Kindergarten Spotlight on Specials
First Quarter
Kindergarten.......................... Exploratory Team
The teachers of these exploratory classes are committed to inspire the creative genius in all students through art, technology, library media, music, counselor and physical education.
Technology
In Kindergarten, we took a visit to my website and learned about several different activities and games the children could play at home.
Students started this year learning the basic operations of the laptops and laptop accessories, how to login and how to navigate to my site. Students played several games that included letter recognition, phonemic awareness, spatial reasoning skills and pattern building.
Next quarter, we will continue educational games using the laptops and firming up logging into the system.
Music
Library
In our library classes we talked about our five rules: Take Care of Books and Use Shelf Markers, Use Quiet Voices, Raise Your Hand for Permission to Speak, Make Smart Choices and Do Your Best, and Line Up Quietly. We talked about ways to take good care of our books. We identified the book’s cover and spine and the purpose of each. We are practicing using shelf markers to hold the book’s place when we take it off the shelf and holding the book’s spine when replacing it on the shelf.
Physical Education
The first weeks of school were focused on the structure of class and implementing and practicing our warm-up activities and signals. We learned warm-up activities such as numbers, ABC’s, and Turtle Tag. We then played some games that allowed the students to learn spatial awareness as well as cooperation and teamwork.
We then began introducing different equipment. The students have played games using bean bags, hula hoops, fleece balls, noodles, and cones.
We will be introduced to much more equipment throughout the year. During 2nd quarter, students will learn loco-motor movements and we will practice our throwing and catching.
Art
To kick off the school year, all students created a self-portrait. The self-portraits were made in different colors so that we could create a school-wide rainbow self-portrait mural. The mural is on display in the cafeteria & it looks fantastic!
During the first quarter of school, kindergarten students completed three projects in the art room. For the first project, student created a “Party Kid”. The party kid project allowed me to see each child’s ability to cut, glue, identify shapes, and colors! After this assessment, students leaned about an artist named Wayne Theibaud. Thiebaud is famous for his paintings of sweet treats. After viewing & discussing his art, students created a painting using different watercolor techniques including: wet-into-wet, dry-into-wet, blending, & adding salt to the painting. Once the paintings were dry, student cut out paper to make four popsicles. Popsicles were glued to sticks & attached to a black piece of paper. Next, Mr. Case, the student teacher, taught students how to make a texture collagraph print by gluing thing such as plants, fabric, string, and paper onto pieces of cardboard. Once this step was complete, student inked the cardboard & printed it onto a piece of paper.
Counselor
In guidance with Ms. Munsey this quarter we started with getting to know you activities and understanding the role of the school counselor. We also focused on the character trait RESPECT. We spent much of our time discussing and understanding how to be considerate of other people’s feelings and tolerant of differences. During the first quarter we also celebrate Peace Week and Red Ribbon week. During peace week I taught students how to deal with their problems in a peaceful respectful way. We discussed strategies, reporting, and the definition of bullying behavior. Red Ribbon week is October 26th through the 30th. I will be teaching students the importance of healthy choices and good decision making.