Happy Friday to all!
This week in Kindergarten, the children have really been focusing on alliteration (repetition of an initial consonant sound, such as Donald Duck.)We made up silly stories using alliteration, one story being about a spider named Sunny and another about Pete the Cat. Did you know that Pete's favorite foods are pepperoni, pie, parsley, and pizza? I had no clue! They also did an activity called "advertisement alliteration." They searched through ads from magazines and chose their favorite thing. They then thought of a word that started with the same letter as what they picked out. For example, Nathan's ad said "Doggy Desk," Jordan's ad said "Man Markers," Alexis' ad said "Cathy Computer's," and Bella Dutton's said "magnificent M&Ms." They had fun sharing what they came up with to the class. Thank you to Jenny Neel for helping out with the activity!
On Monday, the children learned about the French impressionist painter Claude Monet and his work he did with landscapes. Their job was to recreate one of his paintings. When the weather permits, I plan to take the Kindergartners out to the garden to do their own Monet landscape painting. Monet enjoyed doing the same landscape over and over again when it was a different season. I would like to take the children outside at the end of the year to do the same garden view, but they can compare their paintings from March to June.

The children were introduced to the nickel this week. They enjoy learning about money because they have had experience watching you pay with coins. We have learned about the penny and nickel so far, so next time you are paying with coins, try involving your child in the process (unless it is a long line!) We have also been talking about 3-dimensional shapes, specifically the cube, cylinder, and sphere. We have started a 3-D shape museum in our classroom, so if there is something at home your child finds that would be an asset to our collection, don't hesitate to send it in. The kindergartners went on a 3-D shape scavenger hunt today throughout the school. Stocked with their camera's and clip boards, the children took pictures of the different shapes they found and checked off each one they saw. We saw everything from sphere ornaments to a cylinder salt container! It was a great opportunity for the children to leave the classroom and walk around within the walls of their school.

Weather is still a huge focus in our classroom. As I said in my last post, the children have all picked a topic about weather that they are interested in. Weather is being taught using the Project Approach, which builds on natural curiosity, enabling children to interact, question, connect, problem-solve, communicate, reflect, and more. This kind of authentic learning extends beyond the classroom to each student's home, community,and the world. It essentially makes learning the stuff of real life and children active participants in and shapers of their worlds. Many of the children are interested in thunderstorms, but are learning as they research that with thunderstorms, usually comes wind. Thus, they are learning that wind is moving air and comes from the sun. A goal I have for the children is for them to understand that weather changes on a daily basis. This past week has been a perfect example of this, for one day it was 60 degrees, and the next it was 20 degrees! How about the thunderstorm on Wednesday? The children grabbed their clipboards and we investigated the different areas surrounding our school that showed different levels of water. The children were so interested on why there was a "lake" in the parking lot, but not on the grass? This led to an investigative question: Can cement absorb water? Why is there sometimes puddles in the grass? They also were interested with the water that was dripping from the roof to the ground. It is such a fascinating world the children live in, and it is my job to bring their world into the classroom!
Above (left): The children observing the leftover rain on the parking lot.
Above (right): Sophia adding the noise thunder makes to her project about thunderstorms.