January in the kindergarten classroom

Feb 5

Hello Everyone,

Kindergarten is ticking along. Your kids are growing so quickly and the year is zooming by. There is a real sense of community among the kids now — they are friends, a friend family, and we love listening to them play, disagree and work it out, look out for each other, and enjoy each other’s company. It’s a special time in their lives and we are honored to be a part of their development.

Math:

We have finally journeyed through “the golden numbers” looking closely at each number 1 to 9 and the idea that all numbers, no matter how large, can be made using numbers out of these nine numbers and/or zero. It’s a fascinating concept. We’re asking the kids to focus on writing their numbers neatly and facing the right direction. Reversals are normal at this age but we don’t want writing numbers backwards to become a habit, so we’re spending some time with it.

For the number 5, the children learned how to draw a five-point star. For 6, that insects have six legs. For 7, there are seven days in a week. And for 8, spiders have 8 legs and some even have 8 eyes! We will be starting to learn about the calendar in the month of February, with more practice on the names of the days of the week and the months of the year. We’ll also be moving into two digit numbers and the concept of place value. As some children are learning to do addition and subtraction with two- and three-digit numbers, others are working on the basics. We will be moving into more specialized groups at this point in the year.

We’ll also be spending more time with skip counting, counting by 10s, 5s, and 2s, and this in turn is a good exercise in mental math addition and a precursor for multiplication. To this end, we did a math activity based on the story book “The Napping House,” by Audrey Wood. The children counted how many feet lived in the napping house, a sequential story, and then cut out paper characters to help retell the story. The children learned how to make origami houses and drew pictures of how many people lived in their home and counted up their feet by twos and fours.

The kids have started to work on measurement. We measured items around then classroom with unfix cubes and will move into learning how to use rulers and count in inches.

Bus Field Trip:

The Kinders were so charged up for our adventure to ride the city bus to the library. They waited at the bus stop with great anticipation and were very quiet on the bus, taking it all in and observing the fellow passengers. Once at the library, we were greeted by a kind librarian named Sandy who read us some stories and showed us around the library. They were excited to browse through the children’s shelves and check out their own library books. They also enjoyed choosing books for their friends who were absent and could not make the field trip. Then we returned on the bus, a bit louder and with more enthusiasm, than on the ride there. Thankfully, busses came on time and we didn’t have to wait too long at the stops. We talked about why people take the bus, people who don’t have the money to buy a car or are not yet old enough to drive. It was great being out on the town with our crew of 12 sweet kids. They behaved impeccably.

Language Arts:

We have continued to work on phonemic awareness activities like rhyming, beginning and ending sounds, as well as sounding out CVC words by segmenting individual sounds. The children continue to work on writing letters with all letters starting at the top and moving down and facing the correct direction. We are separating into groups during language arts time to try to differentiate more effectively, to allow those who need more repetition in order to learn phonics and letter names to have the needed practice, while allowing those who can already read to move forward with their skills. We are careful to group kids in all different ways throughout the day so that there is no stigma attached to being in one specific group for language arts reading practice.

Science:

The children studied snowflakes and ice. They learned about freezing firsthand with the frost on the grass in the morning and the water in the water table freezing. They saw that salt melts ice faster through experiments and they learned how to make paper snowflakes. They had fun adding their own air to soap to make “magic bubbles” and blowing bubbles with straws. The children took their third visit to the persimmon tree to practice observational skills and draw the tree leafless and stark, after having seen it in full bloom with thousands of colorful leaves and persimmons.

Lunar New Year:

The Lunar New Year celebration was a big hit. The kinders led the school parade in a dragon doing an S shaped dance. They made shakers to rattle during the parade and get rid of any negative energy and usher in the fresh new year. They also learned about the animals of the Chinese zodiac. All of the kids were either born in the year of the dog, 2018 or the pig, 2019. (Tara is the dog and Rosy is the pig, funnily enough). We learned the traits of a dog are being loyal, honest, faithful, good listeners that are ready to serve others. And that the pig is determined, optimistic, sincere and remind us to take a break and enjoy life.

Handwork:

The children have been so excited to learn about finger knitting, fork knitting, sewing, and weaving. They sewed drawstring pouches and yesterday, they sewed woodland gnomes that they stuffed with alpaca fiber from our very own alpacas. They have also had a chance to practice tying shoes, rewarding for some (only a couple) and challenging for others. It takes patience and practice to acquire new skills!

PE:

We have been doing lots of running on Fridays during PE. Not all kids are too excited about this but they have the option to ‘speed walk’ if they really do not want to run. The important part is that everyone is moving, exercising and having fun. We played some fun relay games. Also, a favorite game where two teams had to race to see who could get the most socks back to their starting line first. Each team was fully involved in their task. However, with only one winner, this is when we work on becoming “a good sport”. Kindergarten is a great place to learn how to deal with disappointment. But luckily, we played two games and each team had the chance to win.

Lots of rain. Be sure to dress your kids like this so they can enjoy it.

The kids did their first wet on wet watercolors using three colors, instead of two, and making every color of the rainbow. There results are stunning. See below.