Wow! I can’t believe how fast time is flying by! The children have been working really hard this month learning about the different types of clouds, weather, order of the rainbow, five food groups, healthy habits, dinosaurs, and all about the first Thanksgiving. The children also had a lot of fun creating and preparing for our annual Thanksgiving feast!
During the first week, the children learned about the different types of clouds that we see such as cumulus, stratus, cirrus, and cumulonimbus. The children were able to look out the window everyday and talk about what clouds they saw that day. It was such a great lesson because the children really enjoyed learning about what they saw! Throughout that week we discussed the different types of weather we have here in Ohio and across our nation. During line time we learned about how a tornado is formed, what happens when other states have hurricanes, and how much snow you can get in a blizzard! The children also learned how rain and snow are formed inside the clouds, that strong winds are called gusts and that light winds are called breezes. The last day we read a great book about rainbows. The children learned how a rainbow is created and the color order, ROYGBIV! Wow, we had such a busy week!
. 
The second week the children focused on nutrition. The first few days we read books that had to do with healthy habits. We discussed the different ways to keep our body healthy and we charted them. I then posted a food pyramid on the wall and explained what each section was about. The children then were given different food pictures and were able to post the pictures in the right section of the food pyramid. The next day we did a fun activity that taught them about how we spread germs and about hand washing. I started out by sneezing glitter into my hands and showing the children what your hand looks likes when you sneeze into it. I then shook the child’s hand that was next to mine and had them show the class what his hand looked like after he shook my hand when I didn’t wash them. That child then shook his neighbors hands and this continued throughout the circle. The children couldn’t believe how just by me not washing my hands how I passed so many germs to so many people. We then practiced washing our hands by singing the alphabet song! The last day we talked about the importance of exercise and how much our body needs everyday. I then showed them different pictures of people doing different exercises and the children had to act out the picture I showed them!
. 
The third week we focused on learning about The First Thanksgiving, and preparing for our Thanksgiving feast. Everyday I read a special letter to the children from a pilgrim child. In these letters the children talked about their long journey on the Mayflower, the food they ate, hardships they experienced, feelings they felt, and games they played. The children really enjoyed learning that it took 102 days for the Mayflower to get to America. They also learned that only 16 men left the ship to see if the land was safe enough for everyone to come ashore. Throughout the week the children learned about the Native Americans and the pilgrims. We discussed who Squanto was and what he did for the pilgrims. The children also made girl and boy pilgrim hats for our feast! I wanted to say thank you for all of the parents who came and helped set up for the feast and who helped with the kiddos. The children really enjoyed sitting with their family and friends!
. 
The last week was all about dinosaurs! The first day we discussed the different dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus Rex, Briancosaurus, Stegosaurus, Apaosaurus and the Brontosaurus. We talked about their size, length, and what they ate! The next day the children learned about herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores. I explained to the children that a paleontologist can tell if the dinosaur was a meat eater or plant eater just by looking at the fossil print of their teeth. The children also loved hearing that herbivores had to eat certain rocks so that the plants could break down in their stomachs. Throughout the rest of the week we focused on fossil finding, the concept of extinction, and the time period dinosaurs came to be. Our preschool friends had so much fun finding fossils, making fossil prints in cookie dough, reading amazing stories about them, and making a variety of Dinosaur crafts!
Academic Enrichment with Mr. John (Kindergarten Students)
The kindergartners have learned how to tell time. We ended our section of telling time by learning how to tell time to the minute. We have done many worksheets, use flashcards, and used a toy clock with movable hands to help us learn to tell time. Then we delved into everyone’s favorite thing…money. We learned about coins; what they look like and how much they are worth. The kindergartners learned how to count coins when presented with multiple coins of different denominations. We went over bills including the ever elusive two dollar bill. We ended November with learning the parts of plants, flowers, leaves. And learned about the parts and characteristics of the mammal, reptile, amphibian, bird, and fish.
The kindergarten class can count to ten in 17 different languages… English, Spanish, Sign Language, German, French, Japanese, Greek, Arabic (with the Lebanese dialect), Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagolog, Hebrew, Korean, Hungarian, and Polish.
Enrichment Classes:
In music, the students got to practice their loud (forte) and soft (piano) voices to sing hello to Nemo the fish, Tina the turtle, and Allie the alligator! Then, we practiced playing egg shakers, listened to the triangle, and pretended to be on a “Christmas” train all at once. The children loved this song because they got to practice slow, medium, and fast speeds. We also sang some other Christmas favorites like “Jingle Bells” and “Deck the Halls.” Ms. Lisa reviewed the whole, half, quarter, and eighth notes by having the children first identify the note and then clap the number of beats for each. In addition to teaching us her fun music lessons, Ms. Lisa helped us with our Christmas songs for the show. Thanks Ms. Lisa!
In science, our first experiment used play dough! Mr. John shaped half of the play dough into a bowl and the other half into a sphere. He asked the children which one would float and sink. We discovered that the sphere always sank and the bowl floated even though each contained the same amount of play dough. Mr. John explained that the bowl had more surface area which pushed the water away. In our next experiment we explored absorption with a diaper and paper towel. The children made hypotheses on which they thought would hold more water. We discovered that the diaper was able to absorb much more water than the paper towel after pouring water on each. The last experiment of the month involved skittles. Mr. John sorted skittles by color on a plate. He asked the children what they thought would happen when he poured water over the skittles. Many of the children said that the skittles would float. When the water was poured over the skittles, the dye off the candy started to run off. However, the colors did not mix! We learned that there is a wax on the candy that does not allow the water to mix the colors.
In Art Ms. Michele started with reviewing primary and secondary colors on the color wheel. Then she explained what complimentary colors were. (red/green, blue/orange, yellow/purple) Next the children did some drawing at the table with oil pastels. Ms. Michele had them draw lines on white paper with one color pastel. To finish the project, the students painted with the color compliment to the oil pastel they used to fill in the paper. To end the month, Ms. Michele did a leaf project. First the children drew a leaf on white paper with a pencil. Then they took a glue bottle and outlined the leaf drawn. (Ms. Michele told them “Just a line is fine.”) After the leaf was outlined in glue, the children took one color of yarn and placed it on top of the glue. To fill in the leaf, the children glued in warm (orange, yellow, red) and cool (purple, green, blue) color foam tiles to create a mosaic.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!