Hoppin' Into Junior Kindergarten!

Good afternoon JK parents!

We began the short week by learning about Martin Luther King Junior and the amazing contributions and changes he brought to our country.  We watched a video and talked about words that describe him for books we made.  Let freedom ring!  They each took turns pretending they were giving his famous speech, and started it by saying, "I have a dream!"

Math & Science:
We played number Bingo as a class and practiced recognizing and writing our numbers from 1-20.  We also discussed each teen number and what comes before and after!  We then worked on the 20's numbers, and jumping back and forth between teen and twenty's numbers, in random order.

Igloos:
We made predictions of how many marshmallows it would take to cover their igloos, and then constructed them from the bottom up.  We watched a video of the Inuit people building igloos and learned about the engineering of the ice blocks.

Fine Motor:
We glued decorations on wooden popsicle sticks to make beautiful snowflakes!
The children also colored and decorated their own Inuit people, and added their faces to them.

 We sequenced events from Recess at 20 Below, and put the scenes in Beginning, Middle and End order.  We are talking about all stories and their B, M and E, and will write stories next week again, making sure we have included all three!  We have been searching for sight words in our stories and sounding out some of our letter blends, starting with "ch" and "sh".

Mrs. Wise was a wonderful substitute in JK!  We love her!  

Library:
Ms. Fisher read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and the children took turns sequencing the scenes in the story.  This is great as we continue to talk about the beginning, middle and end of stories.

Happy birthday to Myraa!  Thanks for the fun books and treats.  We now have three 5-year-olds in JK!

Literacy:
We practiced sounding out our words and writing them in our MLK Jr. books.  We talked about beginning and ending sounds in words.  We categorized words in our letter game according to the beginning letter and letter sound.  We filled in the first letter in our animal card game, and practiced using inventive spelling to write words that begin with the same letter. 

 Our morning message is a great time to hunt for letters and practice reading/following words from left to right!

 Bailey went from Florida last week and is back to snowy Chicago this week!

Beginning, Middle and End of Recess at 20 Below! 

Dr. Glader and her wonderful story time!

 Have a lovely weekend!  Please stay warm and ask your children about each animal motion and letter sound!

Ms. Massey