TCPS Kindergarten

Noticing the number of school days today, I asked, “What other number would have three of the same numerals?”  One kindergartner volunteered, “Two, two, two,” and then read it correctly, “Two hundred twenty two!”   Many more examples followed… 666,  999,  555,  and  888.  Then someone wanted to do “billions!”  I gave a little support as the class read “8,888,888,888!”  Big numbers are really fun to read. 

We have been talking about nests. Most birds make nests.  We learned that there are two jobs in making a nest- collecting the materials and putting the materials together into the shape of the nest.  The books we read so far did not tell us how long it takes, but they told us sometimes birds have to go quite a distance to find the kind of mud or other material they need.

Birds use natural materials and sometimes some man-made materials.  After we thought of some of the things they might use, we did some detective work.  We began to dissect a nest.  This was a nest one of our afterschool classes found in the park.  It had fallen out of a tree and was empty. 

First we looked at it and estimated how many pieces of material it took to make the nest.  Students gave estimates from 90 up to 200.  After we dissected during one science period, we look at the pieces we had pulled out and the pieces we had left.  (We had counted well over 200 pieces!) Everyone changed his/her estimates.  Estimates are guesses… but they are not wild guesses; they are guesses based on your observations and experience.  Once we had the experience of starting to dissect, our estimates were adjusted… Now they range from 1,000 to 2,000.  We could see there were many more pieces left than pieces we had counted.

Ask your kindergartener what kinds of things we found!

During the last month or so we have observed many birds from the Natural History Museum and from resource books. The astute members of our class have noticed many ways all birds are alike and detailed differences among birds.  This week we talked about adaptation.

Students said that birds live in different places and eat different foods and “do different things”… and so birds need to have the feet and beaks that “suit” (student word) them.  Students practiced matching an activity (”grab food” or “swim” or “walking up a tree trunk”)  to the feet that work best for the activity.  They also matched beaks to the type of food a bird eats (cracking seeds, water plants and creatures, nectar).  What excellent reasoning skills!

Today we celebrated our 100th day of Kindergarten.  During our handwriting practice, we took “dictation” just like upper graders do.  We wrote our name and date on our paper.  Then we wrote “Today is the 100th day of school at TCPS.”  We talked about what punctuation we use at the end of a sentence.  Since our sentence was NOT a question, we decided we could use a period or an exclamation point.  Each person made her/his own decision about what punctuation to use.  Students have the option of adding some glitter to the announcement before they take it home!

Students took home an optional assignment to make up words that can be spelled with the lower case letters we have learned to form.  Several chose the challenge, and we have used their ideas for some of our handwriting practice!  Today all the children were very excited to get a practice paper with names on it…

Why so excited?  The names were the first names of many of their parents!  “That’s my mom’s name!”  “That’s how my dad spells his name!”  There were some parents’ names missing.  Don’t worry if you were left out.  We have to wait until we learn u, b, and y and a few other letters!

After a practice of counting by twos to one hundred, children were introduced to an “optional” activity yesterday.  It involved folding paper and then skip counting by twos.  The folding created 32 rectangles on their papers.  Each of the three who chose to do the activity – during a free choice time – carefully figured and recorded their “twos” and then went over their numbers with the sharpies of their choice.  What an accomplishment!  One starred the number 44 as it has special meaning for him.  “That’s how old Papa is!”

We have been sewing again and are finishing up our little furry friends, the shy water voles.  They will move into the environment later this week, some onto the grassy banks, some swimming in the river, and some in our underground burrows.  Last week we glued on whiskers (taken from an old broom) and noses (from a tire innertube) and tied on little black eyes (beads).  You will also think their little round ears, flat against their heads, are very cute… and you will notice, of course, that their tails are furry and soft.  That is very different from a rat’s tail, you know.

Three little water voles relaxing on the riverbank!

Zen gardens, compass roses, measurement tools, and lots of reading… December and January have been busy months.

We have also started handwriting lessons on the lower case letters.  Now that we are second semester kindergartners (”halfway to FIRST GRADE!), we are adding some new responsibilities and skills.  The main goal of our handwriting is learning to form our letters the same way every time; this leads to efficiency so it won’t be as hard to write down our ideas when we are first graders!  The letters are organized and taught according to how they are formed.  We have learned the straight letters and are now working on the “c” letters.  Did you know how many letters you form by starting with a “c”?

As we are learning to write, we are also seeing patterns in how we spell.  We do not know why some things are spelled the way they are in English; they make NO phonetic sense, but we have noticed that if we spell one word, then we know how to spell all the other words in the same “word family”.  If you can spell “trick” then you can spell “brick” and “flick” and “Nick” and “wick” and “chick”!

One day in math, we “measured” ourselves in three different ways.  Small groups went to three different stations in the room and recorded their temperature, their weight, and their height (try to tell us why height and weight are spelled the way they are!).

Check back soon!  The Kindergartners.

Remember reading about the music sharing we are doing? Here is what we have been listening to on K2009 Radio-

It does my heart good to know that a child in 2009 even knows who the Monkees are!  Yea, yea, we’re the Monkees…   Then there was major boogieing when we listened to a Michael Jackson song. How could we possibly tell them they had to sit totally still to listen to that!  We boogied on with “Mickey and Minnie on a Moonlit Night”… This is techno-Disney!  Yesterday we delighted in some classic show music- with Julie Andrews featured in “A spoonful of sugar…”  I did know all the words to many of these!

Yesterday each student used the balance scales, putting a 5 gram mass on one side.  Then all combed the classroom to find different items that would balance the scale.  A baby vole weighs about the same as one unifix cube OR one nickel OR one tiny plastic zebra OR one small rectangular lego OR one die OR one small bristle block OR one tiny bivalve shell OR one medium plastic bear !

Since there are usually about 5 baby voles in a litter (each weighing 4-5 grams), you could mail a whole litter of voles in an envelope with one 44 cent stamp… and probably fit in a short note as well!  [NOTE: one ounce = 28+ grams]