the time to help the children navigate how to cooperate, be kind, thoughtful and respectful, be patient, raise hands to take turns to talk. I think we have made progress in these areas. In this photo, the kids built giant letters using random classroom materials.

Please continue to work on letter sounds over the summer if your children are motivated. Same with reading. We’ve worked on some sentences and the idea that a sentence begins with an uppercase letter, has spaces between words, and a period at the end. They should recognize these sight words: I, a, the, and is. When you read with them, have them read these words. Most can also sound out consonant vowel consonant words with the short “a” sound like cat, pan, had, am etc. Also have them read some of these words during your story time. I am happy to lend materials like beginner books or phonics materials. If you would like to go further, next would be to teach or reinforce short vowel sounds for e, i, o, and u. And the consonant sounds we have not covered as a group: b,k,qu,r,v,w,x,y,z

The children have also had practice copying, working on handwriting, fine motor work, and letter uniformity, as well as getting the feeling of left to right and up to down when they write. They worked on About Me books with Kathleen and most recently the menus for the upcoming kinder cafe.

They have spent a lot of time developing their storytelling abilities, inspired by Kathleen’s beautiful puppet shows. These skills will go a long way towards being good writers as they move forward and get the basic mechanics in place. They’ll know how to paint pictures with words and what makes a rich tale. They know about beginnings, middles and ends, dialogue, plots and climaxes. These elements are invaluable skills when it comes to critical thinking in writing and reading.

Nica, Elliana, and Vivienne put on an impromptu puppet performance for the rest of the class the other day. Check out the cute toes behind the backdrop and the audience listening so carefully!

Industry:

If I were to list a key ingredient in the Orchard kindergarten it would be this. This is the work of childhood and what children like to be engaged in. This is when work is play. Here are just a few moments of this work/play:

Hard working farmers. When they are on, they are on. When they are not, they are a bundle of distress, particularly these two! Phantom hurt ankles, upsets about not doing alpacas, or not being with chickens, or goats or wherever they are not…but we love them anyway and it makes moments like this all the more special.

Getting their hands in the clay with Linda.

Liam, the builder. He’s been trying to construct a treehouse on the playground. I just need hammers and nails and screws he said, finally, after a day of trying to balance and maneuver branches and planks.

Look at Aria’s perfect stitches. The rest time pillows, stuffed with wool from our alpacas and lavender from our garden, are complete. They’ll come home after our last rest time on the last Wednesday of school. Note: they should only be washed in cold water or the wool will felt and not put in the dryer. In fact, sponge washing would be best.

Lily turned 6. And we have 4 more birthdays to celebrate in advance of summer. Each child gets their chance to shine and be doted on.

I think you all have gorgeous photos taken by Todd and Ben of the circus but here are some that you haven’t seen. I took them backstage mostly of the lions. I’m sure you all appreciate all that the children learned from this experience. This particular group of kindergarteners handled the multiple performances and practices exceptionally well. They seemed in their element. They were impressive both on stage and off.

Field trip to Wild Culture Farm

Rest time ❤️❤️❤️