January 2017 Highlights
from Mrs. Auerbach’s Kindergarten Class
Photo: Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Photo: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom STEAM DAY building activity
Welcome to 2017 and a new year bustling with learning!
MATH: This month we concluded our study of Shapes: flat & solid and Patterns. We applied our knowledge of shapes to real life contexts, searching for shapes in our environment. We learned to identify shapes by their properties and to create designs using shape templates. We identified, created, and extended patterns. Our newest focus has been on numbers up to 100. This entails skip counting by 2s (we counted pairs of mittens), by 5s and 10s (we counted fingers on hands as in a high fives and in pairs of hands). Next we launched into the concept of place value - developing an understanding of 2 digit numbers and how they are made up of “bundles of 10” as well as “single 1s”. We have been using snap cubes in “towers of 10” and single cubes to explore these concepts in a concrete form. The next step has been exploring pictorial representations of double digit numbers and figuring out how many cubes are shown. The One Hundred’s Chart is a tool we put to use to see numbers in sequence and observe numerical patterns. These studies will be continued into February .
LANGUAGE ARTS: Our word wall continued to fill as we learned many additional sight words: now, what, it, find, this, for, make, play. To encourage use of these words in meaningful contexts, we have been playing games like following clues to “Find this” ( an item hidden in the room) and “mailing” envelopes with a candy enclosed that say, “ This is for you! ” Our most recent set of games is picking a card that instructs “Make this.” (like a funny face), “Play… tic tac toe”, or some other fun message. During Kid Writing, the children have been wearing “kid crowns” to help them remember how to write special sight words, like a top hat that is called “the gent of went” or a bee hat that is “the buzz of was”. The books and related skills we explored during shared reading this month connected to other topics of study. For example, our math unit on shapes and a concept book : MOUSE SHAPES , and our study of seasons and a contrast of the seasons: JUMP INTO JANUARY).
SCIENCE: We continue to explore our Five Senses and explore each with hands on (or nose on , or tongue on…) activities. During STEAM DAY, kindergarten had the pleasure of experimenting with constructing a chicka , chicka boom boom tree out of wooden blocks, craft sticks, and alphabet magnets. The objective was to balance as many letters as we could without a Boom !
OTHER: To honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we took the opportunity to explore and celebrate how as people, we are the same, and yet different. Genres included literature, historic video clips, songs and heart felt discussion.
Reporting Live…Mrs. Auerbach