Kindergarten News

April 27, 2009

Dates to remember

Monday – gym

Tuesday – Mass, Play

Wednesday – early release

Thursday – gym, Spring Concert, Ice Cream Social

Friday – Mass, Grandparents Day

Last week we studied the letter ‘K’ which brings us to our last letter to study – ‘O’. We also concentrated on the Earth and the solar system because last Wednesday was Earth Day.

Reading/Language/Phonics:

We worked with the K sound last week. This letter is a bit confusing because the hard ‘C’ also makes the same sound. We learned what it means to summarize and we used some nursery rhymes and short stories the children know to practice. Our reading series book last week was called Three Little Kittens.  We worked on more summarizing and reviewed adjectives. We also worked some more on problem solving. We read the story For Everyone to Share. In the story a little mouse explores the world around him and asks his mother what the world is for and she tells him how it is for everyone to share. Our class book for the week is taken from that story.  Each of the children made a page for the book that shows something we share on the planet. I have started testing the children with our Reading Assessment series to see what level they are reading.  This information will come home to your with the last report card.

Math:

We continued with chapter 8, which deals with money and time.  We reviewed the penny and nickel and I introduced the dime. We compared all three and did a number of different exercises to help the children become more familiar with the amount each coin represents. We also made some rubbings of the coins.  We did an experiments with pennies and we soaked some in vinegar, some in water and some in lemon juice and salt.  Ask your child what happened.  We also dealt with the concept of morning, afternoon and evening and what happens during these times and where the sun is to help us decide what time of day it is.

Religion:

We continue practicing for our program, Daniel and the Lions Den.  We spent some time talking about how God made each of us because He loves us and wants us to take care of each other and ourselves.  We read the first story of the bible about how God created the Earth.

Science:

We learned a number of things about the solar system last week.  We have talked about the Earth, other planets, the Sun, other stars and moons and other satellites. We did an activity to showed how the craters are formed on the moon. I hope they shared this with you. We also are doing an experiment to see just how powerful the sun is using black shapes on red paper and leaving the paper exposed to the sun to see the effects. We will be looking at this experiment today. We have looked at a number of photographs of all the planets and the children felt sorry for Pluto because it is no longer called a planet. It was a very cute discussion.

Other fun stuff:

·        We made K’s filled with knots for our alphabet books. They are hanging in the hall.

·        Mr. Malueg (My husband Dave – the children found it a little weird because the ‘real’ Mr. Malueg has a beard!) came into the classroom and helped us make and fly kites.  The children really had fun with this activity.

·        We talked about and looked through kaleidoscopes of different kinds.

·        We made noodle necklaces by stringing 5 noodles and 1 bead in a pattern. We can then count by fives to see how many noodles we strung. This also helps the children to improve their fine motor skills.

·        We talked about how important the Earth is and we made a sun catcher of the Earth. They are hanging on the windows in the classroom.

·         Our special Friday snack was Kiwis.  All of the children tried a little bit and some of them even liked it!

Another Mystery Reader Revealed!

We had a mystery reader last week that had the entire class stumped!  No one could figure out who had read the entire bible!  Kayla and Josie’s Aunt Deb came and read If I Ran the Zoo by Dr. Suess.