Music

Kindergarten has been listening, exploring, reading, singing and dancing in music class!

We have been reading ‘The Tiny Seed’ by Eric Carle and have begun to tell the story with our bodies.

Music - Spiegel im Spiegel by Arvo Part

 The little seeds are covered with snow

 It is Spring! The sun shines on the seeds, the snow begins to melt...

 ...and the seeds begin to grow

 They plant their roots into the ground and their branches to the sky

 Many of our seeds turned into beautiful flowers!

Seed Germination

One of the most wonderful things is to watch a seed germinate over the time.  Most of the time, that process happens under soil and students don't get to witness it.  In Kindergarten today, we made seed viewers, which will allow us to view the process over time.  As part of this experiment, the students used beakers and pipettes to carefully wet their paper towels, and then dropped seeds between construction paper and a clear cup to make their "seed viewer".  They also recorded Week 1 of this experiment by drawing their experiment after it was all set up.  Students made predictions as to whether or not they thought the seeds would grow without soil.  Here are a few of their thoughts.  "The seeds can't grow if they are not underground."  "If they have water, they will grow."  "The paper towel might be like the soil."

Our First Field Trip

Our much anticipated trip to the Jerry Pinkney exhibit finally arrived on Friday morning. There was so much excitement about riding the bus, I think we could have gone anywhere and been completely enthralled! Fortunately, we had a wonderful morning planned at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Our first stop was the Candy Coated Wonderland exhibit.  A vibrant display by a local artist using fabric and clothing on child-like fabric figures posed into a variety of scenes.  When asked what they thought this artist liked, the students responded, "bright colors, clothes, glittery, shiny things, cats, and children." They were looking and noticing!  They even began noticing articles of clothing that they were wearing that they decided the artist would love.  To get a sense of dressing a mannequin, the children got to slide their arms into a lightweight fabric sleeve.

Next, we went into a room with a blue broken line on the floor that we were invited to follow around the room to see toys and games created by people from all around the world.  It was fun to create shadow puppets in one area of the display.  The students were then given papers and pencils and asked to trace around their hands.  They brainstormed ways that they use their hands and were challenged to draw things inside of their tracings that used the same idea as a wallpaper display created for a child's room. Perhaps they could tell you about it.

And, "Finally!," as one child remarked, we were off to see Jerry Pinkney's artwork!  The children compared the paintings on the walls with the pictures in his books and noticed how they were mostly the same with some slight variations.  It was fun to recognize his amazing paintings that we had seen in the books that we'd read.  Our final activity was to create a simple quilt using felt squares that related to the book, The Patchwork Quilt.

I loved that we were able to visit the museum.  It was great to be able to expose the students to this kind of a cultural experience where they have the opportunity to practice different behaviors that are merited by being in such an establishment as the Art Museum.  It was a bit of a challenge to be quiet, and listen, and not touch things, as five year olds would naturally prefer to be doing the exact opposite.  The children did a remarkable job visiting three exhibits for over an hour.  They had the opportunity to see three very different types of exhibits, with different art mediums in each.  And how cool to see toys and games as artwork!!  I am glad for the richness of the experience they had in the museum and they were thrilled to see the BUS arrive when we exited!

Free photo slideshow personalized with Smilebox

Pancakes for Breakfast

Wednesday afternoon one of the children pulled out the book, Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie de Paola, and shouted out, "Can we have pancakes??" This was reciprocated with even louder shouts, "Pancakes, pancakes!!"  Can you guess what one of our morning activities was on Thursday?  Making pancakes, of course!

It was lots of fun measuring and stirring the ingredients, but so much more fun to eat the pancakes!!  During our Morning Meeting we read Tomie de Paola's book and were surprised with all the similarities (and differences) to our morning.  We used the same ingredients, we both ran out of maple syrup, and we all loved eating pancakes.  Some differences being, our ingredients came from "the grocery store!," in the book they came from the hen, cow and field; our new syrup came from the cafeteria, in the book it came from the maple trees, and there was one big surprise in the book that we didn't experience.  See if your children can tell you what happened.

Making pancakes was our surprise!  You never know what's coming next in kindergarten!!

Singing and dancing

This week we have continued to learn and practice greetings and slowly introduced means of transportation, body parts. We recently read a book about numbers and animals, though concentrating in learning numbers from 1 - 10.

I promise next time I will have photos or videos! I am still getting familiar to using the camera in the classroom.

In the meantime, below are some upcoming events in the Hispanic community:

Also, I would recommend looking into various Hispanic and cultural organizations in the area:

The Pan American Association of Philadelphia (this is perhaps more for adults than children)
Acción Colombia
Raíces Culturales Latinoamericanas
Taller Puertorriqueño
Artistas y Músicos Latino Americanos (AMLA)
Los de Patanegra
Casa de Venezuela

Textures, Textures Everywhere...in the Art Room

Our kindergarten artists not only used their sense of sight, but also used their sense of touch in the art room! Each student got a chance to reach into Amanda's "mystery tray" of objects (without peeking) and choose a word to describe the texture of an object that they felt. They then revealed the object and passed it around the circle so everyone got a chance to feel it. Our kindergarten artists then conducted a texture hunt in the art room, using special rubbing crayons to record the different textures they discovered. We were amazed by the range of textures we found!

Getting Ready to Write

The students had a great time writing, drawing, and painting in shaving cream that they spread all over the table.  This fun and engaging activity was a warm up activity to the creative writing that will happen in kindergarten.  The children wrote letters, names, words, and drew pictures in the smooth, foamy backdrop that they had created.  In this type of play they are using fine motor skills and letter recognition that they will use in writing.  In addition, there was a wonderful tactile component and pleasant smell that made this a joyful activity.  And, at a student's request colors were also added to the fun!

We also had a chance to play with the wooden pieces from the Handwriting Without Tears program that will guide our letter formation this year.  There are four different pieces (lines) that create every upper case letter of the alphabet.  There is a big line, a little line, a big curve and a little curve.  The students created a variety of designs, shapes and pictures with the wooden pieces in addition to forming several letters of the alphabet in an exploratory and rewarding way.

These activities helped shape our first journal writing experience.  We read the books, All I Am by Eileen Roe and Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood.  The students recognized two sentence patterns in the books which we used to start our writing.  "I am a ________." and "I am as_____as a _______."  They thought about themselves and how they wanted to be portrayed in their writing.  We practiced stretching out the words that would be used to fill in the blanks by making each sound that was heard.  This 'kidwriting' gives the students the opportunity to write freely and without worry about 'correct' spelling.  It also informs the teachers of the letters and sounds that may be challenging.  Our initial writing activities begin with only a word or two so the children can become comfortable with the written word and still reflect the uniqueness of each child.