Hi JK Parents!

We learned about the first Thanksgiving and are celebrating kindness and being thankful!  

Fine Motor:

The children created teepees  using pastels, feathers and pipe cleaners.  We learned about modern day Native Americans and studied the pueblo structures.  We colored many turkey pictures!  

Social Studies:

We learned about the multiple ways the Native Americans helped the Pilgrims when they came to America.  

We talked about how the Pilgrims were not all nice and didn't treat the Native Americans well.  

We studied different symbols and how the Native Americans would use these to communicate and help each other.  We learned about all of the things we do and use today that we learned from the Native Americans.  Their vast knowledge of farming as well as wild plants taught us which plants were good to eat and which were poisonous.  The taught us about using fish as fertilizer when growing crops.  Many traditional medicines used have been adopted by modern science.  The formula for aspirin is based on the medicine made from the Willow Bark used for aches and fever.  Canoes and hunting, astronomy (Native Americans were skilled astronomers!). We learned about their use of clay, stones and wood to build pueblos.  

Literacy:

We read many books about being thankful and Thanksgiving.  We practiced our manners and learned that the first think you do when you sit down to eat is put your napkin on your lap!  

We practiced putting scenes in order from four to eight different sequenced scenes.  Making careful observations and training yourself to look for everything in the photo to help give you clues are skills we are all working to perfect.  

We read There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie! and then our little old lady came out to see us and we fed her each item from the story, remembering the order in which she swallowed them!  

We are looking for words around our classroom and school and also learning to sound out and write the beginning and ending sounds, sometimes by creating blends of letters.  

Math and Science:

We used non standard units of measure to measure different fall items.  The children are able to locate the beginning and ending points to accurately use blocks to measure.  They sounded out the number and wrote it, wrote the numeral, as well as the tally marks for each measurement.  

We introduced the"th" sound, as in Thanksgiving!  We also differentiated the sound "th" 'in the or that with the "th" in Thanksgiving.  

The children painted collages in art class.  Painting never gets old when you are four and five!  

We practiced those tricky teen numbers and writing them with the one always first and beginning from the top and moving to the bottom, also remembering to put a finger space between each number!  

Have a lovely Sunday!

Ms. Massey

Hi JK Parents!

November 9th (Lila's Birthday) and 75 degrees!  We are having so much fun outside playing in the leaves!  

We are talking about thankfulness this week along with working on some special things for Grandparent's and Special Friend's Day!  We learned that everyone has an invisible bucket and that we can fill it by saying kind things and even by smiling!  We also learned that when we are not nice we can dip into people's buckets.  We are thinking of all kinds of ways to fill buckets, along with playing our, "Yes Please and No Thank You" game!  

We had more animal fun in French playing charades while guessing the animal students were mimicking.  We are practicing holiday songs in French as well.  Jingle Bells is the main song we are learning, if you want to practice at home too!  We always gather for Wassail, a Roycemore tradition, and sing songs and make blankets for The Linus Project-before we all go our separate ways for Winter Break.  It might be the whole school on zoom this year--but we will celebrate regardless!  It's such a special time for the older kids to mentor the JK children.  

We made "Thankful Pumpkin Pies" and wrote the things for which we are thankful!  I loved that Benjamin wrote all of his family member, and JK, and on the last slice of his thankful pie, he wrote that he is thankful for pie!  I love my job.  

We read about, watched a video and talked about Veterans Day and all of the branches of our military, including the Space Force.  

We practiced counting by ones to 100, by 10's and grouped manipulatives in groups of 10.  The math foundations we practice now will pave the way for their entire understanding of math and encourage them to think in groups of 10, whether adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing.  

Our letter formation continues to progress with the scale of the letters getting smaller and the capital letters written larger than the lower case.  We are introducing punctuation but it's not a focus as we have lots of work to do with the letter sounds and blends before our sentence structure becomes more important.  

I have so many pictures of us playing outside but when we are working in the classroom I am so busy I don't always remember to take pictures.  I'm sorry for that and will try to capture more of our work!  

Finally!  We got to use the gym and have PE with Mr. Bailey!  It was so much fun!  

You were amazing disguising turkeys with the children!  I am sure they won't be found before Thanksgiving!  

A mini Eiffel Tower this time!  I bet someone is going to be going to Paris when we are all able to travel again!  :). 

Dance Party everyday on the playground!  Jayce teaches us all the moves!  

I was out on Friday with a sick dog.  He's much better but we were scared for a day,  so I wasn't able to wrap up some things we are working on this week.  

We are making every effort to stay safe and separated with masks on.  We are watching a video at lunch time so we can all refrain from talking when we are eating.  It's so hard as they are incredibly social and love chatting with their friends, so thank you for encouraging their safety by chatting with them about how important it is to be distancing and masked when talking or moving around inside (and out).  

Please be sure to let me know if you will have grandparents or special friends zooming in for Grandparents/Special Friend's Day next Tuesday!  We want to be sure to recognize everyone in our time together. 

And...if you have not already logged onto Seesaw, please do so and complete the activity.  I want to be sure we are all set if we go remote.  :).  

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Ms. Massey