This week Aspen learned all about trees! It was “treely” awesome! Aspen learned all about the importance of trees, the names of each part of a tree, the function of each part of a tree, and began tree classification work. During group lesson we discovered that humans and trees need each other and have a symbiotic relationship! Trees give us oxygen, and we provide carbon dioxide for the trees! During group lessons we looked at the function of each part in detail and then engaged in follow up work labeling our tree puzzle. At the same time, some of the Aspen children traced our tree puzzle and created their own trees! Ms. Lindsey also showed the Aspen children how to make leaf rubbings and invited the Aspen children to bring in leaves that they find on the ground. Aspen children should not pull leaves off a tree! We learned that the leaves are the food factories of the tree. Trees are autrophs (they make their own food) and through photosynthesis they provide nourishment for the tree. If we rip leaves off of trees they will not be able to do their job, and the tree will not grow! We also took a look at the inside of a tree with Mr. John’s science center tree box, and we learned about the rings inside a tree. Ask your child about what they discovered about tree rings!
This week during Kindergarten Workshop the kindergarteners began their North American cultural lessons, learning the locations and names of the countries in North America. They used the North American puzzle map to explore our continent and engaged in a variety of follow-up lessons. In Reading Workshop our Kindergarten students continued their exploration of phonics and our Alphabet. We discussed the science behind reading and how the brain uses phonics to connect sounds. We discovered that you can group sounds together to form words. Some phonic groupings make sense and others are complete nonsense. We then played around with phonics and created our own groupings of sounds! We came up with some fun sound groupings! Parents, encourage your children to engage in word play with phonetic sounds (beginning sounds, ending sounds, rhyming words, and thinking of words with similar sounds). In Writing Workshop the kindergarteners were working on stretching out letters (words) to write them, practicing our fine motor and movements needed to form our letters. Reading Workshop also practiced stretching out sound groupings while reading them by sounding them out slowly and then quickly. Just like in handwriting, we payed attention to the movements needed to form a letter. Reading Group payed attention to the movements of our mouth and tongue when sounding out letters.
Next week our thematic topic is All About Apples! We will have bushels of fun apple themed activities, some taste testing (what kind of apples do we like best), and artistic fun with apples! Have a great weekend!
Labeling and coloring the parts of a tree!
Superimposed Geometric Figures! Exploration of the visual sense and the application of geometric knowledge and the acquisition of geometrical language.
Exploring with the Hexagonal Constructive Triangles activity! Learning the names of triangles while exploring the composition of shape and form.