Puppets in Education!

On Wednesday, we had a visit from Puppets in Education.  Puppets in Education, a program of Vermont Family Network, teaches children to keep themselves safe and healthy and appreciate each other's differences, by using life-sized puppets in an interactive show.  This year, Kindergartners learned about feelings.  Through the help of the puppets, Natalie and Adam, the children identified feelings, discussed the word empathy, and talk about trusted adults to whom children could talk if they ever have uncomfortable feelings.  The puppet show finished with a song; see if your child can sing you the chorus!

This week during theme, we focused our attention on the sun.  We watched a BrainPOP jr. video about the sun and read The Sun: Our Nearest Star.   Afterward, we brainstormed all of our new learning about the sun.  We found out that the sun is a star and it takes eight minutes for its light to reach us here on Earth.  Our biggest "wow" fact was that the temperature on the sun is 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit...hot!  We used what we learned about the sun to make lantern poems.  Lantern poems are four line poems.  The first line has one word; the second line has two words; the third line has three words; and the last line has one word.  The children did a wonderful job with their sun poems!  They also made some beautiful suns to brighten up our classroom.  Along with learning about the sun, we talked about temperature and how to read a thermometer.  Thanks to Ms. Mariah, we have a new outdoor thermometer outside our classroom window.  Our Number Corner helper now has to read the temperature each day along with reporting the weather!  If you have a thermometer at home, practice reading it with your child!

During Writer's Workshop, we are finishing up our first opinion writing pieces.  Each child chose a favorite piece this week to publish.  After choosing a piece, your child and I conferenced and made some revisions to his or her work.  Together, we made sure their writing had punctuation, capital letters at the beginning of sentences, sight words spelled correctly, and spaces between words.  Next week, we will publish our work and share it around the school!  Ask your child about the piece of writing he or she will be publishing!

Our Kindergarten readers continue to strengthen their reading powers!  This week, we learned that sometimes we have to look past just the first letter and look at the first couple of letters in a word and say their sounds.  We call two letters together, that each say their own sound, a blend.  Examples of blends are gr-, sl-, sm-, st, or bl-.  We practiced recognizing and sounding out blends in our books.  We also learned that it is important to look to the end of a word as well to help sound our the word.  These are great strategies to have your child try when reading at home!  

We also read another Red Clover Book this week:  The Book of Mistakes.  This book was a great reminder to us that mistakes can turn into masterpieces and that making a mistake is not a bad thing.  In our Kindergarten classroom, we celebrate mistakes and learn from them!  After reading the book, each child made a stray mark on a paper and then traded with a friend who made a picture out of that stray mark....we call this Squiggle.  Have your child make you a squiggle at home!

In math, we have been working on addition facts to five, six, and seven through two new games: Shake Those Beans and Unifix Cubes Trains. In each of these games, we found all the addition combinations that equal 5, 6, or 7 and recorded the equations. We also have been practicing with place value by counting ten strips and ones and writing double-digit numbers by playing Ten and More Bingo and a Dime and Some Pennies.  Ask your child about some of these games!

Have a wonderful weekend!