The month of November sure did fly by! The past month was filled with many fun activities and learning.  During the first week the class learned about different body parts. The students even learned about the lungs and heart and made their own models. We introduced our anatomy apron and the children enjoyed learning about the organs and where they belong by attaching the fabric organs to the apron!

 

  

The next week we talked about food groups. The students learned about the five main food groups; fruits, vegetables, dairy, proteins, and grains.  As a group the children clipped out pictures of different types of food and sorted into the group on our classroom diagram.

The third week of November was all about Pilgrims and Indians.  The class found out the Pilgrims came from England to our country for religious freedom.  We read many books about what the Pilgrims experienced during their journey on the Mayflower and once they landed at Plymouth Rock.

The last week of November was a continuation of Thanksgiving and being thankful.  The children shared what their families do for Thanksgiving to learn that we all have our own traditions.  We focused more on why the Pilgrims and Indians ate a meal together.  The students finished designing their costumes and making the center pieces for the Thanksgiving Feast. Each child shared what they were thankful for.  We received responses from mom and dad, to pets, to sandwiches.  The Feast was a great experience for the students to share a meal together and to have their families involved.  A big thank you goes out to all the parents who made food and came in to help with the set up and clean up!

Academic Enrichment- Kindergarten Students

The first week of November the kindergarteners finished up learning how to tell time down to the minute.  I would love it if they continued to wear their watches throughout the rest of the school year! We then learned all about coins and their amounts like pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters and half dollars. We even learned a little song to help remember their names and values.  The kindergarteners also learned about dollar bills and their amounts.  It was fun to watch them compare the dollar bills and coins and figure out different ways to make the same amount of money.  The last week of November they learned how to label all the puzzles using the control charts in the classroom.  The kids have been working so hard on their handwriting by journaling each day and they are fun for me to read!

Science

For our first science experiment we mixed hot water and Epsom salt together and quickly cooled it. Epsom salt is another name for the chemical magnesium sulfate. The temperature of the water determines how much magnesium sulfate it can hold. It will dissolve more when it is hotter. Cooling the solution rapidly encourages fast crystal growth, since there is less room for the dissolved salt in the cooler, denser solution.

For our second experiment we blew up a balloon using nerds and coke. The carbon dioxide contained in the nerd candy wouldn’t be enough to cause the balloon to inflate. That’s where the coke came into play. The coke contained pressurized carbon dioxide. When the nerds were dropped into the coke some carbon dioxide was able to escape from the high fructose corn syrup of the coke and because the carbon dioxide gas has nowhere to go in the bottle it rises into the balloon making it inflate.

Art

By: Ms.Breanna

Much like the weather, it has been both warm and cold in Art this month. We started the month off by learning about the colors of the color wheel and creating our own to take home. We then used warm and cool colors to create a mosaic leaf. Mosaic is a beautiful art form in which fragments of a material, foam in our case, is pieced together in order to create a design or image. Our friends were given the option to use either warm or cool colors to create their leaves, but had to use the opposite option to fill in the background. As most people know, sometimes art takes a long while to complete, and this project has definitely been one of those sometimes. We spent the entire month on this project so that we could add as much detail and contrast as possible to these gorgeous mosaics. We have thoroughly enjoyed this project, but are excited to see what Ms. Michelle has in store for us next month!

Music

By: Ms. Breanna

The holidays are quickly approaching and preparations for Christmas are underway! This is such an exciting time of year and what better way to get into the holiday spirit than through music?! We have been working very hard at learning our songs for the Christmas Program next month and Ms. Lisa has been lending us her musical expertise during music class to help us perfect our sound and rhythm.  Christmas is not all about work and perfection, however, so in our extra time, we have been playing some great musical Christmas games with instruments such s the rhythm sticks and jingle bells and songs like Dashing Through the Snow, Jingle Bells, Little Drummer boy, and many more!