Hi JK Parents!
It's November and it really hit me as we began singing our turkey songs and talking about Thanksgiving. I am thankful for you all and being able to do what I love everyday. Thank you for trusting me with your children and allowing me to be a part of these most formative years.
Early childhood sets the foundations for not only hard skills but attitudes and feelings about numerous things for years to come. I can still smell evergreen and be taken back to my grandparent's house or the cold walk with my father, crunching through the snow, to cut down a Christmas Tree. We celebrated Diwali this week, and will introduce each holiday celebrated by the children in our classroom. They love talking about their holiday traditions and are excited to learn about their classmate's traditions as well! If there are special customs you would like to share with the class, we would love to have you visit! If you make good Latkes please let me know when you are available in December to cook with us. We love sharing food traditions as well in JK.
Fine Motor:
We made Diwali Diyas and decorated them with colorful confetti pieces. The children loved learning about the Festival of Lights. We had a celebration parade with musical instruments and sang songs and shared kindness.
We are studying the great artist, Van Gogh. We looked at Sunflowers and Starry Nights, and learned about the different brush strokes. We read Katie and the Sunflowers and traveled with a child who saw paintings come alive in a museum and even jumped into paintings! We learned about Vincent van Gogh's life through books, videos and photos.
We painted Starry Night pictures with pastels and water colors. We talked about the foreground and background and the different times of day paintings reflect. We talked about cool colors and warm colors. The paintings are displayed outside our classroom if you drop in next Friday, be sure to take a look!
We began painting turkeys for Thanksgiving, after tracing handprints and using water colors to fill them in.
Our reading groups hunted for the letter Hh and practiced the rhythm of reading as we underlined each word with our witch or monster fingers. We are putting together compound words and practicing isolating beginning and ending sounds.
Math & Science:
The children are practicing skip counting by 10's or 5's if they are comfortable counting to 100. We are using manipulatives to fill 10 frames as we talk through simple addition and subtraction.
We are talking about what it means to be a scientist and introduced matter. We will be experimenting with solids, liquids and gasses next week!
It has been so nice chatting with you at conferences, and sharing all we have been doing in JK. This time of year we travel at a much faster pace and are learning so much. Your children are likely exhausted when they get home!
Have a lovely weekend! Lila and I will be celebrating her 13th Birthday. Gulp. No tears. :).
Ms. Massey & Mrs. DiSalle
