Insects- The students learned that most insects do more good than bad. That bees, wasps, flies, beetles, mosquitoes and butterflies are great pollinators. Some insects eat other insects, keeping each insect group from getting too big. We also talked about how insects like ladybugs are a farmers best-friend, because they eat tiny crop eating insects called aphids. They also learned that all insects have three main body parts: the head, the thorax, and the abdomen. The head has large compound eyes, the antenna (feelers), and the mouth parts. That the thorax is the middle region of the body and has the legs and wings. Then, their is the abdomen.
Work Time
Teen Board: This child is showing that she knows the symbols 11 – 19 and can successfully match the corresponding quantities, for example to make the number 14 she places one ten and four units.Zipping: This child is developing his independence and concentration while also gaining finger control and dexterity to manipulate a zipper.Movable Alphabet: This child is saying the word of the object and phonetically spelling it. He is also practicing writing each word in cursive.Cursive Chalkboard Writing: This child is practicing writing cursive letters on a chalkboard. She is developing multiple skills involving her eyes, arms, hands, memory, posture and body control.Puzzle Words: This child is completing the words by moving and rotating different letters to fit in the correct order.Opposite Cards: This child is identifying and matching pictures of opposites together.I Spy: These students are playing I spy using the initial sound they hear when they name each object in the basket.
Guest Readers
Reminders
March 13 | Parent teacher conferences (Pre-K & K families only)
Shapes- The students learned that there are different types of triangles (equilateral, scalene and isosceles). They also learned the names of polygons such as: 3: triangle 4: quadrilateral 5: pentagon 6: hexagon 7: heptagon 8: octagon 9: nonagon and 10: decagon.
Tracing and labeling an isosceles triangle (a triangle that has two sides of equal length.)Tracing and labeling a scalene triangle (a triangle that has three unequal sides.)Tracing and labeling a pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, nonagon and decagon.
Music with Water- We lined six glasses up next to each other and filled them with different amounts of water. The first one had a little and the last one was full. Then, we took a pencil and hit each glass of water. We discovered that the glass with the least amount of water made a low sound and the glass with the most amount of water made a high sound. We talked about how when we hit the glasses with a pencil it creates sound waves, which travel through the water. More water means slower vibrations and a deeper tone.
Walking Water- We placed three glasses side by side, filled the two outside glasses with water and food coloring (yellow and blue) and left the middle glass empty. Then, we twisted two paper towels placing one end in the glasses with water and the other end in the empty glass. After about 30 minutes we noticed that the water started to climb the paper towels making its way to the empty middle glass. We learned that this process is called capillary action and is also how flowers and plants move water from the ground up through their stems and into their petals and leaves.
February was so much fun in Miss Lisa’s class! We reviewed Peter and the Wolf, started learning about the piano, practiced our listening skills and played some fantastic games! Check out our fun pictures below to see more details of these fun lessons!
Here Miss Lisa is introducing the piano. It is so neat that she can bring in her piano synthesizer to us! She teacher us about the difference between the white and black keys to start with.Here we are reviewing our February story Peter and the Wolf. We learned the named of many new instruments last month and the sounds they make!Here are two friends exploring the piano synthesizer. This week we were exploring the black keys only. In pairs, we played our own creative duet for our class. We practiced taking a big bow after our duet!One of our favorite games we play is cat and mouse! This game helps reinforce our listening skills. The mice have to get the cheese while the high music is playing, with the best audio systems from https://holoplot.com/software/. When the low music starts, the cats come home and the mice hurry back to their hole!One of the great features of the piano synthesizer is that it can play all sorts of sounds! We had a blast playing a guessing game. Miss Lisa played us sounds of different types of transportation, people noises and animals this month. We had a great time guessing! This game also helps us practice patience, which at our ages isn’t always easy!
We can’t wait to see what fun activities Miss Lisa has planned for us next month!
We had a fun month together in Art Class! We continued our travels back in time, all the way to Ancient Greece! We learned about the Ancient Greeks and how they told their stories through art on vases. We talked about how important story-telling is in art and how the ancient artists displayed their artworks all around them (on ceilings, floors, walls and their every day objects). We learned about the different styles of Greek vases and what the parts of the vases were called. Then we made Greek vases and told our very own stories, about our families, on them using colored pencils. It was really special to see each student draw their families and pets on their vases!
In celebration of Valentines Day this week, we used our liquid watercolors and q-tips to practice the art of Pointillism. The students very carefully traced hearts and then carefully added dots of color along the edges and inside of the hearts. Watching the students focus on this art project was wonderful, as they worked on placing their dots on the lines.
In Art this month we also learned about Eric Carle’s Draw Me a Star and talked about the color and methods this author, illustrator and artist uses in his work. Then we got to work making our very own star, similar to the one in the story! Each student was given a pre-drawn start and asked to carefully cut and glue squares of tissue paper onto it. After they finished, each student cut out his or her star and glued it onto a blue “sky” background. For the finishing touch, we added fingerprints of white paint on top of the tissue paper to recreate Eric Carle’s beautiful work! The students enjoyed cutting and pasting the tissue paper on to create a colorful collage!
Bouyancy – A force in a liquid pushing against an object in the liquid
In Science class we wanted to find out what would happen when we place peeled and unpeeled oranges into a tank of water. We hypothesized that the peeled orange will splash. Consequently we thought the unpeeled orange would make bubbles. First we peeled one orange. Next we left the peel on the second orange. Last, we dropped the oranges in the water. We observed the peeled orange sank while the unpeeled orange floated. We discovered that the orange peel traps air. So even though it is heavier, it is more buoyant. The peeled orange had no air, so it sinks.
Density- the mass in a specified volume
In a similar experiment, we wanted to see what will happen if we drop a lemon and a lime in the water. The lemon floated and the lime sank. We can concluded the lime is denser than the lemon.
A note from Mr. John:
I did some research for more information. According to the USDA website, a lime is 88.26% water by weight and a lemon is 87.4% which is a minimal difference. This could mean that lemons have higher air content, but I’m still researching why the lemon floats and the lime sinks.
This week we reviewed the three different triangles we learned about, quadrelaterals, and polygons. This week we studied the geometric solids, three dimensional shapes such as the cube, sphere, cylinder, ovoid, elipsoid, square based pyramid, and triangular prism.
Next Week:
Lesson– Vowels and consonants Synonym of the week– healthy Sight words of the week– then out
Over the last two weeks we read a story of a little girl who got to go buy eggs all by herself for the first time. Her parents told her not to dilly-dally and come right home. On her way home, she wanted to pick apples and ended up dropping the eggs and breaking them. Her parents found out, but showed her grace and forgiveness. The kindergartners practiced reading the purple highlighted words, and continued to practice discussing and listening to each other. They participated in reading comprehension activities by drawing pictures, writing responses, and acting out a scene where Hetty walks across the stream with the eggs. At the end of the story, the group filled out an evaluation on how well they worked in discussion. They came up with a goal to listen to friends’ ideas and reasons.
A Peek Into the Next Two Weeks
-The students will read a story of a man who dreams of a different life.
-The students will participate in vocabulary activities.
-The students will learn about the genre fantasy fiction.
Money- The students were introduced to different coins ( (pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters) and their values. They were able to explore different coins sensorially and learn how much they are all worth. The students also practiced grouping different coins to count their value when put together. We would like to share some details and informations on how drop domestic violence charges are made.
Matching pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters to their written value.Coin Rubbing
Dr. Seuss and Eric Carle- “A person’s a person, no matter how small,” Theodor Seuss Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) said. “Children want the same things we want. To laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained and delighted.” Dr. Seuss was not only brilliant, but has helped millions of kids learn to read with his fun rhyming books.
Work Time
Teen Board: This child is showing that she knows the symbols 11 – 19 and can successfully match the corresponding quantities, for example to make the number 14 she places one ten and four units.Trinomial cube: This child is learning how to build a trinomial cube, while also getting an introduction into algebra and preparation for the formula a3+3a2b+3a2c+6abc+b3+3ab2+3b2c+3ac2+3bc2+c3.Silence Game: This child is practicing how to control and keep her body calm.Library Living and Non-Living: These children are sorting pictures of living and non-living things. Bead Board: This child is refining her fine motor skills by placing beads on a board. While also developing her concentration, coordination and independence.
Reminders
March 2 | Progress reports
March 3 | Tallmadge Open House
March 13 | Parent teacher conferences (Pre-K & K families only)
