Room #7 is back at it! We are entering the final stretch of Kindergarten: there are fewer than thirty days of school left, and we are busier than ever! Read on to see all the learning your cherubs have been accomplishing! Additionally, this will be the last newsletter of the school year. We have a bunch of end-of-the-year activities that the kiddos will tackle, so make sure to ask them what they are up to! I hope you have enjoyed reading the weekly highlights this year and keeping up with all that your talented and beautiful kiddos have learned! It has been an absolute pleasure being your children’s teacher!!!
Room #7 boys and girls are beyond excited that their plants are growing! We have been talking extensively about what plants need in order to grow, and we have discussed the different parts of plants. Ask your child about his/her plant and what his/her responsibilities are in order to nurture it.
We are almost done with our unit on persuasive writing. This week students really focused to create signs, posters, and letters to help change issues around the world and problems at school. Some students even sent letters to the President! This has been a fun unit and our cherubs are excited to affect change!
Math stations continue to work on 3-D shapes. Are you finding any in your homes?
- 3-D Shape Books - Is it a cone? A cylinder? A prism? At this station, the boys and girls cut and pasted the matching 3-D shape to its correct page. Then, they had to draw a real-world example of that shape (e.g., an ice cream cone) and write a sentence about the shape! This was multi-step work and they excelled at it! Way to go, Kindergartners!
- Geo-block Match-up – This week, the students observed some three-dimensional geo-blocks. We talked about how these blocks have faces. The faces are common shapes that the students see every day (squares, triangles, and rectangles). In this game, the students received a geo-block game board. Their job was to reach in the basket, pick out a block, and determine if any of the faces matched a shape on their board. The complicated part of this game was that many of the shapes had different shaped faces. For example, some triangular shaped geo-blocks had rectangular faces as well. It was tricky!
- iPad – Hungry Fish! – At this fun and engaging new game, students picked a level where they felt comfortable yet challenged. In each level, a fish emerges with a number on its belly. The students’ job is to combine numbers, or add, to equal the number found on the fish’s belly so that the fish can eat it! Everyone loved this game and enjoyed the challenge!
- Fill the Hexagons - With what different shapes can you make a hexagon? At this center, everyone picked pattern block shapes to determine how to fill in their hexagons. This center really inspired the kids to think critically and carefully to see where they could fit each shape!
- Wall Game – At this center, the kids worked with the number ten. After arranging a vertical line of cubes of that number, a teacher “walled” off a portion of their line so only a certain number of cubes was visible. The children then predicted how many cubes were over the “wall”. What a fun way to see the different number combinations!
- Pattern Block Barrier Game – An oldie, but a goodie! At this fun-filled station, partners sit near each other with a barrier between them. Player 1 puts one to three pattern blocks somewhere in his/her grid playboard. Next, he/she tells the partner how to put pattern blocks to match his/her grid. The mathematician uses the names of the pattern blocks and positional language to describe where to place them. Next, the barrier is removed and the partners discover if the two grids match! Finally, they swap roles and play again.
Enjoy your weekend everyone! Hope it’s a great one!