I hope every family had an enjoyable April vacation! It is hard to believe that we are in the final stretch of the school year. The students has been working so hard in kindergarten. I am very proud of all of their accomplishments so far!
UPCOMING SPECIAL EVENTS
On Tuesday, May 7th, we will take a Kindergarten class trip to the Harvard Museum of Natural History. This museum has some fascinating collections that kindergartners always enjoy!
We are also looking forward to Fitness for Life Day on Friday, May 24th. Fitness for Life is a day when all Horace Mann students spend the duration of the school day (8:35 to 12:30 for K’s) at an off-site location, Auburndale Cove, in Auburndale. The school provides bus transportation, Mr. Tynes runs many fun athletic and fitness events for the kids, and the PTO provides hamburgers, veggie burgers and hot dogs for lunch. Our room parents will contact you about donating items or money for lunch. This is a great opportunity to celebrate health and wellness.
Throughout the last weeks of kindergarten we will be working towards publishing our own books. Please join us for our Author Celebration on Tuesday, June 18th from 8:20-9:00. Mark your calendars; we really hope that every family can make it to this Drop-In!
BALANCED LITERACY
Fundations: This month we will continue to focus on consonant- vowel- consonant words, or “rubber band” words. We will also continue to practice “tapping out” these simple, three sound words. We will also start working with initial consonant blends (when two letters blend together but you can still hear their sounds. Ex- fl in “flat”, pl in “plop”) Using this strategy will help us to write and sound out new words. The students are enjoying building and breaking down the sounds in these words.
Independent Reading: Independent reading continues this month. We are continuing to work on following a pattern, looking at the initial and final consonants, and noticing punctuation. We are also watching carefully for word wall words as we read.
Writing: We will be starting a big kindergarten writing project this month, as we will begin publishing our own books. The children will choose one of their favorite stories from their writing folder to transform into a published book. During the publishing process, we will be thinking about making our stories complete, clear, and interesting. Kindergartners will think about what the reader wants to know as they “fix and fancy” their story. We will also be thinking about making a story easy to read by putting spaces between words, writing words with lots of sounds and writing words that match the illustrations.
MATHEMATICS
We continue to work on counting, addition, and subtraction using various games and activities. We are working on visualizing numbers by seeing them in a “ten frame”. For instance, a student might see 7 as “5 and then 2 more” or as “3 less than 10”. Facility with small numbers and making meaning of them in the context of ten is an important building block of number sense and for operations.
SCIENCE
Ladybugs
We have enjoyed observing the ladybug larva in our classroom and we are anxiously waiting for them to change into the pupa stage. We have begun this unit as a part of our “Living Things” curriculum. So far, we have done 2 scientific observations of our larvae; making an observation and recording our findings. Over the course of this study, we will review what living things need, learn about the life cycle and so much more!
Chicks
We will also be getting fertilized eggs, which will be in an incubator in our classroom. While we wait out the 21 days for the chicks to hatch, there is much to do. We will examine eggs inside and out (non-fertilized eggs from the grocery store) and look for the yolk, the thick and thin albumen, the membrane, the air space, the chalaza, and the white spot. The kindergartners will record their observations with careful drawings. We will also examine the incubator and discuss what it does. We will read books about chick embryo development as well as talk about other animals that lay eggs. It is all very exciting, and we hope that all will go well inside the incubator. We will discuss the possibility of no eggs hatching (it happens). Between all 3 classes, we hope to have enough chicks to share! Once the chicks hatch, we will read about chicks, observe and draw chicks, sing chick songs and read chick poems, and do some chick art projects. This is such an exciting part of Kindergarten!
SOCIAL STUDIES
We are enjoying learning about each other during our unit Our Human Family/Celebrating Families through our “Person of the Week” program. We are also observing signs of spring for our Sensational Season of Spring unit!
