“I like everything I get in the mail for free!”
I love coupons! You do not understand I am obsessed with coupons for restaurants. I so look forward to getting the Red Plum coupons every week just to see if there are any coupons to Steak and Shake. Ya, ya I know the coupons for the meals knock off about 50 cents a meal but it is the thrill of handing the coupons to the cashier when paying for the meal. Although, the BOGO for the milkshakes are where you save the real money. The McDonald’s and Burger King coupons are … OK, BUT the Arby’s coupons are GOLD! So if you are about to discard you fast food coupons please send them my way. My children and I will be so very thankful, I also suggest to get some vouchers to shop online, they era the best. Enough about me…let me tell you about our classroom!
Classroom News:
In February we learned about George Washington and how he was our first president and how Abraham Lincoln came from a poor family and freed the slaves. We were introduced to Franklin F. Roosevelt and how he was president during World War II and how John F. Kennedy fought for equal rights. We then learned that Donald Trump was current president. The children were taught that the president’s wives are called the first lady and that the president lives in the white house in Washington DC, and flies on a jet called Air Force 1. We discussed what responsibilities the President has. The children came up with keeping us safe, keeping the world safe and running the country. Many coloring pages were used as well as coloring pages to help identify which president is on what coin.
3 part cards(language) and 100 board(math) Scenes from my Snack Pack
We went back in time and visited Ancient Egypt. We know Egypt is located in Africa and the main civilization for Ancient Egypt was on the Nile River. The pharaohs were the kings of Ancient Egypt and ruled their subjects. We found that pharaohs has big egos and thought they were hot stuff because they wanted to be buried in big tombs. So they ordered slaves to build the pyramids. One pharaoh had the sphinx built with the body of a lion and his head. Pharaohs wanted to be around forever and the Ancient Egyptians found a way to make the bodies last a long time after death and this was called mummification.
Knobless Cylinders(Sensorial) Pink Tower and Brown Stair Creation(Sensorial)
I Spy with my little eye(Language)
We traveled to Ancient Greece where we learned about the several gods and goddesses that live on Mount Olympus. The king of all gods on Mt. Olympus was Zeus who was very powerful. Zeus had a wife named Hera who was the goddess of marriage and the queen of Mt. Olympus. Dare not sail the seas without pleasing Poseidon who was the king of the water. Although, Aphrodite was the goddess of love but also protected sailors. The goddess of wisdom was Athena. You better behave or you will meet Hades the ruler of the underworld and his really mean pet Cerberus who is a dog with three heads.
Vowel Tree (Language) More Pink Tower and Brown Stairs (Sensorial)
The month started off by going back in time and studying the Ancient Romans. The Ancient Romans had similar Gods as the Ancient Greeks. The king of all Gods in Rome was Jupiter and his wife Juno who was the Goddess of Marriage and childbirth. Pluto was the God of the Underworld, Neptune was the God of the Seas, and finally we came across the God of War, Mars. Did you notice that a lot of these Gods had planets named after them?
Knobless Cylinder Creation (Sensorial) Cards and Counters (Math)
Cultural Subjects:
My line time and the kindergarten class count to ten in 28 different languages (English, Sign Language, German, French, Greek, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Tagalog, Polish, Irish, Welsh, Hebrew, Arabic w/the Lebanese dialect, Japanese, Hungarian, Swedish, Swahili, Korean, Serbo-Croation, Hindi, Flemish/Dutch, Malay, Cebuano, Farsi and Turkish!
Color Bead Bars (Math) Reading is FUN!
Polygons (geometry)
Academic Enrichment:
The Kindergarten students started the month by dabbling in multiplication. I explained to them that multiplication was JUST adding multiple(many) times. For example how many TIMES do we add 3 in the equation 3X4? Simple, right? Of course it is!
We then took a look at fractions. Fractions are simply dividing things into equal parts being 2, 3, 4, 5 parts and up to 12, 100, 1 million parts. Not only did we divide squares, circle, triangles into fractions but broke down how many boys/girls, who was in John’s, Kate’s, Kristen’s room, eye color, age, and who was a Buckeye fan (100% by the way).
We ended the month with a dose of geometry. We learned that a triangle has 3 sides and 3 points. A quadrilateral has 4 sides and 4 points. Learning to count to ten in Greek came in handy when dealing with polygons ie… penta is 5 and a pentagon has five sides. I threw in the right angle and what parallel means.
Kindergartners doing the Stamp Game (Math)
Cultural Subjects:
My line time and the kindergarten class count to ten in 28 different languages (English, Sign Language, German, French, Greek, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Tagalog, Polish, Irish, Welsh, Hebrew, Arabic w/the Lebanese dialect, Japanese, Hungarian, Swedish, Swahili, Korean, Serbo-Croation, Hindi, Flemish/Dutch, Malay, Cebuano, Farsi and Turkish!
Field Placement Students:
Our field student from University of Akron Mr. John in action.
Mr. John from University of Akron (Field Student)
Handwriting Enrichment
-with Ms. Kristen
In handwriting this month, we finished up the cursive alphabet and moved on to writing vowel blends such as “th”, “sh”,”ch”, “00”, etc. The children are also answered journal questions such as ” When is your birthday?” and” If you could go on vacation, where would you go and with whom?” Something to work on and practice with your Kindergarten student this month would be spelling words phonetically. I’m so proud all the Kindergartner’s progress this month! They are becoming amazing writers!
Reading Group | Kindergarten
-with Ms. Kate
For the month of February our reading group focused on poetry. Together we read Knoxville, Tennessee, Picture Books In Winter, and April Rain Song. Each one of these poems were about a different season that the author truly loves. With each of these readings, the children were able to draw their favorite season and explain to their friends the reason they picked that season. They also had fun creating a drawings of their favorite book and what they like most about the rain. During our time together we go over different vocabulary that they see in their readings and discuss what those terms mean. Together as a class the children created a poem about summer in their city. I hope you enjoy this fantastic poem they created together.
Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
I always like summer best
You can eat corn on the cob
Hot dogs on the grill
Sweet watermelon
And Ice cream
You can go to
The beach
To the pool
Baseball games
To the park
And take vacations, including camping and even hunting using cool night hunting lights with your parents!!
You can see
Butterflies
Green leaves on the tree
Birds
People playing outside
Lightning bugs at night.
Science Enrichment
-by Ms. Kathleen
This past month all 3 Science experiments were about Buoyancy; a force in a liquid pushing against an object in a liquid.
Floating and Sinking Oranges: Mr. John peeled one orange and left the other peeled (boy did the room smell good!) the children placed in a tank of water. When dropped in the water, the orange with the peel on floated and the orange without the peel sank. This is because of air trapped by the peel making the orange float. The peeled orange has no air so it sinks.
Using oranges to explain buoyancy
Play Dough Shapes A Bowl and a Sphere: The children dropped 1 piece of play dough shaped as a sphere in water and one shaped like bowl in water. The sphere shaped dough sank while the bowl shaped dough floated. This is because sphere shaped dough is dense and cannot push enough water out to stay floating. The dough shaped like a bowl is able to push out water equal it’s weight and therefore, floats.
Students pushing away water to explain buoyancy
Soda Can Float (Diet Coke v. Regular) We placed both cans of soda in the water. The diet floated and the regular sank. This is because regular soda contains sugar and diet contains artificial sweeteners. These artificial sweeteners may be 100 times sweeter than sugar, which means that less than a few grams of artificial sweeteners are used in a can of diet soda. The difference in the amount of grams of sweeteners leads to a different density.
Using two cans of “POP” to explain buoyancy
Art Enrichment
-by Ms. Ame
February has flown by so fast! We started the month with painting our personally created clay creatures from January. The students used a variety of colors and spent almost the whole hour carefully decorating them. Once they dried on the drying rack, the students were able to take them home!
If you haven’t grabbed your child’s little creature, please do and take them home! Then Miss Michele began our next unit, weaving! She has started the students off with paper weaving. The students learned the pattern of over-under-over-under of weaving with large strips of paper. They will continue with weaving projects as we head into March. Keep checking the art carts to take home your students creations both from art and line time lessons! We are constantly creating all sorts of art projects each week!
Music Enrichment
-by Ms. Sabrina
A synthesizer was talked about. It is a piano that can sound like a trumpet as well as other instruments. It was used to play the game Cat and Mouse. It is a game to hone listening skills. Listening for the highest to lowest sounds. The children had so much fun. A song about being diligent was played. The children were taught to try and try and try again. A train whistle was used, so was a triangle as well as maracas. A dancing they went.
A new song about telling the truth was sung. Sign Language was used and so were foot movements. The children also learned about echo’s via music. The musical instrument used was the maraca. What fun the children had making echos. Performing with scarves were thoroughly enjoyed as well. Let the Sun Shine In was the song they danced to.