We have certainly been busy over the few weeks in kindergarten. Last week we were lucky to have a special visit from author and illustrator, Miko Imai. She shared with us 3 of her published books: Little Lumpty, Lily’s Secret, and Sebastian’s Trumpet. She even showed us step by step how to draw one of her characters, Little Lumpty. We did our best to draw our own Little Lumpty alongside of her.
We were also lucky to have Ms. Harris visit us from the Discovery Museum. We had a fun day of exploring with bubbles and different types of bubble wands. It was surprising to learn that our hands could be bubble wands, too!
The block center has been a popular place lately. It’s been amazing to observe the teamwork and sharing of ideas over the past couple of weeks. What started out as a simple structure turned into something more elaborate every day with the help of many friends.
Moving Forward: What’s coming up in May?
UPCOMING SPECIAL EVENTS
We are looking forward to Fitness for Life Day on Friday, May 22nd. Fitness for Life is a day when all Horace Mann students spend the duration of the school day (8:35 to 12:30 for kindergarten) 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. Please send back the permission slips as soon as possible! Thank you!
BALANCED LITERACY
Phonics:
We will focus on consonant- vowel- consonant words, or “rubber band” words and we will continue to practice “tapping out” these simple, three sound words like “cat”, “nut”, and “bed”. We will also learn the digraphs “sh”, “ch”, “th”. 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 working 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. We are also thinking about what we read and trying to retell the story in our head (or to a teacher) and reading with a smooth voice (fluently).
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 or start a new story and turn it 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.
You will have a chance to enjoy our published books at the June K Drop-In on Wednesday, June 17th from 8:20-9:00. Mark your calendars; we really hope that every family can make it to this Drop-In!
MATHEMATICS
We are working towards being able to fluently add and subtract within 5 and finding combinations of 10. To support these goals, 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 recently wrapped up our unit on the Properties of Sand and are moving full steam ahead on to our Ladybug unit. Our ladybug larvae arrived last week and we have been making careful observations everyday and noting the changes that we see. We have also been working hard to make careful observational drawings of the larvae by drawing exactly what we see as best we can. Over the course of this study, we will review what living things need, learn about the life cycle and much more! As scientists, we will predict, observe and record.
Home/School Connection: Ask your kindergartener…
-Are ladybugs living things?
-Do they have a life cycle?
-How does a ladybug’s life start?
-What stage are they in after they hatch?
-Why do farmers and gardeners welcome ladybugs into their garden?
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 through our unit Our Human Family/Celebrating Families through our “Person of the Week” program. Please let me know if you don’t remember when your child’s week is. We are also observing signs of spring for our Sensational Season of Spring unit!
