Curriculum

May 2025

Literacy - Cuminating Unit-We have started our end of year unit studying the life and work of author/illustrator Eric Carle. We are so very excited to share all our hard work with you all at our Open House on June 6th. We have read many different book by Eric Carle and made beautiful projects related to the stories The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Lonely Firefly, The Grouchy Ladybug and a House for Hermit Crab. We have been blending and segmenting 3 and 4 sound words that include blends and digraphs. We have be unscrambling sentences and practicing writing sentences on Fundations paper with spaces between words and punctuation at the end.

Math- This month in math, we have been working on addition and subtraction, and talking about subitizing  (immediately and accurately perceiving the number of items in a group without needing to count them) and thinking flexibly (there are many different ways to solve the same math problem). We have played lots of fun math games including the disappearing train, teen top it, roll 2 dice, and race back to 1. We continue to practice writing our numbers and counting forward and backward within 100.

Science- We continue learning about animal lifecycles and are currently observing tadpoles who have just grown legs and a guppy that we have named Swimmy, after a favorite book character. We are also planting grass seeds and learning about the life cycle of plants!

Social Studies- We made cards for kids in the hospital. We are talking with Ms. Alvarez about keeping our thoughts in our thoughtbubble instead of blurting them out. We read My Mouth is a Volcano.

April 2025

Math

We continue our geometry unit talking all about shapes! Ask your student to tell you the difference between a 2D and a 3D shape. One is flat and one is solid. We have played so many math games from the hungry caterpillar, fill the hexagons, and the disappearing train.  We are exploring polydrons, pattern blocks, geoblocks and exploragons. We are noticing all the shapes in the real world. Ask your student to share something that is shaped like a cone (other than an ice cream cone!).

Science/Technology

We continue to learn all about birds! On the Cornell bird cams, both the barred owls and the great horned owls have some VERY exciting news! We have also been learning about force and motion. We turned our drama area into a balls and ramps zone and children experimented with materials to see what can make a ball roll faster and farther. We got to test our wind socks, which measure wind speed and direction. 

We have been reading many books about the planet earth ahead of Earth Day on April 22. In particular, we have talked about what people can do to make sure that our home planet is happy and healthy. There is no planet B! Ask your child what they can do to take care of the earth.

We are currently using 3 educational programs on our classroom iPads, Lexia, RAZ kids, and iReady. As I am conscious about excessive screen use with young children, I want to let you know that children in our class are on iPads only for about 45-50 minutes per week total at school.

Literacy

We have begun our writing unit about opinions. We have learned that our opinions are our own and you are allowed to have a different opinion that your friends. It's ok! You can respectfully agree or disagree with someone's opinion. So far, we have written about our favorite dessert, our favorite pet, and our favorite color. The children were challenged to write about the why for their opinion. Why do you like red best? Children were encouraged to think about reasons other than because "I like it" or "it is cool".

We have learned about digraphs, 2 letters that make 1 sound, and blends, which are 2-3 consonants where is can be a little tricky to isolate and hear each sound. Some consonant blends we are practicing include cr, fl, tr, sw, fr, and gl. We have begun sentence scrambles, which have the children rearranging mixed up words to form sentences. Ask your student about what clues can tell us where a word might go in a sentence (hint-uppercase letters and punctuation!).

Social Studies

Ms Alvarez wrapped up our size of the problem unit. Some problems are small, some are medium and some are big. We talked about how our reaction to a problem should match its size. For example, screaming and crying when you lose a game is a big reaction to a little problem.  Adults are always available to help solve problems before they become a bigger deal! Next Ms. Alvarez is talking about ways that we can be flexible, not in a body bending way, but in a mind bending way!

Tilly the chicken continues to say that elephants cannot have backpacks of joy, even though we tried to get her to change her mind. She said that it is in the Book of Rules and she didn't make the book of rules.  After the April break, we will continue to try and change Tilly's mind!

March 2025

Social Studies

We helped our new friend Trevor, a jubilant Elephant, with a rule that is unfair for him: Trevor isn’t allowed to carry his Backpack of JOY (a backpack that holds all of the things that make him happy) because The Book of Rules says “No backpacks for elephants!"  Students used their own joy to try to get Tilly (a very busy and overworked chicken) to change the rule so that Trevor can have his joy and be treated fairly.  We weren’t successful this week, but in the coming week we will think about ways that we can support and stand up for our friend and try to get the unfair rules changed. Ask your child what things they drew in their backpack of joy! The kids were SO into the story and the learning!

We talked about the idea that we have rules to keep everyone safe and make sure that we can all be happy and do our best learning, so it’s important to follow rules.  Sometimes though, there are rules that treat a person or group of people unfairly (an injustice), and those rules take away their JOY.  When we see rules that are unfair, we can organize and work together to help change them.  We also tied this to the idea of empathy, and that when we put ourselves in others’ shoes, think about how they are feeling, and do our best to help them, we are being empathetic and kind.

Science

We have been talking about the month of March coming in like a lion. Ask your child what kind of weather might be like a lion. We have made wind socks and will use this tool next week to measure the wind. We are excited to learn that 2 new bird cams are live on the Cornell Bird Cams, the Great Horned Owl and the Barred Owl. Both owls are sitting on eggs, so we are on chick watch! We are experimenting with making slime, such messy fun!!

Math: More Shapes!

We have been learning about shapes and their attributes. An attribute is a way of describing something. We are sorting shapes by color, size and shape. We are noticing numbers of sides and corners. We continue to learn through math games including Foxes and Dens and the Forest Game.  We are using the math vocabulary greater than and less than to describe numbers in the number line.

Literacy

We are learning about digraphs, 2 letters together that make 1 sound. The digraphs we focus on in kindergarten are th, ch, wh, sh and ck. Ask your student if they remember what is important about the ck digraph (it only comes at the end of words). We have read some great stories including How Alma Got Her Name, What Do You Do With an Idea, and Strictly No Elephants. We have built our reading stamina with our book bins and can spend about 20 minutes reading our stories and poems independently each week. We are using a new reading program on the iPads called Raz Kids, which matches "just right" book levels with readers and helps develop comprehension skills. We read a narrative story about an owl called the Knight Owl and an informational text about owls. We learned so many new facts about owls. Did you know that one kind of owl (Eurasian eagle owl ) has a wingspan that is almost as long as a couch?

February 2025

Math: Shapes

February's math focused on continuing to build number sense within 100, exploring early measurement concepts, and elementary coins. Ask your student how many pennies there are in a nickel. We played many math games including compare spin and win, race you to 15 cents, and which coin will win.  This week we began our formal exploration of 2-Dimensional shapes, thinking about circles, squares, hexagons, rhombuses, triangles, and trapezoids. We sorted piles of shapes in different ways, talked about the number of sides and corners, and used shapes to play games and make pictures.

Literacy-

We continue to write our news. I am exciting to share the growth in your child's literacy development at our upcoming conferences. We wrote about what love is to each of us, and in keeping with our theme for the year, we are encouraging the children to love themselves most of all. Our phonemic development has been a focus for literacy for the past two months. We are working on segmenting and blending consonant-vowel-consonant words, hearing the short vowel sounds in the middle of words, exploring the concept of silent e, and using spaces between words and punctuation. We have read many awesome books this month honoring black history month including I Am Enough and Hair Love. 

Social-Emotional Learning- 

We read the story Martin's Big Words and talked about ways we can promote peace and kindness. The entire kindergarten filled a peace tree in the hall where each child made a leaf with a promise for ways they will do this work. Ms. Alvarez has been talking about the size of the problem, and how our reactions to problems should match the size.

Science- We had so much fun creating bird feeders using recycled materials and seeing what happened to them outside in the elements. We learned some important engineering concepts about making this sturdy and waterproof, as well as easily accessible for birds to access the seeds. We even watched as many different kinds of birds came to our feeders! Ask your student why people feed birds in winter.

January 2025

Science- We have kicked off our unit on birds this month. Cornell University's orthothology program has bird cams all over the world that we have started checking in with. Here is a link if you would like to check them out at home. We visit the feeders in New York often as the birds there are the most similar to the ones we see here in Wayland. We love checking in on the Panama fruit feeders as well. Ask your student what the state bird of Massachusetts is.

Math - We are learning more about addition and subtraction, writing number sentences, and determining whether a number is greater than, less than, or equal to another number. We use the math vocabulary before and after to discuss a number's placement in numerical order. Before children learn things like multiplication and division, it is very important to have a solid understanding of numerical order. We have played many math games including, Bump, Addition Crossout, and scrambled Numbers 1-10.

Literacy - We have been reading narrative and informational stories about penguins. A narrative story is one in which the author has written a story to entertain readers. Narrative stories are not real. Informational, or explanatory stories are non-fiction texts, that give us information about something real.  We continue to write about our news, and this week wrote about an animal that we like. We continue to follow the science of reading and build phonemic awareness with our young readers.  We are hearing beginning, middle, and ending sounds in words, and tapping out simple cvc words. Ask your reader to tap out the sounds in cat and dog. We have added some new trick words to our word wall including are, and, you, and to. We read many stories written and illustrated by Jan Brett.

Social-Emotional Learning - We have talked about our identities, and the difference between a visible identity, something you can see about someone else, and an invisible identity. We talked about the importance of feeling good about ourselves and giving ourselves kind messages. We practiced speaking up when talking to a group some that others can hear you.

December 2024

Social Studies: Play for Change

Two years ago the Claypit Kindergarten Team received a grant from the Wayland Public Schools Foundation to participate in Play for Change, a program that teaches about social justice in a developmentally appropriate way through play.  We focus on the idea that everyone deserves to have their joy, and to do the things that make them happy.  When we see people being treated unfairly or unkindly, we can stand up to support them and advocate for fairness and kindness for everyone. Bonnie and Tanya, the program’s creators, came to Claypit each month to lead sessions with each of our classes, and to debrief with teachers to talk through the program and to think about how we can integrate antiracist and social justice teaching into our classrooms.  They left us with the amazing lessons, vocabulary, and experiences to continue the program on our own each year going forward. This week, we kicked off Play for Change by reading the book Swimmy, by Leo Lionni –- a classic tale for young children about the power of organizing. We talked about the idea that when we work together, we are stronger and can make positive changes happen.

Math: Doubling

We continued learning about the concept of addition via practicing doubling a quantity.  Friends played a fun game called “Bicycle Race”, and discussed the idea that when you double something you have twice as much. The concept of doubling has also been coming up during Number Corner as our first 5 calendar cards show doubles of birds on branches! We are also becoming more fluent in combination of 5, learning a fun card game called 5's up! We are telling addition and subtraction stories using "junk boxes", small boxes of themed toys that the children use to tell number stories.

Literacy -We have learned the letter, keyword, and sound for all the letters in the alphabet as well as how to write them all. We are hearing beginning, middle and end sounds in words. We write about any news we want to share about the class. We have added to our list of sight words, talking all about color words and why they’re useful to know.  Color words of course come up all the time while reading, and if kids are able to use color words in their writing, it will help them to add detail to their stories. In addition to the color words, we have learned the trick words a, I, the, my, and you. We continue to compare narrative stories and information stories. This week we read If You Give a Pig a Pancake and Pig, Piggie, Pigs. Ask your student to share something new they learned about pigs.

Science/Technology- This week we learned about computer coding with the BeeBots! Children can program directions into a bee robot that travels on different mats in all directions for a fun introduction to writing code!

November 2024

ELA- This week we are discussing the concept of rhyming – words that have the same ending.  In the coming weeks we’ll use poetry, songs, and stories to hear and see rhyming words, and children will complete rhyming word sorts, fill in rhyming words in poems, and complete rhyming puzzles. Rhymes help up learn to read! We read stories about Pigeons and talked about the difference between a narrative story and an information story.  In writing we are talking about first, next and last.  We began thinking about the importance of the sequence of a story, both in reading and retelling it.  We related this to stories that we have read as a class, summarized what happened first, next, and last in the stories, and the kids did a great job retelling the important events. We sorted story cards by first, next and last.

Social Studies -Voting- We learned about how elections work and got to visit the Room 102 Voting Box to cast a ballot for our next dramatic play theme. In a very close vote, a veterinarian office beat out a grocery store theme. 

We continue to work on emotions. Did you know the amygdala is the part of your brain responsible for emotions?  And the frontal cortex has a hard time thinking of ways to solve problems when the amygdala is upset.  We are learning how to stay calm in the face of mistakes.  In fact, we celebrate mistakes because that's how our brain grows! 

Math - We are talking about addition and subtraction, 5 and some more, and groups of 10. We have played many dice games including crossout, which bug will win, and 1 die. We are practicing writing our numerals and ordering numbers within 20.

October 2024

ELA- We continue to learn our letter, keyword, sounds, and to practice our handwriting of lowercase letters. We have talked about 2 different genres of books, narrative and informational. We read  a book called Fantastic Bats and the picture book Stellaluna. Which books is the informational book and which is the narrative? Ask your child to tell you the difference! What is the author's purpose in writing each genre?  We have learned our first 3 trick words, a, I and the. A trick word is a word that doesn't follow the traditional rules of the English language and children need to know these words by sight. We are practicing hearing first, next and last sounds. 

Math- We are counting and comparing numbers and playing many new games including which bug will, count and compare dots, and beat you to 10. We are practicing writing the numerals 1-10. We built number racks to 20 using red and white beads and use them as a counting tool. We have learned what tally marks are and how they can be a useful tool for counting. Look for the "gate" of tally marks in your child's pumpkin art. We have learned many positional descriptions including in front of, to the left, and below.

Science - We have been using our scientist eyes to examining our changing class tree. We drew pictures of our pumpkins. We read a story called I See The Weather.

Social Studies - We are talking about the many different feelings we have, including things like frustrated, bored, exciting and lonely. We talk about appropriate ways to express our emotions. We have learned about body language, and what someone might be telling you by the look on their face or by what their body is doing.

Art- We collected fall leaves for a sticky tree collage. We imprinted leaves in model magic and painted the veins with watercolor. We learned about the primary colors and explored mixing those colors to make new colors. We made many pictures using oil pastels.

Early October 2024

ELA- We are exploring letter identification and beginning sounds with Echo and Baby Echo. We are practicing lowercase handwriting and have learned our first "trick word". Kindergarten "trick words" are words that do not follow the rules of sounding out and just have to be memorized. We will learn about 30 trick words this year. Ask your student about the trick word I. We had our first reading workshop. Our individual classroom book bins contain alphabet picture books, a song and poetry binder, and beginning readers. As we move forward children's book bins will be differentiated to hold "just right" books that are challenging to where your student is in their reading development. My biggest goal is to have your child develop a love of reading!  Please keep reading at home light and fun!  We have talked about the 4 ways to write in kindergarten and the class has been learning how to draw and label pictures. Here is a visual that we have been referring to often in class. 

Social Studies - We are talking out ways to get calm when we are upset and how to identify different feelings we are having. We have been practicing how to be a good sport in games and how to decide who goes first.

Science- We have been observing nature and the weather. We are learning about different kinds of trees and the parts of trees and what happens to trees in fall. We have learned big words like deciduous and chlorophyll. We have collected leaves and made beautiful tree art that is hanging in our classroom windows.

MATH - We continue to count and compare numbers into the tricky teens. We have played many games including beat you to 5, count the dots, and which numeral will win.

September

Social Emotional Learning- We organized all our class rules into the big 4 that we will refer to all year: Be Kind, Be Safe, Listen and Try. Ms. Alvarez will join us on Wednesday mornings to work on social skills. We have learned about using our breathing to get calm when we are upset. We have acted out ways to use "I feel" words to tell friends if we are angry or sad.

Math- We are building our number sense into the "tricky teens".  Ask your child what Ms. Root's favorite number is! We are playing counting games with Hap the Grasshopper including Hop and Stop. We are counting backwards and by 2s. We have been learning about patterns and 2D shapes using manipulatives including pattern blocks, cubes, geoboards, and polydrons.

Literacy - We have read some beautiful pictures books including Go Left, Chrysanthemum, and The Day You Begin. We have practice step-by-step drawing and learned the 4 ways to write in kindergarten.

Science - We continue to notice the world changing around us! We talked about the beginning of the season of fall and read a story When Autumn Comes. We graphed our favorite kind of weather.

Start of Kindergarten 2024:

Social/Emotional Learning (SEL): We are learning all about rules and routines and how to be a student. We are talking about how to take care of classroom materials. We are learning to raise our hand if we want to say something. We read the stories Wemberly Worried and All Are Welcome Here.

Literacy: We have drawn our first self portrait and colored a picture of the pigeon. We read the words and pictures of our daily schedule each morning at our meeting.

Math: We have started number corner, a time for counting and calendar activities. We count the days in school (including the 2 meet and greet days) which puts us at the 4th day of school today.

Science: We used our scientist eyes to observe some nature this afternoon and began our study of trees. We sketched our "class tree", a maple tree near the kindergarten playground, and talked about what trees look like in the season of summer.

SPECIALS!

Monday- Skills Lab AKA computer class - with Ms. Belt. Each student uses an iPad and our 2 main programs are Lexia and iReady. These are only in school programs for now.

Tuesday- Art with Ms. Gillis

Wednesday- P.E. (physical education) with Ms. LeBaron- WEAR SNEAKERS!

Thursday- Music with Ms. Buckley

Friday- Library with Ms. Burman

Sample- Week at a Glance: (**subject to change**)