Last week we survived the harsh weather conditions of La Jolla Shores for our field trip to the beach. Carrie, Amy, Anna, Claudia, Sondra, Vi and Anna were able to capture some amazing works of art as well as assist in keeping the children on task! Click on the album above to get a sneak peak of your children's work.
Our Great Artist study has begun! Throughout the past two weeks the children have begun exploring the artistic style of Andy Goldsworthy. The children have had multiple opportunities to work with sand, stone, clay, leaves, berries, pinecones, twigs, bark and more. When Andy Goldsworthy creates his art in nature, his intention is not to “make his mark” on the landscape, but rather to work with it and create a new perception and an every growing understanding of the land. The children have begun to embrace and understand his philosophy as well as build an awareness and appreciation for the environment around them.
On Tuesday we took a break from our regular routine to enjoy some pancakes, get comfortable in our pajamas and snuggle up with our favorite books. The children took and active part in reading books and listening to stories for 2,010 seconds! It was truly spectacular to look around the campus and see everyone reading!
As many of you were aware, on January 12, 2010 a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, devastating many of the homes, schools and orphanages in and surrounding the capital and largest city, Port-au-Prince. Our entire TCS community came together to collect soap, soap dishes, toothpaste, tooth brushes, band aids, wide-tooth combs, washcloths, hand towels, ziplock bags and shampoo. With the support of the children and their families we were able to assemble 238 Care Kits as well as share our message of hope through the news! Please enjoy the video below that was aired on NBC!
Last week we were joined by S.H’s grandmother “Dr. Lou” and his mother Charlotte for an amazing science experiment. The children made predictions and hypothesis about the buoyancy of various objects in corn syrup, oil, water and alcohol. Please enjoy the videos of the children making their predictions and conclusions of the buoyancy of a red chip in water.
Our Cinderella Study was in full swing this week as we huddled indoors and tried to keep warm and dry. This week we read four more versions of Cinderella and began making lots and lots of text-to-text connections between all of the stories. On Friday we shared the pen to create a poster that helped us illustrate the similarities and differences between all of the stories. In Math the children worked on solving a word problem involving Cinderella shopping for a pair of shoes. Please see the videos below to see how a few of the children approached this problem
What a week it has been! Amidst assessments and our fairy tale study it is hard to know where all of the time has gone! This week the children continued their weekly routines of weekend report, handwriting, reading, math practice and writing in their journals. In word study, the children focused on the –an family. Their word study included reading three new –an books, “Flip and Write” as well as making their own –an books. The children were recently introduced to the ‘Magic 5 of Writing’. After completing a writing assignment the children need to check and make sure that they have used the following 5 things: 1. Each sentence begins with a capital letter. 2. Use punctuation 3. Use the word wall 4. Use spacing 5. Use lowercase letters. Our fairy tale study began with a reading of Cinderella with our Book Buddies. During job time the children traced their buddies shoes of feet to make an outline of their “glass slipper” and measured their glass slippers using blocks, cubes, rulers and dominoes. During Reader’s Workshop we read Cinderella Skeleton and created our own silly Cinderella stories. In one story Cinderella was an Alien who lost a heart when the clock struck midnight and danced with a monster at the ball and lived in outer space forever…
We are back with so much to catch up on! I apologize for the lack of recent pictures, but hope you enjoy the video and pod guide from our Avenida de la Playa study. To access the pod guide please click on the link below: http://sites.google.com/site/kindergartenavenida/home
This week for word work we focused on the –at family. We had a shared reading of the book “Pat the Bat” and the children followed up the reading with their own copies that they could use to search for and high-light all of the –at words. We also brainstormed –at words and came up with 18! During job times the children played Roll & Write, practiced writing –at words and built word puzzles. In math the children worked on writing their numbers to thirty, addition and subtraction problems to 20, and solving word problems that included multiple step addition and subtraction problems as well as fractions. During Writers’ Workshop we worked on our new years resolutions using Snail Speak. Snail Speak is a fun way of stretching out words r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w-l-y. The children also learned a game using snail speak that you can play at home. The children wrote resolutions for school, home and with their friends. This week we also kicked off our Fairy Tale study by reading “The Frog Prince Continued” and “The Fairy Tale News”. The children shared ideas about what they already know about fairy tales (they will be on the white board for the remainder of our study) and what aspects of the story made it a fairy tale. On Friday they helped guide our fairy tale study by sharing things that they would like to learn more about.
Welcome to our Kindergarten Room 5 blog! This blog will allow you to observe and investigate some of the amazing things that occur in and around our classroom throughout the days, weeks and months of your child’s Kindergarten experience. Kindergarten is a magical place where your children explore, investigate, experiment, learn, laugh, create and believe. My hope is that this website will provide you with some of the magic, imagination, growth, development and inspiration that I get to see everyday. If you run into any complications with the links or navigation options please let me know!
