Science

Now that the children have had several opportunities to experiment with sink and float they will be offered an opportunity to build something using various materials. The criteria for what they build is the following:

1. It must float for at least 10 seconds.
2. It must hold a load of at least 15 pennies.
3. It must hold one cookie, without the cookie getting wet.
4. It must be build with at least two different materials.

I am sure this will be a fun experience for the children and for me.

Last week the children used pine cones, wow peanut butter (there are no peanuts in it at all) and bird seed to make bird feeders for the birds. They are hanging at the front just outside Mrs. Haddock's office window. She can hardly wait for the birds to come and visit her.  

Math

 

This week we will be finishing up with three-dimensional figures. They will be revisiting numbers to 10 more experiences with subitizing and showing how they know a number is more or less. They will be building specific numbers to ten using linking cubes and then putting them side by side to show that one number is more and one number is less. In order to assist the children, especially SK children with subitizing, I recommend playing board games the use two dice. This offers the children an opportunity to look at the first die and know the number and put that number in their head and count on. Playing games are a good introduction to addition. 

Reading

 

 

There are many reading strategies that adults use when reading. Most of the time we are not really aware that we are using strategies to assist us in our decoding of words and to understand what we are reading. Beginner readers need to be taught these strategies. These are taught in baby steps and the children are offered many opportunities to practise these strategies, since they are just beginning to read. Two of the strategies that are being reinforced are: looking at the beginning sound (to make sure what they say makes sense) and look at the picture. Looking at the picture cues, the pictures are in many of the books for young children in order to assist them with their decoding and their understanding of what is happening in the story.

This week we will be working with the book "The Mitten". We will be reading a variety of different variations of the story by different authors. We will be talking about what is the same in the stories and what is different. Also, this book leads itself nicely into drama experiences for the children. Where they will be able to act out the story using various props.

 

The "By Heart Words" for this week are: he and she. Practising these words is very beneficial to the children's reading and writing. Many of these word must be memorized because sounding them out does not always work. Also, these are the most frequent words the children come across in their reading and their writing.

 

The Jolly Phonics sound for this week is "v". I want the children to realize that there are some words where the "v" is at the beginning and some where it is at the end.  Some of the words are:  van, vest, visit, vet, very, drive, vine, glove, love.



The Building Continues

Yesterday the afternoon boys challenged themselves to build a structure that five boys could fit inside. The criteria for the building was they had to work as a team. First we discussed what team work looked like and sounded like. These were some of their ideas (the girls assisted with the ideas).

 

• took turns and shared.
• spoke nicely to each other.
• make sure everyone has a turn to add blocks to the structure.
• there are no bosses or bossy people.
• tell each other what a good job they are doing.
• keep trying different things to make the structure better and better.

Well five of the boys worked very hard on their structure and they showed fabulous team work and made a super structure. All 5 boys successfully fit into the structure. The girls were very kind and complimented the boys on the structure they made and how well they worked as a team.

Well today the girls wanted to have a turn. They wanted to have the same team work but they decided to build a city. What a fabulous city it was. Only three girls chose to work there and they worked on it all afternoon. They made labels for the city so people would know where the pet shop was and other things. The girls even included a play pool in their city.

The boys were a little disappointed they could not have the blocks today. However, it will be interesting to see how they challenge themselves tomorrow and what they will make. The boys did compliment the girls and told them they liked the way they added the writing to their city.

I have found it fascinating to see the maturity and growth that has taken place in such a short time. Blocks, building, and construction is far more than just "play". For I have witnessed first hand, cooperation, problem solving, team work, fairness, and lots of sharing.


Science

 

After several experiments with sinking and floating last week the children are now ready for the big experiment. They will be offered a variety of materials and their job will be to create something that will float and will also be able to hold a specific number of objects. They will be able to select and use the various materials to carry out their explorations and communicate their intentions.This will offer the children more opportunities to pose questions, make predictions and observations during the investigation. This investigation may lead into next week so each children will have an opportunity to participate in the investigation.

Math

 

 

We will continue with three-dimensional figures. The children are challenged by knowing the words cylinder, cube, sphere and cone. Reinforcing these words and showing examples with various things at home would be beneficial. Some of the math stations for this week are where the children will be investigating which of these figures can stack, roll and slide. They will continue to have opportunities to use the figures to create various structures and discuss the structures they created and the figures they used. There is a matching game that I have created where the children turn over a card that has a specific figure on it and then they find the figure that is on their recording sheet.

 

 

In order to continue to reinforce the mathematical skill of subitizing I have created a snowman game where the snowmen contain numbers two to twelve. The children roll two dice and will be encouraged to subitize the number on the first dice and then count on the second dice. This is a huge challenge for Kindergarten children, but they will require this skill for adding later on. Playing board games at home with two dice would be beneficial, especially to the SK children. 

Outdoor Play

 

Even though there is no snow it is very cold outside. If the temperature becomes too cold we will not be going out to play some days next week. However, I suggest all the children come to school each day with snowpants, boots, hats, neck warmers or scarves and warm mittens. The children look forward to playing outside and even if I can take them out for 10 minutes daily the fresh crisp air is good for them and they have lots of fun running around.

 

 

Language

 

We will continue listening to a variety of stories that lead themselves to retelling the important events and in the correct order they occurred. The children mainly will do this orally and through some drama activites. One of the stories we will read next week is called "Snowballs". This is a beautiful book that demonstrates all the various materials children used to create their own special snowman. In order to reinforce some of the elements from the story the children will be bringing home a letter and a snowman which they can create with you at home. This little family project will be in lieu of working on a poem this week. We will be working on a poem on our own during class time this week.

 

The jolly phonic sounds for this week the "w" sound. This is a wonderful opportunity for the SK children to chunck sounds together in order to make words that begin with the "w" sound. Some of these words are: we, was, went, way, wag, wig, wind, wash, waz, web, will, well, wet, whip, wish, win, wish, won.

 

The word family for this week is the: ug family.  We mainly focus on simple 3 letter words:  bug, dug, hug, lug, mug, pug, rug, jug, tug.

 

 

Finally the "by heart word" is do. Please try to review these words with your child on a regular basis. These words are the words that occur most frequently in their reading and writing.