French: Thanksgiving

The girls have been working this week on learning how to name some common Thanksgiving foods in French.  They have also been having lots of fun feeding these foods to Emiline.  Maybe you could challenge them to see if they could name any of the foods on the diner table. 

La Dinde -- Turkey

Les Pommes de Terre -- Potatoes

Les Haricots Verts -- Green Beans

Les Pommes -- Apples

Le Maïs -- Corn

La Tarte -- Pie

Technology: Teach Me Kindergarten

This week in Technology, the girls started working with "Teach me Kindergarten." The app takes them through a series of activities that address the kindergarten curriculum. For example, as you can see in the picture below, they trace letters and complete addition and subtraction math problems. The girls were very excited to discover that as they complete tasks, they earn coins that allow them to "purchase" stickers within the app. This is a lesson in itself. I was interested to hear the girls discuss topics such as saving versus spending and the need to work in order to earn more coins.

We Are Thankful For Many Things!

We have been very busy getting ready for Grandparents and Special Friends Day! Have you heard your daughter singing some new songs this week? We will sing "Turkey Dinner", "Powwow", and "One Small Voice" for our guests next Tuesday. It is hard to pick a favorite as we sing in the classroom, at recess, during lunch, and even on our way to specials! These Kindergarteners just love to sing!

We are learning about the Pilgrims and the Native Americans and how they celebrated the first Thanksgiving. After watching a video about the story of Thanksgiving (told by Charlie Brown!) the girls have asked so many thoughtful questions and they have learned so much! They love acting out the Thanksgiving story. We are in the process of making a book about the first Thanksgiving. Look forward to your daughter reading it to you when she brings it home next Tuesday!

Finally, we made "Thankful Bracelets" with a bead for each thing for which we are thankful.

Some of the things we are thankful for:

- Our families

- Our friends

- Bryn Mawr

- Love

- The good food we eat

- Our health

- Flowers

- Our pets

- Our homes

- All of the people in the whole world!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Art: Painting Our Dreams

The girls painted their dreams on their houses today.  Inspired by Mr. Plumbean in The Big Orange Splot who says, "My house is me and I am it. My house is where I like to be and it looks like all my dreams."

A Peek in Our Room During Language Arts!

                              Learning to write words!

                         

 

              Matching sight words is always fun. 

    

          

                                       

                                                          ADJECTIVES! 

                            

 Learning what an adjective is was very exciting. 

         We worked in partners to decide the words that described what was in the Surprise Sack after

    we carefully felt the object.  We then predicted what was inside the Surprise Sack.

           There were many cheers when we finally saw what we had described.  We were tricked a few 

            times, but our adjectives were terrific. 

                         

                        This would be fun to play at home as a family! 

            

             

      

         

                            After reading a book about insects we were very
                                                   curious.......

             We sorted insects in many different ways using what                                             

                                             we had learned.
                    

                             

              Picture sorting by beginning sounds and reading the word in small groups.

                               

   


    Sitting in the Author's Chair sharing our work is always a thrill! 

Art: What happens next?

We finished our neat houses with geometric shapes. The girls lined up in a "neat street" to hear more of the story.  A seagull drops orange paint on Mr. Plumbean's house! How will he respond?

We are loving the beautiful trees!

It finally looks and feels like fall outside and we are loving every moment of it! This week we are learning about why the leaves change color and are practicing a very big word - CHLOROPHYLL. The letter H has led us to wonder what hands can do. We continue to become authors and illustrators as we each write a book about what our hands can do. Our new favorite song is "Little Hands". It gets us moving first thing in the morning as we clap our hands, shake our hips, and twist our feet. 

If you have noticed your daughter looking a bit green lately it is likely because we have turned each other into frogs so we can hop along the number line. We are working hard to become more familiar with the number line so we will be ready to begin adding and subtracting during the next few weeks. We are hopping forward and backward along the number line to make the numbers get bigger and smaller. There are some excellent hoppers in this class! Enjoy a few pictures from our dice games this morning!

Art: Neat Street

In contrast to the curves and swirls in their last project, today the girls work with only geometric shapes. Geometric shapes are the shapes we can name: square, triangle, rectangle, etc.  The girls built the facade of a house in Mr. Plumbean's neighborhood from the book, The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Pinkwater.  He lives on a "neat street" until...

Art: Analyzing Our Own Art with Oreos and Buttons?

After completing their organic shape compositions inspired by Elizabeth Murray,  the girls recreated their works using the app called Faces iMake.  This app has a great library of visual imagery in categories like fruit and candy.  They matched shapes, patterns, and colors to rebuild their original composition. They also figured out how to layer shapes on top of each other to make new, more complicated shapes.  This exercise helped draw their attention to positive shapes as well as the negative shapes in the form.  Negative shapes are the shapes in between or the background.  They described small, closed negative shapes as places to hide and large, open shapes and spaces to run.  

Technology: App List

Here is a list of the current apps on the Kindergarten iPads.  We will continue to update and add to them as the year goes on.

The Singing Alphabet
My Story - Book Maker for Kids
Montessori Crosswords - Spelling WIth Phonics-Enabled Alphabet
iDiary
Google Drive
Google Earth
Brain Pop Jr.
French Trip
Learn French
Art Rage
Meet Millie
What Goes Together
Rhyming
Noodle Words
Bugs and Bubbles
Bugs and Numbers
Dr. Seuss Birthday Camera
PhotoShop Express
Educreations
PicPlayPost
Scribble Press
Sock Puppets
Alphabet Board
Math Kid
Collections
ABA - What doesn’t Belong?
Level 1 (A) Library - Learn To Read Books
iMotion HD
Mahjong
Magnabet
Edmodo
PocketPhonics
Teach Me Kindergarten
Draw Free
QR Reader
Endless ABC
Snowflake Station
Sound Sorting by Lakeshore
Tangrams
Carve a Pumpkin
The Counting Game
Photo Touch Concepts
Children Around the World
Popplet Lite
Storia by Scholastic
The Math Tree
Monkey Math School Sunshine
Scribble My Story
Sculptor
Paper 53
Wreck this App
Faces iMake
Art Set