Happy New Year and welcome back to Kindergarten! We hope everyone had a wonderful restful break. We will soon be taking our field trip to the Audubon to look for, identify, and learn about animal tracks. In Science, the students are learning about the diverse mammal group, habitats and how animals survive in winter. In Social Studies, the students will  learn about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and we will begin our study of influential African Americans. We will read books by African American author Ezra Jack Keats and compare and contrast life in the city to life in the suburbs. Students will learn to discern between fact and fiction and will create a fact book about themselves. They will present their books to the class. The students will also prepare for the Chinese New Year by learning songs and reading stories about the event. The study will conclude with an assembly on January 25 to celebrate the New Year! In Math, we are starting our unit on measurement, both standard and nonstandard units. In Writer’s Workshop, the students will continue to focus on word choice and organization, and the students will work on writing winter stories. In literacy, the focus will be on story elements, comparing stories using Venn diagrams, and simple parts of speech. We will focus on the letters L, Q, D,  J, and U. The children will listen to many winter stories and poems, specifically  stories by author and illustrator Jan Brett.

Happy Winter!

Mrs. O’Connell and Mrs. Barbuto

In December, we visited Sport Hill Farm and learned what farmers do during the winter months. There was still a lot to be harvested both inside and outside the greenhouses. Patty Popp showed us the plastic they put over the beds to protect the plants from the early frosts and she explained how our unexpected October snowstorm actually helped her crops because it acted like a blanket over the plastic and insulated them! We also discussed how farmers spend the non-growing seasons planning for the coming year. When a student asked Patty what she does in the winter, she replied, “Paperwork!”

After our trip to the farm, we visited Chef Peter in the kitchen and made some bread with Swiss Chard. Everybody enjoyed rolling the dough and trying some of the delicious bread! Everybody knows eating is something fun to do in all seasons.

Recently, the big buddies visited both of the kindergarten classes to instruct them on twenty, common classroom objects. Sitting with their buddies, the kindergarteners observed a student drawing of the classroom and the various objects in the room. Then, each set of buddies was responsible for seeking out two objects in the classroom and labeling them correctly. Once all twenty labels were up, we were able to practice the pronunciation and location of the objects altogether with a fun, interactive activity.

In reading and writing the kindergartners will continue the important skill of generating ideas for stories. They will begin working on the trait of organization in their writing in their stories, by focusing on the beginning, middle , and end of the story.  The kindergartners will use strategies to summarize, compare and contrast stories, as well as ask questions about stories. They will also work on word families with the short i sound.  They will focus on consonants C, V, P, and G listening for these sounds at the beginning, middle, and end of words.

In our unit “Numbers through 31” kindergarten mathematicians will explore the value of numbers through hands on activities.  They will practice counting, reading and writing, comparing values, and estimating numbers to 31+.  Students will also work on skip counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s.

The kindergarten scientists will begin our study of animal groups. We classify animals into groups and learn common characteristics of each group. Students will also study the life cycle of each group. Our study will begin with fish. Next we will move on to birds and learn facts about turkeys. In the Exploration room, students will continue to make discoveries using their five senses as well as practicing classification of living and nonliving things.

Our next Social Studies unit, “Looking at Our Country”, explores the idea that people live in many different locations.  The kindergarten historians will study the history of our country and specifically the Native American tribes and how their location affected they way they lived. They will learn to locate their continent, country, state, and town on a map, and they will locate where the different Native American tribes resided and, in some cases, still do reside. We will also discuss how the Native American people used their natural resources and what those resources were based on where they lived. Our Unquowa kindergartners will dress as Native Americans for the feast and as a way of giving thanks, they will help to deliver the food collected at school, to the local food bank.