Reading to End Racism

Our Reading to End Racism reader came today to share the book, Spotty by H.A. Rey and Margret Rey. The story teaches the lesson of accepting others even if they look different. After the story, the children took part in a role play activity with puppets in which we practiced using our words to make sure everyone feels included. Ask your child to tell you more!

Signs of Spring?

The weather made it quite challenging today to continue with our planned lesson of looking for signs of spring, but we took advantage of the wonderfully sticky snow and rolled huge snowballs! This turned into a great lesson to compliment our force and motion study. What kind of force will you need to move the snowball? Will you need a push, pull, or both? How much force will you need to push a small snowball versus a large one? After this experiment, we headed into the woods with Amy Butler from North Branch to enjoy a fire and a Seneca story of the old woman who covered the world in ice and snow with the help of her good friend North Wind. When spring comes knocking at her door, what will she do? In the story, spring uses his magical wand to melt her and everything around him, so of course we had to make our own wands! Tomorrow we will use them to send winter away. I wonder if it will work?

Force and Motion

We began our look into force and motion last week and conducted a fun experiment today. The children have learned that a force can be a push or a pull and that force is necessary to make something move. Today we used the scientific method to answer the question, "Can you move a ball without touching it?" The children were given paper towel rolls, straws, and marbles and had a blast discovering new ways to use force. Ask your child to tell you more!

Kindergarten Writing

The kindergarten kids completed their Vermont animal reports. We have learned how to write an introduction and conclusion, use headings, and add details to our writing. We have also learned some cool facts about our animals!  For the next two weeks our focus will be on conventions. We will practice writing sentences that begin with a capital letter and have end punctuation. We will be sure to have a finger space between our words, and use lowercase and capital letters correctly. We will also practice writing our last name. All important skills for writing!