Jerry Pinkney

Our first author study this year has been award winning, local author/illustrator, Jerry Pinkney.  We are very excited knowing that this Friday we will take the bus to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see the exhibit, Witness the Art of Jerry Pinkney.  I thought you might enjoy visiting his website so as to appreciate the richness of the books we have been reading and the detailed artwork that we will have the opportunity to experience on Friday.  Enjoy!

Math is taking SHAPE!

It was wonderful to see how exciting geometry could be to our kindergartners and how challenging it was to describe minor variations in shapes.  The children were delighted to be able to name all of the shapes that we examined on Friday.  When asked to explain how they knew which shapes were which, they had to do some technical analyses and comparisons to differentiate one from another.  For example, the square, rectangle, trapezoid and diamond (aka rhombus) were all described as having four flat sides, and four points or corners.  We were so baffled!  The question of course was, "Why is this one a rectangle and not a diamond or square or trapezoid?"   Here are some of the ideas that emerged as we examined these shapes:  "The rhombus is really pointy.  It has two big points and two small points.  It has four slanted lines!!  The square is like a cube.  It has the same size points.  The rectangle has two big sides and two little ends.  It doesn't have any really pointy points!"  And the trapezoid was described as "two slanted lines and two straight lines.  It has one big line, one little line, and two short lines."   We continued with a triangle, hexagon, oval and a circle.  "The triangle has 3 sides and 3 corners or points."  Not too difficult.  "A circle is round like a wheel, a smiley face, a tire, or the sun."  "The oval is round."  Uh oh!!  So is the circle!  "The oval is like sideways, like an egg.  It is a little flat."  The hexagon we all agreed had six sides and six points.  This exercise really challenged the children's observation skills and vocabulary.  Naturally, they began noticing shapes all around the classroom.

To deepen and enrich our work, we became shape detectives and scoured the classroom and hallways for shapes.  We recorded our discoveries on a chart using tally marks that we had practiced working with at Morning Meeting.  Everywhere we went, the children were absolutely abuzz as they noticed shapes everywhere and joyously called out to each other as they discovered them.  It was most exciting when they discovered "hundreds of millions" of the same shape all in one place, such as squares in the celiling, triangles in the block corner or diamonds on the glass pane of our door!   And then at lunch, as they began to unpack their bags, there were shouts of "Look a square!" or  "I have three rectangles!"  It was fantastic to see the carry over from our activity into lunch.  I wonder if they were noticing them at home this weekend??  Let us know if you were hearing or learning about shapes at home.

The Basics in Spanish

The Roo's have been learning some greetings in Spanish such as hola or buenos días, along with cultural norms expected when greetings occur such as hugging, high fives, or kissing in the cheek. Each time we travel to a Spanish-speaking country, they are shown in Google Maps so they can see where the USA is located too and how far they are "traveling", it's a good geographical point of reference. Then, I introduced them to one of our puppets, Alejandro (the dog, which seems to be their favorite), Luis or Sofía. The puppets help me introduce them to greetings and to practice them.

Through these activities they also learn means of transportation. So far we have traveled in a avión (airplane) and a barco chiquito (small boat). The last one was a way to introduce them to a song called "El Barco Chiquito". They also seem to love images in Power Point or Prezi presentations along with the songs we sing or dance to. Our last activity was to draw a small boat like the one in the song. I am hoping that next class we will look at what they draw and identify other potential vocabulary such as el mar (the sea), el sol (the sun), las nubes (the clouds).

Ocassionally, I would suggest attending certain events in the city that are related to Hispanic culture and Spanish language. See below for upcoming events:

- Buena Vista Social Club at the Kimmel Center. If you cannot go, I would recommend watching the trailer and documentary.

- Venezuelan Expressions, an annual musical and dance event.

Seed Hike - Science Room News

This past week, I learned that Kindergarten students have been interested in learning about seeds.  So we headed out on a seed "treasure" hike with each class!  Since the trees and flowers are making seeds now, fall is the perfect time to discover all kinds of seeds.  The students found acorns, pine cones, berries, chestnuts, maple seeds, sweet gum and sycamore balls, just to name a few.  We decided to take a look at the seeds under a microscope to see if we could learn more about them.  So we'll be learning about microscopes next in science class!

Our first Spanish class!

During their first class the Roo's enjoyed a time of play, singing and dancing en español! They were greeted by a brief session of streching, "manos arriba, piernas abajo", followed by a one minute of silence "un minuto de silencio" and breathing "por la nariz y por la boca" (breath in through you nose and out through your mouth)

I later introduced them to greetings through a song. Then, we traveled on an airplane ("un avión") to Mexico to visit out little dog Alejandro (seen in the picture)

Alejandro introduced himself and the children practiced how to say "mucho gusto" (nice to meet you).

Then we danced at the rhythm of drums ("tambor") and end our session with a group hug ("un abrazo en grupo").

As you can see, the children learned a few words or phrase that I will continue to repeat and make part of a routine in and out of the classroom (such as greetings or the breathing and stretching exercises). I think the kids will naturally greet me in Spanish when they see me and I do hope they practice with you, the parents, what they learn with me.

¡Nos vemos el jueves! (I will see you on Thursday!)

New Adventures

We are already spreading our wings as we ventured off to our resource classes this week.  We had a chance to visit Music, Art, Science and Gym, and Elisa brought Espagñol to us!  We explored more areas of our classroom and enjoyed playing on the 'big kid's' playground as well.  We even got to dig up potatoes and pick tomatoes with First Grade, Eighth Grade and Middle School Science teacher, Jim Pierson.  What a remarkable first week!

Exploring personal space and movement in Gym:

Singing new songs, moving with scarves, marching, and hearing an Eric Carle story in Music:

Discovering some of the many unique features in Science:

Drawing full body self-portraits in Art:

Wow!  So much to do....

And still more....

Don't you wish you were in Kindergarten?!!