Friday, February 23, 2018

Good afternoon JK parents!



Our author study of William Steig has begun, and the children are mesmerized by his amazing stories.  The advanced vocabulary stretches their abilities and the intricate plots using anthropomorphism are fascinating to the children!

Language Arts:
The story we read about a pig who found a magic talking bone lead to many interesting conversations about what each student would do upon finding such a strange and enchanting object.  We have read many lovely Steig stories this week:  Pete's a Pizza, Caleb and Kate, Alpha Beta Chowder, The Three Little Pigs, Are you Going to be Bad?, Brave Irene, Dr. DeSoto, The Amazing Bone, Lion Lessons, Oh, Were They Ever Happy!,  and How Are You Peeling?






We met with our third grade reading buddies and wrote "Response to Reading" pages using inventive spelling.  The children are loving being read to and then working and illustrating pages with their older buddies!  We are so fortunate to have that class to form relationships with this year!  It gives the children friends to say "hi" to as they navigate the hallways, and makes them happy to know others outside of our early childhood nook!




As we prepared for our 100 Day Museum, the children completed a tag about the item they brought and shared it with the class before setting up for our museum.  Grouping items and understanding the one to one correspondence while touching each item and moving it while counting is a critical exercise.  This week has given us plenty of opportunities to practice these skills.  We collaboratively colored a sign for our 100 Day Museum, and visited the museum in groups so each child would have an opportunity to talk about their item as well as enjoy all of the other children's items.







Our class also celebrated Chinese New Year with the Seniors!  We attended two special sessions in the MPR and Library, including a demonstration on Chinese Puppets and Dough Figurines.  The children volunteered to give puppeteering a try as they learned how difficult it is to hold and control the beautiful puppets!  It's quite a skill to be mastered!  The seniors were beyond wonderful, as they loved seeing the JK ers dressed as 100 year olds and loved just mingling and being with the little ones.  JK loves spending time with the "big kids"!


















Math & Science:
Children were separated into groups to categorize their items with their peers in groups of ten to add up to 100!  Each took turns counting their group's items.  We also put children into groups and had each shout out their tens number as other children pointed and sang along with the game.  Using students as actors as we move around the pieces makes it so much fun!






Fine Arts:
We will be working on our next round of self portraits.  The children have also been working with clay and learning to make different extensions and then join them together.  We finished our traffic lights we started last week, and will begin our next unit study we introduced today (Friday) on the great artist Monet.

We will be continuing our study and celebration of Black History Month, as we learn about the great Jackie Robinson, among other leaders/heroes.

Have a wonderful weekend/week!

Ms. Massey




Tuesday, February 20, 2018


Good Afternoon JK Parents!



The children were buzzing about our party and so excited to start the week!  We had such a wonderful Valentine's celebration.  I cannot thank you enough for all of the generous contributions of treats and decorations!  They were spoiled like crazy.  We had fruit for days!   




























We are studying great African American leaders, athletic heroes and great musicians as we celebrate Black History Month.  We learned about Ruby Bridges, Garrett Morgan and Harriet Tubman.  We watched a video on Ruby Bridges and wrote journal pages about being a friend.

Literacy/Language Arts:
The children are working on their sight words (popcorn/high frequency) with games in our circle at morning meeting.  We are beginning to discuss digraphs and blends as a group but concentrate on the skills in each reading group according to readiness.  We are working to scale our upper and lower case letters, so as they are practicing their writing remind them to make their lower case letters the same size and their upper case letters bigger.  Our reading groups read high frequency word books and letter books, along with some new Bob books.

Math/Science:
We learned about icicles and how they temperature has to be 32 degrees or lower for them to form. We also learned that it must be sunny for icicles to develop and that they typically form on the south side of the building/structure.  We brought huge icicles inside for study, as we talked about the danger as these melt and release from the gutters and rooftop overhang.

The children created 3-D shapes with tooth picks and marshmallows, and one even recreated the shapes by drawing them on paper!  We now know he is able to recreate a tetrahedron, octahedron complex!  They surprise me every single day.

We practiced grouping and categorizing coins and extending complex patterns as we become more familiar with money.  The children practiced writing their numbers on writing sheets as we sang our money song.

We played a game the children love,  helping them concentrate on the details of observation.  We separate children into two groups who all share something in common within their group.  They must find the similarities and differences, sometimes minute.  It's interesting to see the differences and similarities I had not even thought of to include!

Fine Arts:
We created stop lights in celebration of Garrett Morgan, the inventor of the electric stoplight.  The children were thinking of all sorts of ways to use them at home!  They wrote the colors on each circle, practiced their scissor skills by cutting out the light signals, and writing words that begin with the same color as the different signal colors.  We discussed how different life would be without stop lights, and what it means to be an inventor.

Have a lovely holiday weekend!  Spring will be here before you know it.  I don't want to rush the winter, because it will be one step closer to this amazing school year coming to an end.

Ms. Massey