Good afternoon JK families!

Thank you for supporting the kids if you were able to cheer them on at Palio!  They all had a great time and I was so proud of them for performing so well for an audience.

Happy Spring Break!  The sunshine has us all happy and excited for warm weather and spending more time outside.

Math and Science:
The children have been noticing signs of spring around the neighborhood, and went on a scavenger hunt to find them all!  They know their seasons and have enjoyed learning about all of the ways spring shows itself.  We have been talking about migration and how the birds are returning, as well as animals waking up from hibernation.

We continue working on subtraction story problems using manipulatives, counting by 10's, counting to 100, practicing those tricky teen numbers, identifying numbers within print during our morning message, coins review, and 3D shapes.  They have been exposed to all of these through the year so practicing them and reviewing often is required to keep the information fresh as it becomes part of their knowledge base.

We visited the fourth grade class and learned about their amusement parks they designed, utilizing different climates.  Incredible creations and the children loved it all!

Fine Motor in Spanish was great fun as the children made birds nests and chose how many birds would occupy it.  'So fun to see the differences when they are able to make choices and then hear the reasons in support. 

We are so thankful for our new student from Australia!  He is such a sweet and fun child and we are excited to get to know him this last part of the school year!  Welcome Domenic! 

We measured each other this week and lined up blocks as our non-standard units of measure to compare our heights to other classmates.  The children created flowers for our flower garden and attached a ribbon that matches their height.

Literacy:
The children continue to practice syllables in words and picking out each letter sound as they write.  Their Word Books are filling up as are their sign in books.  We have begun working on blends and digraphs for some groups as they learn to combine letters to make new sounds and become more fluent in their decoding.  We began reading books about Spring, along with other stories, and are using a chart to follow song lyrics as we sing as a group each morning.

Music is an amazing avenue for remembering all of the foundational words, including days of the week, months of the year, seasons, days in each month, etc.  It's also important for the children to feel a part of something that sounds different when everyone is working together.  It's an important element to early childhood, and makes each day a bit more colorful.  We love our Music time twice a week but also know it's important to incorporate through our classroom day.  Even children who are not my performers benefit from learning how to appeal to an audience as a group!  It's another great skill to encourage team work and compromise, as each child becomes more aware of their personal space and the sounds they contribute to our singing.

Our third grade reading buddies checked out books for us and brought them to read together.  It's such a treat to have them buddy up to the JK children.  We look forward to their visits!

Fine Motor:
The children created flowers by decorating petals and cutting them out, then gluing their photo to the middle of the flower.  Following three step instructions is an important skill and art work provides a great vehicle to practice.  Most students are able to follow 3 step instructions.  We will continue to practice this skill daily.  Children have been creating each day with small legos.  The imagination and collaborations between classmates is outstanding as the worlds become joined and cooperation to share both materials and space is necessary.

Social/Emotional:
We are playing games and working through many exercises daily where children express their gratitude to other classmates by identifying friends who have been kind, nice, comforting, taught them something, been fun to play with, been a great listener, made them feel good about something, etc.  I love to have time each day where we all express our gratitude to each other.  We played "Who's in the Club, Art Studio, Eye Spy, Doggie Doggie, Heads Up 7-Up, and many other collaborative games as a group.  This class is growing in their empathy toward others and it's not an easy thing to grasp for four and five year olds, but they are just surpassing my expectations.  The social and emotional aspects of Early Childhood are every bit as important to cultivate as the academics!  Raising kind and caring citizens of the classroom and the community is foremost on my mind, as you all trust me with your children each day!

Have a wonderful break, and I will look forward to seeing everyone on Tuesday, April 9th, when we jump into our Spring, Growing Things, and then Insects!  When I order the ant farm in May I know it's almost time to say goodbye to the school year.

Ms. Massey

Good Morning JK Families!

We have had fun with the Cat in the Hat, and our "Things", along with that sneaky leprechaun who keeps visiting our room!  We have read:  Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?, The Cat's Quizzer, Horton Hears a Who, One Fish Two Fish, I want my Hat Back, Horris and Morris Join the Chorus, Armadillo Tattletale, Dreams, If I Ran the Circus, Green Eggs and Ham, I Can Lick 30 Tigers, The Pencil, Jennie's Hat, and many stories and non-fiction articles about Dr. Seuss.

We will be having our green eggs and ham breakfast with the K-class tomorrow!  I am publishing this before but will post pics later.  It's a great way to collaborate with our older friends and become familiar with the workings of the classroom as they will be there in less than six months!  We collaborate to ensure a smooth transition and will combine activities now and then to allow them to get to know the K teacher (especially if they did not have her for Pre-K).  I was in that classroom all last year for my practicum and student teaching, so am very familiar with the curriculum and routines.  It melds nicely with my teaching and facilitates learning to know what is just around the corner for these children.

Did you know, that combining hand motions with songs when teaching new concepts and words increases comprehension by 65-85%?  We use hand gestures and motions most of the time when singing in JK.  It is part of hands-on learning instead of the "old school" lecturing while children were quiet and inactive participants.  We now know that way of learning is not optimum, especially at JK but it applies to EVERY SINGLE age group-yes, even adults.  (I really wish my high school and college professors would have been ahead of their time and this research!)  So, the next time you see children being made to sit and listen without participating (for lengthy periods of time-outside of listening to a story) keep in mind they might not be retaining the information and might need a hands on experience to remember any of it.  This includes math, science, literacy, music, etc.

Math and Science:
We discovered specs on our clovers using magnifying glasses at our sensory table, and discussed different textures as well as different tools to see things that are small or far away, like magnifying glasses, microscopes, and telescopes.  We continued our categorizing of different colors and sizes in our math center, and practiced by playing games for counting and writing numbers.  We also played number bingo.  The children are flipping green eggs and working on their 20's and 30's.

Which way do bubbles go when a fish is letting out air?  What is in the air bubbles?  If we combine blue and red, what color do we get?  Are blue and red primary or secondary colors?  All of these questions are a typical part of centers when doing art with children.

Fine Motor:
The children completed their self portraits for March, using mirrors to study their features.  I love using different tools, from pastels to colored pencils, to allow them to replicate their detailed features. We used multicultural paper to match our skin most closely, as we talked about how beautiful all of the different colors of skin are in our classroom!  Ensuring that diversity conversations are a part of the curriculum is incredibly important to me.  If a child (and their ethnicity) is not represented in the literature, pictures, stories, conversations, activities, etc., they feel invisible or unimportant. This age is a critical time to build awareness of our diverse backgrounds and cultures and celebrate them, building pride in every child and how they view themselves.  EQUALLY important to the academics in JK is developing social and emotional skills in a safe and enriching environment.  This is the core belief/foundation for a "responsive classroom" from which our classrooms are modeled.  This model works cohesively with the gifted model of meeting each child where they are, and ensuring the social and emotional is weighed as heavily as the academic focus.  They are inseparable in Early Childhood!

The children made hand print pictures on aquariums for One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish and practiced copying words using lower case letters.  We talked about our hands and how they are all different colors and sizes but all work in the same way.

Language Arts:
JK completed journal pages about what they would find on their specs.  They used inventive spelling and then illustrated their stories.  Some reading groups worked on blends and digraphs by filling in missing letters/letter sounds on words as we used Dr. Seuss themed cards for guidance.

Some of the children practiced tracing and writing words in their word books.  ANY writing at this age is beneficial.   Even if the words they are tracing and writing are not familiar to them, the process of holding a pencil or crayon and working on their fine motor skills and correct letter formation is critical and beneficial.  The children always color a picture to accompany the letter on which they are working, and talk to me about the words after they have completed them.  This also gives them time to be independent in their work, which is excellent practice and much needed skill for Kindergarten, while allowing me to spend one-on-one or small group time with other children.  These word books are a win win, and I will always incorporate them into the JK classroom!  They were sent by mistake this year and have been WONDERFUL!  We have used free pages for the writing journals I originally ordered, which has also been WONDERFUL!

We practiced rhyming words by choosing between three words and identifying the two words that rhyme.  It's easier to teach the difference between alliteration when there are three words and you can point to the differences than merely talking about them.

Spanish class has been such a treat as the children are completing houses using shapes to represent different members of their family, and learning how to talk about their different family members. They are also learning phrases for tenses and the difference in talking about yourself or someone else. The songs and games make it fun to learn!

Our Cat in the Hat's hat has made its way up the entire wall and is now snaking it's way down our very long classroom wall!  We will continue filling out our reading strips for awhile, so continue to get more when you have used and returned yours.  It's lovely to see all of the books you are reading together at night!  Please feel free to bring in any favorites to share with the class.  It's nice to learn about your routines at bed time, along with special meals and traditions we all love hearing about.  The children are intrigued by what other children do at their homes at night!

Have a lovely weekend!

Ms. Massey