Week 29 and 30

It is hard to believe that we are entering 4th quarter. We are having so much fun growing and learning in kindergarten. The children are so excited about their ability to be readers and writers. They are truly enjoying their animal non-fiction books, We can't wait to publish them and share them with you. 

Over the past few weeks, we have been working on a bog social studies unit where we have learned about the Presidents, laws of our country and our national symbols. We made projects to go with our learning and wrote facts to share what we knew. 

   While learning about the bald eagle, a bald eagle cam was shared with us. If you haven't checked it out, yet, take a few minutes to watch these magnificent birds. It is truly amazing to watch their transformation. The kids have LOVED this! They want to check in on them all the time.

http://www.berry.edu/eaglecam/

In math, we have enjoyed learning how to compare numbers to determine greater than and less than. You can play a fun game at home to practice. You might know it as the card game War. We call it compare in our classroom. Talk a deck of cards and take out all face cards. Split the deck in half and you and your child each take turns turning over a card. The person with the greater number says "Me" and gets to keep both cards. You can also play it as the person who has the smaller number gets the card. If you want to add a little challenge, put the jacks back in the deck and they can be a wild card. If your child is ready for addition, have them turn over two cards and add. You will do the same. The person with the greater total (or smaller total) wins. 

We hope you had a great St. Patrick's Day!

Week 28 in Kindergarten

This week in math we have been learning how to compare numbers. We started with the concrete by manipulating stacking cubes to determine greater than, less than and same. Next, we will move to more pictoral work by using cards and then abstract by using just the numbers.

 In social studies, we have been learning about our national symbols. We started with the flag. We learned why the colors were red, white and blue, why we have 13 stripes and why there are 50 stars on the field of the flag and how the flag has changed over time. Next, we started learning about the bald eagle and why it was selected as our national bird. Did you know it took leaders 6 years to decide between the eagle and the turkey as our national bird? Next, we will learn about the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell and we will even take a virtual tour of the White House. Look for more pictures next week.

We have been hard at work writing our non-fiction books about our animals. We have created title pages for our books. We learned engaging ways to start our books by using a sound, action, question or exciting statement. Now we are working on sharing what we learned through our research. We will be adding headings, labels and bold, key words to our text.