Dear Kindergarten Parents,
Our Faith Focus this week: Talking to God is Good. We can pray quietly, out loud or even through song! What kinds of things do we want to say to Jesus? What can we thank Him for today? Who can we pray for? Sometimes the hardest thing to do is listen to what Jesus has to say to us. I tell the children if we open our hearts we will hear Him. We brought back our quiet “Heart Rooms” from last week and talked to God about things we are trying to do better, things that may worry us, and even things we are so happy about. We know that even if we are having a hard day, God is always there ready to listen to us!
In Math, we practiced making one-to-one correspondences, comparing groups/numbers, and equalizing sets. The children learned a trick of drawing a line from one object to another to make it easier to determine which group of objects has more/fewer. We met “Mr. Alligator,” who helps us with comparing numbers. Mr. Alligator is always very hungry and wants to eat the greater number. The children grasped this concept very quickly! We will continue to compare numbers throughout the year, and get used to reading number comparison sentences using the proper wording (ex: 5 > 3 “Five is greater than three,” 5 = 5 “Five equals five,” 5 < 10 “Five is less than ten”). We also practiced more with the directional words left and right.
In Language Arts, we read stories that explored our five senses. Listen, Listen provided great examples of sensory words. The children listened for words such as sweet, loud, soft, bright, and many others. My Five Senses explained how we use some of our senses together while others we use independently. We also explored what happens when one of our senses works differently or not at all. We learned how the blind use their sense of touch to read with braille. We created our own names using the braille alphabet with rhinestones and glue. People who are deaf can communicate using sign language or may have implants to help them hear. We practiced the alphabet in sign language and learned how to say, “I love you.”
We read Flora and the Flamingo. This wordless book illustrated non-verbal communication through the two characters who became fast friends. We also learned that a person’s body language can tell us a lot about how they are feeling. Our popcorn words were: are, all, at.
Our five senses traveled to the sensory table as well where the children created Mr. (and Mrs.) Potato Head people based on our senses. All Potato Heads need eyes, ears, a nose, mouth, and hands.
Fireworks, last year’s Caldecott winner, connected both our spotlight sound F and our science unit on the five senses. We discussed how fireworks engage our senses - what we can see, hear, and even smell!
The book, How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? became a project the children enjoyed with Mrs. Brickley’s room on Thursday. Four large pumpkins were cut and emptied of the pulp and seeds. The children were separated into groups and each group had to count their seeds by tens. I love this combined science/math lesson and it smells good too. Pumpkin Jack helped us review the life cycle of a pumpkin and we made our own class Jack-O- Lantern.
Leo Lionni was our featured author/illustrator. We read Fish is Fish, and Frederick. The children learned how to use collage and we compared characters from book to book.
It was a busy week!
Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions. :)
Next Week: Our letter of the week will be Dd. Our sight words will be: me, he, she, with, them. Picture Day is Friday, October 23. Please send all payment forms in your child’s folder even if you pre-order online.