February 2012
This week in Kindergarten...
On February 10th kindergarten celebrated 100 days of school. Each child brought in a collection of 100 objects to add to our Museum of 100 Things. We then made the number 100 out of pretzels and cookies which the kids loved gobbling up afterwards.
We also got to participate in "Jump for Heart" in PE class with Mrs. Thur. There were five stations Hopscotch, Obstacle Course, Jumping the hurdle,Jump rope and Jumping over the Spinning Disk. The children had a really good time and they definitely got their hearts pumping. Thanks to all of the parents signing their permission slips, kindergarten had 100% participation.
Kindergarten had a great time celebrating Valentine's Day. We decorated our Valentine bags, had a delicious snack and had so much fun passing out Valentines to all of our friends.
Kindergarten worked really hard making special gifts of love for our parents. We made celery print "roses" which actually looked like real roses. We made beaded hearts while practicing all of the patterns that we have learned. Lastly, we made a framed handprint with the saying "Hands to Work, Hearts to God. Kindergarten was very proud of all of their hard work and they were so excited to take their gifts home.
We had a special guest reader this week, Petr is the Child of God so when he brought in his favorite book to share with his class instead of Mrs. Kimm reading it Petr's Mommy came and read to the class. The kids really loved Petr's favorite book which was about a Pout -Pout Fish!
As we continue our exploration of frog habitats, we eagerly wait for our tadpoles to grow their back legs.
Having Fun During Catholic School's Week - January 30th to February 3rd
Kindergarten and fourth grade making valentines and
beaded hearts for our very brave veterans.
Max singing a solo in the school talent show.
Being silly on Crazy Hat and Hair Day.
Each student made their own groundhog habitat for Groundhog Day. The day before the students made predictions about whether or not the groundhog would see his shadow, most of the students guessed correctly.
There will be six more weeks of winter!
Kindergarten learned about Candlemas which takes place on
February 2nd, this is the day that the candles that will be
used in church during the year are blessed. Kindergarten
made their own candles to celebrate this day.
Buying books from our school book swap.
January 5, 2012
Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and have come back to school rested and ready to learn. The temperature has dropped dramatically these last couple of days however, I think it is important for the children to still get outside to play so thank you for sending your children in with mittens, hats and scarves. The highlight of recess today was that we discovered ICE !! The children had a wonderful time exploring and investigating the ice and the water beneath it.
Our new Superkids are Tic, Tac and Toc, they are a trio of friends who love to play musical instruments and dance. So kindergarten will be trying their hands at a little tap dancing, and we will visit Mr. Petrow and the band to see all of the instruments that begin with the letter Tt. The class is really doing well sounding out new words and blending sounds together. It is so exciting to see their faces as they realize that they have just read a word or sentence.
In math we are sorting objects using three attributes, counting by ones and tens, finding missing numbers from 1 - 76. Our new shape is a parallelogram (ask your kids to sing you the song) and our new pattern is AABB. We are counting pennies and we know that 1-10 pennies equals 1-10 cents (depending on the number chosen each day).
In computer class we have been working with the Smartboard doing math games such as Marble Match counting and playing sight word bingo. The children love using this interactive board and we hope to spend a lot more time working in the lab.
On Friday we will celebrate the Epiphany, when the Three Kings arrived in Bethlehem to see Baby Jesus. We are going to have a special Epiphany Cake and the lucky person who finds the dried bean in their slice of cake gets to be King for the day, they will recieve a crown and have special jobs the whole day.
In Spanish we will be learning how to say winter clothing words such as hat, coat, mittens etc. In a few days we will have our Spanish Enrichment activity hanging in the hall so you can see the words that we have learned.
January's virtue is knowledge and kindergarten plans on gaining a lot of it during these cold winter months.
December 2011
December Happenings
Storytime in our jammies for our Kindergarten slumber party!
Making Christmas stockings at our pancake breakfast with Santa.
All ready for our Christmas program.
Our Special Christmas performance.
Mr. West reading us a special Christmas story.
November 29, 2011
It is hard to believe that it is already the end of November; the year is just flying by! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and now we will begin the Advent season.
We celebrated Veteran’s Day at the beginning of the month. We worked with our fourth grade prayer partners and made cards to give to many of those currently serving in the military and veterans. Some of our cards were sent to Afghanistan to thank those who sacrifice so much. There was a very moving ceremony featuring all branches of the military, special songs were sung and the band played patriotic songs. We also celebrated the Marine Corps birthday with a giant cake that the whole school got to share.
Grandparent’s Day was so much fun, we loved singing our special songs and attending mass with all of our special guests. Kindergarten worked very hard learning their songs and making their turkey handprint cards.
Today we were introduced to our new Superkid, Lily Ping, so we will focus on words beginning and ending with Ll. As we learn each new letter and the sounds of that letter, we add to the group of words that we can sound out. We have really been focusing on blending the sounds together which I am sure you could tell from the work that has been sent home.
We have been working on adding numbers and still practicing the correct number formation. We are counting by tens and ones, and our new math pattern is ABB, which the children do very well. We have also been learning about polygons and parallelograms, through a couple of very cute songs that kindergarten loves to sing.
The shapes we are learning in Spanish are circulo, triangulo and cuadrado (circle, triangle and square). We also practice the colors, the weather and days of the week in Spanish each day.
In our Nature Journals we just learned about the life cycle of a dandelion, we watched a video that showed all the different phases in the cycle. Later in the week we are going to learn about snails and how they carry their houses with them wherever they go.
In Religion we continued to learn about different saints, the children really loved the story of St. Martin of Tours; ask them to tell you the story of how he shared his red cloak. We also focused on the importance of our families and how God gave each of us our families, to love and care for.
Kindergarten continues to learn and grow each day!
November 3, 2011
October went by in a flash, there was so much going on in kindergarten it is hard to know where to begin. At the beginning of the month we were learning about fire safety, we made firefighters, practiced Stop, Drop and Roll, and learned about the special equipment that firefighters use.
We had so much fun doing the Race for Education, kindergarten did a wonderful job participating in the race and they really loved all of the fun activities afterwards. While we were walking during the race, kindergarten noticed how some of trees were beginning to change, so we have spent a lot of time talking and learning about the changes that take place in autumn. The children have been busy working on fall activities and have transformed our classroom and bulletin boards to celebrate this beautiful season. We have painted pumpkins, made owls, learned Spanish words for Halloween items and made bats.
Our field trip to Shlagel Farm was so much fun!!! The children played in a corn box, saw really cute farm animals, made their way through a maze, had a picnic lunch and had a great tractor ride. Then the best part was picking their own pumpkin to bring home, Jaden told everyone that he was going to make a pie with his pumpkin, most of the other students decided that a Jack-O-Lantern was the way to go.
Our Halloween party was so much fun!! We climbed a plank and jumped into a bale of straw, we bobbed for apples, tried to catch donuts with our mouths, painted pumpkins, made Jack-O-Lantern faces, decorated cookies and so much more! Thank you to all of the parents who helped to make our party so special. If you want to help with future parties just send in a note to William’s Mom (Mrs. Marbray) or Isabella’s Mom (Mrs. McIvor) and I will send the note home with their children.
We have met two new Superkids Alf and Doc and we have had a great time learning all the new things that each Superkid brings. With Alf, we focused a lot on medial sounds; the children are getting very good at hearing the different vowel sounds in the middle of the word. Alf likes to go on adventures, so in the Discovery Room, there is an actual tent equipped with all the things a camper would need, kindergarten has really enjoyed this project corner. During Alf’s adventures he is constantly plagued by ants wherever he goes, so kindergarten took this opportunity to learn about ants in our science class, we watched videos about the different types of ants. We even have an actual ant farm in the class and have had a wonderful time observing the ants as they set up their habitat.
Golly’s project corner consisted of a dog house, dog bed and dog bones (Scooby Snacks) for the children to experience. Golly also taught us about using our sense of smell, like most good dogs, Golly has a very strong sense of smell. Mrs. Farley set up a sniffing center with several film canisters that each held a different scent; the children had to identify each different smell using only their noses, no peeking allowed!
In math we have added a new pattern AAB, the new shape is triangle and we play a number game each day called “the missing number game” which the children love. The Child of God has the students cover their eyes and then he/she takes a number off the hundreds chart, a student is then selected to state which number is missing. For November we now remove three numbers and can pick those numbers from 1-45, which is a bit more challenging.
We are incorporating as much Spanish to our day as we can; we are learning the shapes in English as well as Spanish. The children are very good at the days of the week, they have picked up the Spanish words so quickly, and it is very impressive.
In Religion we are learning about saints and we are also learning a new prayer, the Glory Be, which the children have learned quite quickly. There is a lot of great learning taking place in kindergarten and the best part is …… we are having fun while we do it!!
October 6, 2011
It is hard to believe that it is already October; kindergarten has been very busy learning all sorts of new things. We watched our swallowtail caterpillars eat lots and lots of fennel; it seemed that they grew bigger each day. Now each caterpillar has formed a chrysalis and we are waiting to see the beautiful butterflies that emerge. We learned about owls, otters and octopi and their habitats. Kindergarten loved watching the short video on the octopus garden and singing along.
In art class they are making a special octopus which will soon come home. In the discovery room the students have been painting blue crabs which are displayed in the room, you should stop by and see them they look awesome. In music class the children have been learning to play the piano using individual keyboards.
To our morning routine during circle time and math meeting we have added learning the months, days of the week and seasons in Spanish. We are now learning the shapes in Spanish as well; so far we have learned circulo (circle) and cuadrado (square).
In math we are still focusing on AB patterns, graphs, sorting and the correct way to write our numerals. In language arts we have now met three of our Superkid friends, Cass, Oswald, and Golly. Soon we will begin dictation where the children will write the beginning, middle, or ending sounds; depending on what the lesson calls for and we will sometimes write the entire word. We have been doing this verbally, but will soon do written dictations. We have been breaking into reading groups and have really enjoyed the Superkid stories, after each story there is a comprehension paper to complete to see if the student is able to recall certain details from the story.
In religion we have been learning about St. Francis of Assisi, who happens to be my favorite saint. It is just so fitting that we are learning about him this week as your children have been taking great pleasure in caring for God’s creatures; they have been filling the bird feeders and gathering fennel to feed the caterpillars. Each day at recess they look through the fennel in search of more caterpillars, when they find them, they lovingly create beautiful leaf homes for them. I am pretty sure the caterpillars would rather not be found, but kindergarten means well, the kindergarten kids are so very sweet!
We hope to see many of you on Monday, October 10th, 2011 for the Race of Education. Come out and walk with kindergarten and meet other kindergarten parents.
September 13, 2011
Well we have finally completed six days of school! After all this crazy weather we are now settling in to a proper school year. We are off to a great start, the kindergarten boys and girls have adjusted so well that it seems as if they have been doing this for months.
Natalie is our first Child of God and she is really enjoying all the special jobs that she gets to do. Each Friday we will pull a new name out of the apple to see who our next Child of God will be. The children are very excited about having their turn.
We have met our first Superkid, Cass. Cass is teaching us all about the letter Cc, kindergarten is working hard on the correct way to write Cc. Each child had a turn to read the book "Cass", ask them to tell you about the story. We have also become experts on finding words that begin with Cc. In math we are working on the correct way to write our numerals, and have learned the songs for 1, 2 and 3. We have been working on a special book called "All About Me" which the children will have at their seats on Open House. We have painted lizards for the front bulletin board and we made Guardian Angels to commemorate the tenth anniversary of September 11th, 2011. So even though we have missed so many days due to weather, we have been very productive.
We also instituted our Classroom Discipline Policy, which consists of five rules for the children to follow. The students are all doing such a good job learning to use their self-control and love bringing home a green star each day to show that they were successful.