We have had so much fun celebrating Dr. Seuss’s contributions to children’s literature this week. I was surprised to see how many Dr. Seuss books the class had not read before so we tried to devote a little more time than usual to read some of his lesser known works. The students have gotten quite good at identifying the different genres of literature so they were happy to point out that Dr. Seuss wrote poems. We worked on rhyming after reading The Cat in the Hat, focused on graphing our snacks after reading One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, and wrote about the foods we don’t like after reading Green Eggs and Ham. On Friday we tied it all together by wearing crazy hats and socks and completing a Cat in the Hat STEM challenge. The class is getting so much better about sharing their ideas and encouraging everyone to participate. We are learning that we haven’t failed just because one plan didn’t work. There was a lot of crashing cups but also a lot of smiles and that is a success!
100 Days of school feels like forever to a kindergartner but we finally made it! We celebrated in a big way today. The number 100 went up on our number chart and we added the 100th link to our days in school chain. After calendar time we broke into groups to work on some fun stations that reinforced the students’ knowledge of 100. They’ve really been working on understanding that 100 is 10 groups of 10 so they made a 100 day trail mix with 10 pieces of 10 snacks, wore their Froot Loop necklaces that had 10 each of 10 colors and made a gumball machine craft that used 10 different paint daubers.They also worked on their problem solving skills and creativity by building with 100 Legos and making marshmallow and toothpick STEM creations. We exercised along with Jack Hartman and found 100 chocolate candies hidden around the classroom then put them in numerical order. It was a fun packed day!
Most of us have fond memories of show and tell from our early childhood years and that experience is the same today. In a time when reading, writing, and math take up much of our days it can be easy to say that there is no time for activities like show and tell. But learning effective communication skills early on will make a lasting impact on a student’s future education. Show and tells creates opportunities for practicing speaking and listening skills, planning and organizing a presentation, using a varied vocabulary, and also answering questions from an audience. It also helps young students (and their teachers) realize that everyone brings some important knowledge to the discussion! We all have strengths and we can learn a lot simply by listening to others!
The kindergarten classes chose CASA of Texarkana as our community service project this year. We adopted two local families and gathered items to provide them with a wonderful Christmas. The classes spent some time discussing wants versus needs and how many items that they take for granted are luxury items for others. As the gifts came in the students began to get more excited about how much they were giving to other children. One of the missions of St. James Day School is to raise up students that genuinely care for others and have a desire to serve in their communities.It was a joy to watch that desire and excitement grow in our kindergarten students! This project was a blessing to all that were involved.
This week the class listened to the book Scaredy Squirrel by Melanie Watt. We learned about how a character can change from the beginning of a story to the end as well as inferencing, or using clues, to understand why a character is behaving in a certain way. The students had great fun “panicking” like Scaredy Squirrel and evening “playing dead” when they wanted a break from work! At the end of the week we put on our squirrel masks and binoculars and went on a noun hunt. They loved getting to walk all around our campus and deciding whether the things we saw should go in the person, place, or thing category. We were amazed at how many nouns there were! What a fun way to end the week.
