We started off our school year focusing on grace and courtesy to teach and fulfill our student’s innate need for order. Every student has a need to know and to absorb the social structures in order to be more at ease in their environment. Grace and courtesy lessons give the student the vocabulary, actions, and steps required for them to build their awareness and responsiveness of those around them. We worked on walking in the classroom, using our inside voices while in the school building, using kind words to one another, using safe hands, how to clean up our area when we are done working and how to use our words to express our feelings.
The third week of school we talked and learned about community helpers. We had many parents, family members and friends volunteer to come in and talk to the children. They briefly described their occupation, they talked about where they work, what they wear, tools they use, and tasks they perform. I would like to thank all of the volunteers that came into the classroom! It was a wonderful learning experience for both the students and teachers!
The fourth week of school we discussed families, each student had a chance to share their family tree with their friends. Their family trees included their name, parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. The children enjoyed learning more about their friends and where they come from. It was great to see the students discover the differences and similarities in all of the families and accept every family for who they are.
The fifth week of September we talked about feelings and emotions. The students brainstormed things they could do when they were angry, happy, sad, frustrated, and excited. Then they discussed with one another whether the reaction they came up with was a good choice or a bad choice. The students did a great job learning how to manage their emotions. We role played how to process, identify and appropriately express their emotions as much as possible. After a few days of talking about feelings and emotions it was great to hear the students tell their friends what they were feeling and why on their own.
The last week of September we explored the five senses of touch, sight, smell, taste and hearing. During this week the students got a chance to identify the different senses. Compare and classify items using their sense.
Kindergarten
We kicked off Kindergarten with a lot Geography. The students learned about the seven continents, fun facts about the continents, and a few countries in each continent. The students became very familiar with the cardinal directions, the equator, the prime meridian, and the hemispheres. We took a look at our home state of Ohio and the surrounding states (their abbreviation and nickname). Make sure you ask your child all about Ohio! They will be able to tell you that the cardinal is the official bird, scarlet carnation the official flower, lady bug is the official insect, and tomato juice is the official drink. They learned how we are the buckeye state and that the official rock and roll song is Hang on Sloopy. The kindergartners also learned about landforms. Ask them what the definition of a lake, island, bay, peninsula, gulf, harbor, cape, isthmus, straight, chain of lakes, and archipelago.
Art
By: Ms. Faith
The first month of school has definitely flown by! We had many wonderful lessons with our art teacher, Ms. Michele this month. Each week Ms. Michele focuses on an art concept and teaches the students about a famous artist who used the concept, and does a project focusing on certain skills with the concept. The first week, the students learned terms like warm and cool colors, primary colors, tints, and monochromatic. Then they learned the rules about markers and drew shapes with monochromatic colors (one color). It was really entertaining hearing the students say monochromatic!
The second week, Ms. Michele focused on primary colors, which are red, blue, and yellow. She focused on an artist named Piet Mondrian, a Dutch painter who liked to use geometric shapes and primary colors. The students used red, blue, and yellow construction paper to create a house and then outlined the shapes in black strips of construction paper to resemble some of Mondrian’s works.
The third week we reviewed what primary colors are and then learned about secondary colors, which are the colors created when primary colors are mixed together. The students used watercolors and mixed them on their papers, to paint a magical garden. They drew flowers, animals, insects, and whatever else that would be in their garden before painting. The next lesson focused on complimentary colors, which are colors that are opposite of each other on the color wheel. Ms. Michele had the students draw silly monsters with pencils and then using complimentary colors, they colored in their monsters with oil pastels. For our last art lesson the students reviewed what warm and cool colors are. They picked either warm or cool colors and made a beautiful leaf mosaic.
We are all excited to see what we learn in art class next month!
Music
By: Ms. Faith
Throughout the last month, the students have learned so much in music class. Our new students got to meet Ms. Lisa, our wonderful music teacher, and our returning students were able to show the new students how music class works. We learned the rules for music class such as, not picking up the instruments until Ms. Lisa says it’s OK, raising our hands to answer a question, and to be respectful to Ms. Lisa’s instruments. Already, the class has improved with being patient and following directions! Some of the instruments the students were able to use were, egg shakers, castanets, rhythm sticks, bells, and tambourines. The students were also introduced to many musical terms like, forte (which means loud), piano (which means quiet), the names of notes, staccato (short, quick notes), and legato (long, smooth notes). Along with all the great instruments, and terms, we sang some really fun songs! We got to sing John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, La Raspa (A Spanish hat dance song), The Ants Go Marching, a silly song about a skunk, and much more. During music class the children are gaining wonderful music skills as well as coordination with movement. We always look forward to music time with Ms. Lisa!
Science
For our first science experiment we used skittles to learn about density. Density is the measurement of how much of something (in this case sugar from the skittles) can be packed into the same space (in this case it’s the water). So less sugar equals less dense solution; more sugar equals more dense solution. Basically a less dense solution is lighter and will float on a more dense solution because of this we were about to make a skittle rainbow.
We did an experiment using static electricity to move a soda can. When we rubbed a balloon through our hair it created invisible electrons (with a negative charge) on the surface of the balloon. This is called static electricity, which means “non-moving electricity.” The electrons had the power to pull the soda can (with a positive charge) toward them.
We used hydrogen peroxide, dry yeast, dish soap and food coloring to make elephant toothpaste. The foam we made was special because each tiny foam bubble was filled with oxygen. The yeast acted as a catalyst (a helper) to remove the oxygen from the hydrogen peroxide. Since it did this very fast, it created lots and lots of bubbles, which is why the bottle got warm.
Water is a great substance for soaking up heat that is why we were able to make a water-proof balloon. We filled a balloon with water and held a lit candle under it, to our surprise it didn’t pop. The thin latex balloon allowed the heat to pass through very quickly and warm the water. As the water closest to the flame heated up, it begins to rise and cooler water replaced it at the bottom of the balloon. This cooler water then soaked up more heat and the process kept repeating itself. The students wanted to know what would happen if I turned the balloon so that the candle flame was close to the side of the water balloon, the balloon popped because the water was not conducting the heat away from the surface of the balloon. The students noticed there was soot on the bottom of the balloon, but it was actually carbon. The carbon was deposited on the balloon by the flame, and the balloon itself remained undamaged.
We put apple slices in jars and covered the apples with salt water, vinegar and lemon juice. The students made predictions about what would happen during the apple science experiment. The next morning we checked on them and saw some changes. The apples in the lemon juice looked great, but the ones in the vinegar and salt water had started to turn brown. A lot of the students had hypothesized that all of the apples would stay fresh or rot. We started to realize our predictions were not going to come true. Over the next week all of the apples were even browner except the one in lemon juice! We concluded that acids in general don’t stop apples from browning, that something else in the lemon juice must be helping them stay fresher.