Learning about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., snow exploration, shapes, fairy tales and much more!
Dear Kindergarten Families,
We had a great week back in Kindergarten!
In Math, we continued learning about various geometric shapes: flat and 3D (or solid). The children reviewed the shapes that we learned last week: squares, triangles, rectangles, circles, ovals, hexagons, cone, pyramid, cube, cylinder, sphere, and rectangular prism. Please help your children continue to practice these shapes at home by playing “I Spy a …. (cone, cylinder, etc.).” We have been also reviewing numbers 0-20 and working on patterns. While learning about rectangular prisms, we read a book “Not a Box” by Antoinette Portis and acted out the story. The following day, we read “Not a Stick” and had lots of fun acting out that book also.
In English Language Arts, we learned the letter Pp and the sound /p/ it makes (as in ‘pen’). We practiced forming upper and lowercase letter Pp using our Handwriting Without Tears books, wooden planks, and finding words that start with P and drawing pictures of them. We made purple play do for letter P and painted with pink and purple!
To help our young writers, we introduced short vowel sounds /o/, /a/, /e/, /i/ and /u/ as in hot, hat, pet, sit and cut. This knowledge will help the children sound out new words and use them in reading and writing.
In Writing we began our fairy tales unit. We discussed the different elements of fairy tales: they begin with “once upon a time” and end with “they lived happily ever after.” Fairy tales also have magic, good and evil characters, and can have imaginary creatures or talking animals. We began to read many different fairy tales such as “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Three Little Pigs,” and “Pinocchio.” We look forward to continuing to read fairy tales and even writing our own!
In Social Studies, we continued learning about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Each child chose one of “Martin’s Big Words” and decorated it on a piece of paper. They presented these words to you and the whole school during our Martin Luther King Tekes on Friday, January 12th, at 9am. We also learned about MLK Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech and the children wrote about one of their own dreams. You can read them on the bulletin board outside our classroom.
In Science this week we finished our Forces and Motion unit. We experimented and saw what happens when two toy cars hit each other and noticed how they change direction and speed. We also created our own courses to combine all the elements we have learned about speed, direction, and how to make a car stop or turn.
In Hebrew and Judaic studies, this week the children continued practicing in describing what they wear using the verb lovesh/ loveshet (לובש/ לובשת). We dressed up the picture dolls Dina and Dani and Tami and Tomer. We also reviewed the following clothing items: Chultza-shirt, michnasayim-pants, kovah- hat, simlah- dress, meil- coat, chatzait- skirt, Kfafot- gloves, magafayim- boots. We played games such as matching games, aleph bet puzzle and magnets, as well as guessing games and introduced the kids to new books such as “Hamifletzet hasgula” by Ronit Hopper and “Habgadim shel geveret Shir” by Datya ben Dor.
We continued with our art project for the creation of the world and added the fish- dagim and birds- tziporim to the beautiful sea- yam and sky- shamayim the children painted. We introduced the upcoming Jewish holiday – Tu Bishvat which is the birthday of the trees by reading the book “A Tree Is Nice” by Janice May Udry. We also discussed the many good things trees give us. We continued celebrating kabbalat shabbat by lighting shabbat candles, by making Kiddush, blessing the challah, and singing shabbat songs such as “Lecha Dodi”, “Hayom Yom Shishi”, and “Shalom Alechem”.
Shabbat Shalom!
Rachel, Regina, Irit, and Ilana
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Exploring the snow in science
Using knowledge of forces and motion in our play with building blocks, ramps and cars
Acting out the book “Not a Box”
Cooking purple vanilla playdough for letter P
Learning sounds and using them to spell words
Exploring scientific methods of motion and gravity with our marble run
P is for Pink and Purple! Art exploration!
Learning short vowels!
Short vowels game
Spelling sorts
Spelling games and RAZ Kids
The amazingly soft playdough we made for letter P
Learning about patterns and making patterns with shapes, stamps and art
Exploring forces of moving cars: in teams, we needed to invent a track that would make a car turn
We are the CUTEST!!!
Georgie is reading a book to her friends, “The Youngest Marcher” by Cynthia Levinson