Hoppin' Into Junior Kindergarten!

Hi JK Parents and Friends!

We are talking about Christmas and other holidays around the world, and how we can share our kindness.  We are learning how children around the worlds celebrate special holidays and the meaning and traditions that make them special.  The children loved seeing same age children and their costumes and different treats they love in far away places.   

Literacy:

We collaboratively told stories about gingerbread people as we changed the scene and the characters, and talked about how the characters are the same and different.  

We are hunting for the letter Ll and practicing writing Ll words.  We read the Ll book, recited the Ll chant, and have been finding words that begin and end with Ll.  We used the white board for lots of vertical writing this week.  It's so important to cross the midline and use that left-right brain connection.  Our reading groups loved hunting for Ll words in stories and practicing isolating each syllable in compound words.  

Fine Motor:

We created Gingerbread house scenes after reading many versions of The Gingerbread Man.  There's a whole gingerbread family including a baby, and the Gingerbread boy actually goes to school!  :). The children loved cutting and pasting as they created candy decorated houses!  

We sewed using sewing cards and string.  Another great fine motor activity they love.  

Science and Math:

We are completing an experiment with gingerbread paper people, to see what will happen when submerged in water for 1 hour, 1 day and 7 days.  We made predictions and then observations, asking questions about the type of paper used, the water temperature, the marker used to draw the faces, and then recorded our findings on the class log.  

In our Math Center, we used dice to roll, count and add two numbers together, and then locate the corresponding number on a gingerbread person.  We also graphed our results on a bar chart.  We talked about how to know at a glance how many dots are on each side of a die, and how to know quickly how many are on both when adding them together.  

We are all getting excited about our Gingerbread Party!  Thanks so much for sigining up to bring supplies.  We love having parties in JK.  We all have special roles and jobs to do to make it come together.  

Have a lovely weekend!

Ms. Massey