Popcorn Celebration!

This morning, after we body spelled our words, the girls celebrated with a popcorn party.

Mrs. Martin's class continued to use their popcorn words to complete different centers.

Mrs. McMahon's girls wrote about our assembly with the mayor in their storybooks, making sure their sentences began with an uppercase letter, made sense, and ended with a period.

Art: Empty Bowls

Kindergarten has been working on the Empty Bowls project. They worked in teams to build ceramic bowls using a coil technique (ask your kindergarten girl two ways of rolling coils!) and then after the bowls were fired in the kiln, they painted them using underglaze/clear glaze. Look for information in the Thursday letter about the Empty Bowls event, a fundraiser for Our Daily Bread, taking place on February 15.

Kindergarten Hopes and Syllables

Mrs. Martin's class discussed what they would like to work on for the second half of kindergarten.  The girls brainstormed many different ideas, some favorites were to become a better artist and illustrator.

Mrs. McMahon's girls learned about breaking words into syllables.  She taught them three different ways to break apart a word: clap it out, robot speak, and holding their hand under their chin.  Ask your daughter which way was her favorite.  As we broke apart all of our names into syllables, most of the girls chose robot speak.  

3D Shapes

The girls continued to build on their knowledge of 3-dimensional shapes.  We watched and listened to our favorite video (ask you daughter to sing the song, WARNING--it will be stuck in your head for weeks), then the girls partnered up and explored spheres, cubes, and cylinders made up of different materials.  Afterwards, each pair was given play dough and had to create their own spheres, cubes, and cylinders.

Art: Little Dancers

Kindergarten has been looking at painting and sculpture by Degas, and working on two ways of drawing dance poses: from observation and from the feeling of movement. In small groups, girls took turns posing wooden figure dolls and drew what they saw using pencil. They drew several poses on the same page to create a dance. Next, girls chose their own pose and painted how they felt their bodies moving from top to bottom.

Writer's Workshop and Snowflakes

During Writer's Workshop, Mrs. McMahon's students learned three strategies for writing when they get stuck on how to sound out a word to put it in writing. The girls applied these strategies as they wrote about the pictures they drew in their storybooks yesterday.

The girls were SO excited to start our experiment with snowflakes!  Yesterday, the girls prepped the experiment by measuring and pouring borax into jars and making pipe cleaner snowflakes.  Today, we added food coloring and boiling hot water to the jars.  The girls returned to our classroom to observe, record, and predict what will happen with their snowflakes.

Sentence Writing

Mrs. Martin's girls had a wonderful time exploring vowels today--be sure to ask your daughter who introduced these letters to her.  This lesson was a great introduction as the girls will start working with word families next week.

The kindergarteners are working on writing a complete sentence: making sure they have a capital letter, spacing between words, and an end mark.  Mrs. McMahon's class read I Am Rosa Parks and had a wonderful discussion about her achievements.  Then the girls chose from three different reading responses to practice their sentence writing.

Dr. King and Sorts

Today during language arts, Mrs. McMahon's class continued working with rhyming words and listened to "I Can't Said the Ant."  Afterwards, the girls completed a new sort.

Then they learned what the short o vowel sounds like and created an octopus filled with short o words.  Be sure to ask your daughters what action and sound the short o vowel makes. 

The entire kindergarten continued discussing Dr. King's accomplishments and his impact on their lives today. Mrs. Martin's class used the Dr. Martin Luther King poem in their song book and circled words they knew.  The girls also drew what peace meant to them--ask your daughter what she drew.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The girls attended a fabulous assembly on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. this morning.  They learned about his past and how he influenced the world. Then our music teacher, Anne Puckett, led a discussion on how song and music historically have been a huge part of how people protest.  She taught the girls "We Shall Overcome" and we all sang it together.

When we returned to our classroom, we brainstormed different ideas that Dr. King stood for...  

...and made our own dream books.

Shape Pizzas

This morning the girls learned a new song and dance during Morning Meeting.  Here's a glimpse of our fun activity!

We are finishing up 2-dimensional shapes in math and today we read The Greedy Triangle.  Afterwards, the girls created shape pizzas using all of the 2-dimensional shapes we have learned: circles, triangles, squares, rectangles, trapezoids, and hexagons.

Snowflakes and Verbs

Mrs. McMahon's class listened to a book on our latest science topic, SNOWFLAKES! Afterwards, the girls created beautiful sun catchers .

Mrs. Martin's class learned about verbs this mornig. Be sure to ask your daughter her favorite action!