On Friday, Krista from the Zoo came to visit us and brought some special friends with her. We learned a great word to describe charachteristics of animals: marvelous. She brought 2 different animals with her, an owl and an american alligator and had a discussion about what characteristics the animals have that are marvelous. Krista will come visit 2 more times this year. It is always a lot of fun and very learning about these marvelous animals.
It's amazing how much technology has grown and how often we use it even in kindergarten. Every day we use the Smart Board in the classroom. We use it for something as simple as learning how to form letters correctly, to singing songs as well as practicing math skills. Here are some photos of the students using the Smart Board to build number sets on 10 frames.
Another busy week of learning is in store for kindergarten. We will start a new theme in Language Arts: Bug Suprises. We will learn the new popcorn words do and what. We will also learn letters Bb and Kk and their sounds. In Math we will continue to work with numbers in the teens. In our thematic unit, we will be learning about penguins. In Religion we will be discussing the Church and the Church family. We are working very hard as always.
This is just a reminder that we do go outside most of the time, so please make sure that the children have their winter coats, hats and gloves. Please make sure they can also zip their own coats.
I just wanted to share with you this wonderful book I recently bought during Christmas vacation. I read it to the children the day we returned and they loved it! It is called A Cincinnati Night Before Christmas. I just learned about it through the author Nadine Huffman. Our sons are on the bowling team at McNick together. All the proceeds benefit adoption.
As I was reading it, the children were making so many text to self and text to world connections. Here is the website if you are interested in learning a little more about:
www.cincinnatinightbeforechristmas.com.
After all the holidays, practices and changes, it is so nice to get back ro our "normal" schedule and routines. In Language Arts this week we will finish Theme 6 and learn the -it, -ig, and -ip word families. We will start writing our very first book we will publish in Writer's Workshop. It will be an ABC book. I will take a few weeks to finish, but in the end they will have their very own "published" book. In Math, we are starting numbers beyond 10 to 20. We will also begin our winter thematic unit. In Religion, we will be going to an all school mass Tuesday and we will be discussing that Jesus was sent to teach us.
Here are some upcoming event to think about: Beginning the week of Jan 27, is Catholic Schools week. It begins with mass at 12:00 followed by an all school open house. Many fun and exciting activities are planned for the week and that be be the week of Penny Fair as well. More information about that is in the Wednesday Herald.
Have a great week!
