Hoppin' Into Junior Kindergarten!

 Hi JK Parents!

Reminder to send your $10 in for our field trip, in an envelope labeled with your child's name and Mrs. A. 

We are learning about pumpkins and exploring the signs of fall around our school this week.  The Roycemore Garden has plump pumpkins just turning orange.  I bet they'll be perfect in time for Halloween!  The Pumpkin Decorating Night is the same day as our field trip, Friday, October 22nd, so mark your calendars to come enjoy some fun outside that evening.  

Math & Science:

The children learned the life cycle of a pumpkin and took turns teaching the class about each stage.  When they become the teachers they learn the material more thoroughly. They all wrote in words and colored books about the Life Cycle of a Pumpkin.  

We practiced writing the letter Ee and talked about the vowels that have two sounds (some more).  We learned the long and short sounds and made a list of items with each.  We love that Eva has the long Ee sound and Emma has the short Ee sound!  

We are learning about Simple Machines, and began learning about the wheel and axel.  We watched Sid the Science Kid, and how he repaired the wheel on his broken truck so that it would rotate again.  We talked about other things that rotate or spin around, like the Earth and other planets. Stay tuned!  

We are talking about flat and 3D shapes.  The word "sphere" is incredibly difficult to say for 4-5 year olds!  :). 

Social Emotional:

We celebrated Roycemore Day with Royce the Griffin in the MPR, as we did the Hokey Pokey and danced together.  The children colored Super Heros and wrote about their Super Powers, how they want to help, and words to describe their Super Hero.  

We read How to Make a Shark Smile, and talked about the simple act of a smile and a happy attitude that can spread a positive feeling to everyone we see.  It's a bit more difficult with the masks, but we can all spread happiness by smiling and using kind and helpful words.  The dolphin in our story chose to be happy and he made an impact on all of the animals in the aquarium.  

We made pumpkin muffins and decorated them with frosting and sprinkles, and bats and ghosts.  They love being in the big kitchen and seeing the ingredients they mixed together turn into a delicious treat.  

Literacy:

The children have been writing on the white boards each day along with their daily sign ins.  We are talking about the scale of letters and how the lower case letters are smaller than the upper case letters.  We also talked about the "tall letters" that are tall but lower case.  

We read The Little Old Lady who Wasn't Afraid of Anything and then sequenced the different items into a book about How to Make a Scarecrow.  I love having JKers retell stories and sequence different parts of the story.  

We are introducing sight words during our morning meeting and spelling them and then "popping up" for popcorn words.  T-H-E spells The, POPCORN!  Have them show you.  

Have a lovely weekend!

Ms. Massey & Ms. DiSalle