Ms. J's Kindergarten Class: Another week, checked off!

Here's what we were up to this week...

We made rainbow names using shredded pieces of colored paper and glue sticks. These kids are just the cutest! How did I get so lucky as their teacher?

The class and I went outside for playtime and played with huge wooden blocks. We learned how to share, use teamwork to lift and carry the blocks (some of the larger pieces are quite heavy!), and build a variety of structures.

We completed a few more letters in our writing notebooks.

Part of our phonics time (or as the class calls it "ABC time") is singing the Aphardy song. I am sure your child would be happy to sing it for you and do the hand movements too. The link for it is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTeUONxZYAs&list=PLaPdeqWXhV_ZYHLM_Br1cgBqs2EOY2uYQ&index=5

Here we are practicing our letters and sounds with the Aphardy song.

We learned how to use scissors to make our own Chester Raccoons. Cutting requires fine motor skills, and to some kindergarteners, it can be tough. With lots of practice, it will get easier. If you have child-friendly scissors at home, allow your child opportunities to cut paper with it. I taught the class our scissors chant, "Open, shut. Open, shut. That's the way we cut cut cut. Thumb on top, finger on bottom. Do not let the paper drop."

As we were making our raccoons, I noticed how some students were very worried that their raccoon wouldn't turn out exactly like my model. This was a valuable teachable moment to show the class that we can embrace uniqueness and different qualities in our work. At the end of our project, no two raccoons looked the same, and I told the class that this is totally acceptable! In fact, it would be boring if we were all clone copies of each other. I am going to be honest, when I first started teaching, I was a perfectionist and wanted all of my students' work to look similar to one another and I would even trace things for them. Gone are those days! I still continue to set guidelines for my students, but now I give them the flexibility and freedom of letting them pick how they want their work to look. Let me tell you, their work has so much more personality!

(The only thing I helped pre-cut with was the heart...)

In math, we are learning about the calendar, days of the week, months of the year, counting, writing numbers correctly, and recognizing numbers in our daily lives. We went on a number hunt around the school using clipboards. The class absolutely LOVED this! We got to walk around in all of the different grade level pods and write down numbers whenever we saw them. They were everywhere!