A Busy Week Indeed!

The kindergartners had an exciting end to a very busy week with our Day in the Dark celebration. Here's a re-cap of some of the highlights. Monday: We put the finishing touch (icing)on the gingerbread cookies we made as gifts for the staff at school. This was the culminating activity to last week's literacy lessons on characters, problem, and solution in which we compared different versions of the classic gingerbread story. Tuesday: Anya's dad, Brian, came to our classroom to teach a Four Winds lesson. We watched a puppet show and played several games around the topic of predators and prey. Wednesday: We had a lovely day for our ECO Celebration. All five kindergarten classes met at Harrison Field and forest for fun activities including building with snow, making tea in the woods, snowball throwing and games, and a winter scavenger hunt. Thank you to all the volunteers who made this day a success! Thursday: We completed our Kinder Art paintings modeled after Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night. We also took part in the forth "Kindergarten Sing" with our latest song, Mole in the Ground, which complimented one of our December themes of animals in winter. Friday: Our week ended with the Day in the Dark. Through story, writing, games, and art, we celebrated the winter solstice by spending the entire day in a darkened room with lot's of fun light up toys and flashlights to see by. What a special way to end 2012 with the children! I hope everyone has a restful, joyful break and returns healthy and happy. Take Care, Linda

Word Bird

Has your child mentioned anything to you about word bird? Word bird is a robin in our class who flies in each Monday with a new word for us to learn. These words become our "heart words", or words we know how to read and write by heart and we do various activities throughout the week to support memorizing them. Help your child look for these heart words in the books, magazines, or other other print you are reading. Happy hunting!

Music Update from Ms. Sales

Kindergartners have been doing a great deal of singing and moving. Our focus for most of the is how to use our singing voices, alone and with others. We have used our voices to sing shapes, sing a cowboy call and make a yummy sound while hearing a story about ice cream! Kindergarten kids have also learned echo songs and have been singing all together in unison as well as solo. The Kindergarten teachers have invited me to be a part of the Kindergarten Sing which happens once a month. So far we've learned a Tree Song, a song about the life cycle of a butterfly, a song of thanks and a song about what animals do in winter. We have also been learning to move to music, both classical and folk. Right now we are working on circle dances. We're having lots of fun in Kindergarten music!