Kindergarten Newsletter
12/2/16
Classroom News!
Our room was a particularly happy place on Monday. Everyone returned from the holiday in high spirits -- happy to have had the time to spend with our families and just as happy to return to the convivial atmosphere of Kindergarten. So, what have we done this week? Plenty!
* Though the weather is not exactly what you would call wintry yet, we started the week by reading a book called "The Mitten" by Jan Brett. This book has beautiful and elaborate illustrations and descriptive language. We used the book to talk about the sorts of questions readers might ask before, during and after a story. Following that the children colored in pictures of each of the animals and carried them home in large paper mittens. The children are also bringing home a mini book version of "The Mitten" which they practiced reading at school.
* In math the children explored the concept of probability with a number race involving rolling and recording the sum of the dots on two dice. The children discovered that rolling a one is impossible with two dice.
* Writer's Workshop is now in full swing and the children are really beginning to think of themselves as writers whose lives are worth writing about, who care about what they write and who are getting the idea that writing is a craft that requires lots of practice and a myriad of skills. Each writer's workshop lesson begins with a mini-lesson that teaches a new strategy - - what does "writing" look like? How do authors revise? What tools do authors use? All authors face obstacles, how do we deal with those? (See video below to get a sense of what our room is like during Writer's Workshop. Incredibly, the volume is on! That's how quiet it really is!)
Wait ... there's more!
* If it's December it must be time to learn all about babies! We have a bulletin board full of pictures of each of us when we were babies (this is one of the cutest bulletin board in the world)! We had great fun studying the photographs one by one and guessing who each baby was. We had a really interesting conversation about how we learned to walk and concluded that it must have taken determination, practice, lots of falling down and getting up again, support and encouragement from people around us .... hmmm might some of this apply to the learning we are doing now? (See video below of Mrs. Mandaiker teaching everyone a lullaby)
Conversation Starters
* What did you do this week in school that had to do with mittens?
* Sing me the lullaby Mrs. Mandaiker sang to you!
* Can you think of at least 3 differences between a baby and a Kindergartner?
Apps This Week!
Poem of the Week
Baby
Baby in a high chair
Baby in a bib,
Baby in a stroller
Baby in a crib.
Baby with the giggles
Baby with a smile,
Such a lovely baby,
Happy all the while.
Jack Prelutsky