What a busy and fun filled week we have had in kindergarten. We started our week by discussing our upcoming holiday and why we would be out of school. We talked about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and what an important man he was in our nation's history. We read lots of books about him, sang songs about him and did an activity with our second grade book buddies about him. We learned that Dr. King went to college to become a minister, just like his father. We also talked about the fact that his last name is King, but it doesn't mean that he is a king like in a royal family. We also talked about how you can be a doctor in a profession but it does not always mean a medical doctor. The students found this fact very interesting. We learned that Dr. King had a dream that all people, no matter what color skin they had, would be treated equally. The students were surprised to hear that most likely when their grandparents were children, that this was a time when African-Americans were not allowed to eat in the same restaurants, sit in the front of buses and use the same water fountains as white people. We talked about how Dr. King worked hard to peacefully get these laws changed so that this was not the case today. We talked about how it is our job to treat people with love, kindness and respect no matter what color skin they have so that we can keep Dr. King's dream alive.
We kicked off our artist unit this week by looking at the art work of Wassily Kandinsky. Kandinsky is credited with creating one of the first pieces of abstract art. He used lots of shapes in many of his pieces of abstract art. We looked at some of these and used them to create our own abstract Kandinsky. The students used circles, triangles, rectangles, squares, rhombuses, hexagons, trapezoids and arch shapes to create their Kandinsky's. Next we practiced using rulers to draw straight lines through them just as Kandinsky did in his painting. We continued talking about our geometry unit in math, and this was a beautiful tie in with this artist. Our artist for the coming week is Monet. Don't forget that we need your mommy and baby pictures by the end of this week, as we will be studying Mary Cassatt very soon. We also will need each child to bring in a BAR of Dial soap. We will use these for carving when we study Michelangelo. We have found that Dial bar soap works best for this project. Mark your calendars...we will have a kindergarten Gallery Crawl to display all of our art work that we are making during our artist unit. You won't see a lot of your child's art work coming home in the upcoming weeks, as we will be saving it for our big art show. We will have it displayed in the classroom for you to come and take a "tour" of our class museum of art on February 6. The time will be announced asap. After the art gallery you will take home all of your child's beautiful masterpieces.
This week in writer's workshop we worked on writing stories with a beginning, middle and end. We read the story A Snowy Day, and students told what happened in the beginning, middle and end of this story. Next, I modeled how to write a story with a beginning, middle and end. We talked about how some stories just use pictures, some have words and others have sentences. I showed the students how to do this in a book I wrote. After this, the students thought of a story they wanted to write about and told it to a partner. Finally, they moved to write their own stories. These turned out great! They all have such great stories to tell in their writing. We are all authors! We will continue to write more and more books.
We did an exciting science experiment this week. We talked about how arctic animals stay warm. They have a protective layer of fat called blubber that helps insulate them and keep them warm in the frigid arctic temperatures. We had the students place their hands in a bucket of ice to see how cold it was. Next, we had them place their hands in a bucket of ice, only this time they placed their hands on a bag of Crisco (to represent the blubber). The students were amazed that they could not feel the cold ice when they placed their hands on the "blubber." We watched a cool Brain Pop Jr. video clip on arctic animals and learned that these animals live in the northern hemisphere. We found this on the class map. Some examples of arctic animals are polar bears, reindeer, walruses, seals and the arctic fox. We learned that our class penguin, Penelope, is not an arctic animal because she lives at the opposite end of the earth. Penguins live in the southern hemisphere near Antarctica. We also found this on the class map as well. It was interesting to find out that even though we often think about penguins and polar bears together they really are not in the same regions of the earth.
Have you and your child been working on Valentine's? We have practiced writing a few couplets in class, and will continue to practice writing them so that the students understand the process. Remember if you write one a day you will have these finished before the big day! Let us know if you need help.
Upcoming Events:
January 15 - No School MLK Day
January 26 - No School, Teacher Workday
January 29 - No School, Teacher Workday
January 30 - 100th day of school, Lottery Open House, 9:15
February 2 - Sprit Friday
February 6 - Kindergarten Art Gallery....MARK YOUR CALENDARS
Book Fair begins (located in the MS Media Center)
Parent Advisory 9:00 am at the HS
February 14 - Valentine's Day...don't forget your special Valentine's
February 15 - No School...Teacher Workday
February 16 - No School...Teacher Workday
February 19 - No School....President's Day Holiday
February 20 - Field Trip to the Laurels Nursing Home
February 28 - Family Math Night - 6:30 pm
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