The K-kids had a blast learning about transportation! They have been hard at work creating, designing, and constructing their own box cars.  I have enjoyed seeing their creative minds dive into a project and design from start to finish.

Here are some highlights from the week:

We read the story, If I Built a Car by Chris Van Dusen to kick off our Transportation Unit.  In the story, the young boy creates a magical car with jet engines, a Plexiglas dome, polymer gel siding  and even a swimming pool! The kiddos loved brainstorming unique gadgets and put their plans into action by sketching a design of their car.  Finally, using recyclable materials, they constructed their box cars! To top it all off, they presented their creations at an Auto Show for their classmates and parents. 

Designing-

Mechanics hard at work-

Auto Show

The K-kids listened to the stories, Gingerbread Baby, Gingerbread Friends, and Gingerbread Girl by Jan Bret.  They enjoyed coming up with creative predictions about what would happen to the Gingerbread character at the end of the story.  Each story had a different ending  and together we compared and contrast the similarities and differences from the stories. 

Making gingerbread houses!

                     

Wassail Celebration

Language Arts

Stations- Games that focused on identify syllables in a word, transportation sentences, and a sight word roll game.

We continued reading groups and practiced the reading strategy, Chunky Monkey.  When coming to an unkown word, you find chunks or parts of the word that you know to help you identify the whole word.

Math

The kiddos created different modes of transportation using tangrams.  They could follow patterns or create their own.  In stations, many of the games focused on number sense and identifying 2 digit numbers and counting on  by 5’s and 10’s.  We also continued in our math journals by identifying math vocabulary such as- greater than, fewer, more than and listening for those key words in the story problems. 

Writer’s Workshop

As we wrapped up our stories last week, the kiddos were excited to share!  We continue sounding out words and writing mechanics with finger spaces and punctuation.

Share chair-

Have a relaxing and wonderful Winter Break!  I will see you all back to school on Monday, January 9^th. 

Language Arts

We continue to explore the h-brothers in ‘th,’ ‘sh,’ ‘wh,’ and ‘ch.’ and identify words that start with these sounds and are starting to recognize some of these sounds in the middle of words. 

Poetry Books- The Gingerbread Man -The kiddos are doing an excellent job recognizing popcorn words in their poetry books! 

 

Math

The K-Kids have made a great deal of progress since the beginning of the year in both their independence level and their overall math abilities. We are not only working on the math skills, but also developing independence important for First Grade.  We are continuing with skip counting skills by 5’s and 10’s and building our fluency with addition and subtraction to 10.

Coding and Scratch Jr.

Mrs. Shutters came to visit our classroom and teach us about coding. We discussed different buttons and functions needed to create a code. Using these buttons, the children created a code to program different animals and scenes on the program Scratch Jr. The kiddos were so engaged and quickly grasped the idea of coding! 

Reminders and Upcoming Events

For the next two weeks, we will be diving into our Transportation Unit. The culmination project will consist of the children designing and constructing their own box car using recycled materials. Therefore, we need your help! I ask that you and your family start collecting recyclable materials such as: paper towel rolls, milk cartoons, paper boxes, plastic containers, etc. and bring these supplies into school. The construction process will begin on Monday, December 18. Thank you in advance for your help and cooperation! 

The K-kids had a wonderful first week back to school after Thanksgiving Break.  They were excited to get back to their routine and see their friends! Here is a snapshot of our week. 

Grandparents and Special Friends Day

The K-Kids and grandparents worked together to create a family tree. 

It was such a treat to have these special visitors for the day!

Music program- Each child had a special role directing the JK and PK kiddos, playing an instrument and singing songs.  They were a delight to watch and put on a fantastic show. 

This week we focused on The Leader in Me and Habit Number 4-Think Win-Win.  I read the story, The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister and we discussed the value of friendship and developing a Win-Win mindset.  They learned how their actions and responses affect other people.  Rainbow Fish learned to share her precious silver scales and learned the true meaning of friendship. The kiddos shared stories that related to the Rainbow fish. 

Math stations 

Strategy games are important to help children critically think through, “If this..then that” scenarios.  This game fosters problem-solving and critical thinking skills, mathematical reasoning, decision making and cooperation! 

Literacy Stations

The K-kids worked on handwriting and correct letter formation in their Handwriting Without Tears workbook and then as a fun follow up activity they wrote in shaving cream!

Many of the games this week focused on work families and decoding words.

 Reading Buddies 

Reminders

Come visit the BOOK FAIR in the library! It will be open on December 4-8.

The fair has a wonderful selection of books that would be applicable to the K-kiddos. 

Winter Program- Thursday, December 7 at 6:30

The 1^st through 4^th graders will represent the Lower School in a musical and tumbling performance.  The Middle and Upper Schoolers also perform pieces from their musical show.  There is a Spaghetti dinner available before the show. Please RSVP if you would like to come!