Class of 2020 (4th grade)

We have been learning about how things change over time. This week, we read Farfallina and Marcel which is about the friendship between a caterpillar (Farfallina) and gosling (Marcel). Both characters go through changes as Farfallina becomes a butterfly and Marcel grows from a gosling to a goose. Sadly, as both characters appearances change quite drastically, they no longer recognize one another. Then one day, they begin having a conversation and are delighted to discover that they are long lost friends!

Amazing Words:

• caterpillar
• butterfly
• cocoon
•  gosling
• goose
• reflection

The children have been writing and illustrating sentences using the weekly amazing words. At the end of the year, we will combine their writing pieces into individualized books for each child to take home. Additionally, each amazing word is underlined, so the students will always remember them!

We also began exploring three-dimensional shapes this week. We learned that three-dimensional shapes are solid, (not flat) and have corners, edges and faces. We even learned a new song to help us recall the names of the shapes and compare them to real world examples.

Chorus

Here are the 3D shapes that I know…

A sphere, a cylinder, a cube, and a cone (and a pyramid)

Verse 1

A baseball, the moon

And an orange I have right here

Are all examples of a 3D shape

That people call a sphere

A basketball, the Earth

And marbles I have here

Are all examples of a 3D shape

That people call a sphere

Verse 2:
A soda can, a pencil shaft,

And a can of soup would be

Examples of a cylinder

As you can plainly see

A marker, a glass of milk,

And a peanut butter jar

Are examples of a cylinder

Yes, I’m sure they are.

Verse 3:
An ice cube, a cardboard box,

And a birthday present for you

Are all examples of a 3D shape 
that people call a cube

My little dice, a Rubix cube,

And a block that I use

Are all examples of a 3D shape

That people call a cube

Verse 4:
An ice cream cone, a pencil tip,

And a megaphone

Are all examples of a 3D shape

That people call a cone

A birthday hat, a traffic cone,

Or a funnel in my home

Are all examples of a 3D shape

That people call a cone

Verse 5

A paper weight, Egyptian pyramids

And some tents would be

Examples of a pyramid

As you can plainly see

The children went on a scavenger hunt and found various two and three-dimensional objects.

Here are some of the three-dimensional shapes we found in our classroom:

Sphere: an orange, a clementine, the bead container on the art shelf, and the shemesh (sun) light hanging from the ceiling

Cylinder: water bottles, thermoses, some containers on the art shelf, the paper towels, the trash can

Cube: lunch boxes, snack containers, tissue boxes

Cone: The tips of the pencils, one of the magnet blocks

Pyramid: Some friends made pyramids out of Magna-tiles.

In a compare and contrast activity, the children analyzed the differences and similarities between two-dimensional shapes and three three-dimensional shapes :

This week we learned that historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting located in the past. We read a story called, George Washington Visits, which takes place about one week before George Washington became the first President of the Unites States. In this story, he was called, “General Washington,” and the townspeople were putting together a celebration in honor of his upcoming visit. A young boy and his father, a blacksmith, worked together to make a very special sign in the shape of an arch to welcome General Washington.

After discussing our new amazing words and reading the story, each child selected an amazing word to write about and illustrated their work.

Amazing Words:

• celebration
• sprinted
• arch
• blacksmith
• soldier
• barn

New sight words:

• look
• see

Blending words together in guided reading:

Taking turns reading aloud:

Today we learned that thermometers are tools that we use to measure temperature. We explored a color-coded thermometer which helped us understand which temperatures (Fahrenheit) are considered freezing (purple), cold (blue), cool (green), warm (yellow), and hot (red). We made predictions and placed an actual thermometer in containers of cold and hot water. The children watched as the red line moved down in the cold water and up in the hot water. Afterwards, they recorded their observations in their science journals.

Spirit Day is Friday, January 30th! Everyone is encouraged to wear the colors of their favorite team, or their own personal favorite colors!

Reminder: Please send snow pants, boots and other winter clothing for outdoor recess fun.

As we continue to explore the fantasy genre, we read the story Jack and the Beanstalk, and discovered that there can be different versions of stories we read. In fact, many of us were already familiar with this book! We remembered that the main character, Jack, traded his cow for some magic beans. We knew that the beans would grow a magic beanstalk all the way up to the clouds, and we anxiously prepared ourselves for Jack to meet the “scary” giant. However; we were pleasantly surprised when the giant (ogre in this story) was actually not so scary! In fact, he was sad that Jack was trying to steal his hen that laid the golden eggs, his bags of gold, and his golden harp. Together, Jack and the ogre problem solved and peacefully decided that the ogre would lend Jack the golden harp, hen, and he could take half of the gold. Many of us decided that we preferred this version of the story!

Amazing Vocabulary Words

(Jack and the Beanstalk)

• ogre
• beanstalk
• lad
• naughty
• lend
• magic

Connecting to this story, the children created pictures of beanstalks using various materials including, craft sticks, pom poms, paint, glitter, tissue paper, construction paper, straws, and more!

Afterwards, they wrote about what they would find at the top of their beanstalks. Here are some of their ideas:

At the top of my beanstalk there is/are…

• A golden crocodile
• A bunch of Legos
• Pokemon
• A candy house
• A club house
• A Snugglephant
• Star Wars
• Treasure
• Sadie (my dog)

We also planted “Magic Beans” which we will observe over a period of two weeks. Each day, the children will document their observations on note cards and by the end of the two weeks, they will have a beanstalk flip book displaying the growth process.

In math, we practiced using nonstandard units of measure by finding the length of various pieces of tape. The children used markers, craft sicks, paper clips, cubes etc. and discovered that they needed less of the larger objects and more of the smaller objects when determining the length.

Over the next few weeks, we will be exploring temperature, snow, and ice. We will be conducting various experiments; however, to help us get into the “wintry mood,” we made our own FNOW! (fake snow)

Ingredients:

• Baking soda
• White hair conditioner

Mix three cups of baking soda to 1/2 cup of hair conditioner.

The FNOW felt cool, damp, and soft like real snow! We even made FNOWballs!

Snowball Sight Word Game

Sight words:

• I
• am
• the
• little
• a
• is
• to
• have
• we
• my
• like
• for
• he
• she
• with
• me

We played another game to help us identify sight words. First, the children each wrote their name on a piece of white paper, and crumpled the paper into a “snowball.” Then we selected one of our sight words to be the “sight word snowball.” We flipped over different cards until we came to the chosen word. Once that card was flipped over, the children threw their snowballs into the middle of the circle. Afterwards, they each selected a random snowball, smoothed out the paper, read the name, and sat in the spot of that classmate for the following round.

Math Jumping

Another game that we have been enjoying is our addition and subtraction jumping game. Not only does this game allow the us to practice math skills, it is also a fantastic way to get up, move our bodies, and get our wiggles out! Each child stands in their place and listens to the directions.

“Jump 9 plus 2 times.”

“Jump 8 plus 3 times.”

“Jump 12 take away 1 times.”

We take some time to talk about what we notice:

“These are all ways to make eleven!”

At times the children like “tricky” ones:

“Jump 5 plus 5 times.”

“Jump 9 plus 1 times.”

“Jump 10 take away 10 times.”

Oftentimes, this last direction can be confusing similar to way the Simon Says can be tricky. Your body is so used to jumping, that it automatically starts moving. The key is to listen carefully to the problem. We have a great time with this activity!

Vowel/Consonant Game

We start by standing in a circle and each child says a letter in alphabetical order. When someone gets a vowel, they need to sit down. We go around and around, until we have “one consonant standing.” Everyone in the class says, “mazel tov!” to the winner, who then responds, “thank you.” Not only does this game allow the children to differentiate between consonants and vowels, it also gives them the opportunity to practice good sportsmanship.

Hebrew

While we were learning the letter chet, we used  different materials!  We had fun making  a chalon(window). The children chose to have their  chalon (window) open for different objects that begin with the letter  chet – like a chanukiyah (menorah for Chanukah),  chatool (cat), and  challah. We also baked challa with Hepzibah.

This past week, we read Bear Snores On, which is a book about animals throwing a party in a bear’s cave while he is attempting to hibernate. The children created their own bear caves out of paper bags.

We practiced identifying our new amazing words in songs and stories, and frequently incorporated these words into our daily conversations!

• winter
• woods
• storm
• cave
• sleep
• blustery

We learned a new song about a bear:

(To the tune of Hush Little Baby)

Hush, little brown bear in the woods,

You’d sleep through the winter if you could.

And if the winter continues to storm,

Stay in your cave all safe and warm.

And if it’s still blustery and cold,

You’ll always have your mama’s hand to hold.

Hush, little brown bear in the woods,

You’d sleep through the winter if you could.

Our word walk is getting longer, and the children have been enthusiastically utilizing it! We’ve jumped from word to word to create sentences, practiced long jumps to see which words we land on, and even used it to refer to the spelling of some words for our journal writing. These are the sight words in our word walk:

• I
• am
• the
• little
• a
• have
• is
• we
• my
• like

We’ve been learning about measurement in math. Using towers of ten Unifix cubes, we found various objects in our classroom and categorized the items into two groups: those items that were taller than a tower of ten cubes and the items that were shorter than a tower of ten cubes.

The children also created animal characters from Bear Snores On, including the bear, hare, raven, mole, and mouse. Afterwards, they measured the animals and determined that the bear was the tallest animal (16 cubes) and the mouse was the shortest (2 cubes).

In Hebrew, we learned about the letters dalet and gimmel. We read Hadag Kaspion, and learned that the word delet (door) begins with a dalet. Each child created their own delet and illustrated the location behind it, including a bedroom, toy room, ark, etc. The children also made a degel (flag) from the shape of the letter dalet.

For the letter gimmel, we discovered that when you put two gimmels together, you can make a gamal (camal). We read about Eliezer and the Gezer (carrot) and spread g’veena (cheese) on crackers. We wrote the letter gimmel with gezer (a carrot) on the g’veena (cheese).

When we were talking about Parashat Noah, we talked about the importance of keeping a promise. The children decided that “When you don’t keep your promises, it will be hard to trust you again.”

A majority of Parashat Noah was told in Hebrew! The children followed along and identified many words such as arie (lion), kof (monkey), keshet (rainbow), yam (sea) and many more!

This week we had our first Brown/RISD STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) session! Using pieces of cardboard and string, the children were instructed to weave the string around the cardboard in order to reach a given number by counting by groups of two, three, etc. The children discovered that they could reach the number six by weaving the string around and counting by twos; however, they were unable to reach the number five when only counting by twos. We are excited to welcome our guests back to our classroom this week to continue the lesson!

Tuesday:
Art (9:45-10:35) Design Center (12:35-1:25) Gym (2:15-3:05)

Wednesday:
Library (9:45-10:35) Music (2:15-3:05)

Thursday:
Gym (10:45-11:35)

Friday:
Garden (10:45-11:35 every other week)

The air is crisp and the leaves are crunchy! We have been enjoying these beautiful fall days in Kindergarten!

This week, we took a walk around the neighborhood to observe trees. We discovered that most trees fall into two categories–conifers and broadleaf (or hardwood) trees. We learned that conifers have a triangular shape and have needles or scales for leaves, and are usually evergreen. Broadleaf trees are wider and more rounded, and their leaves are flat, broad, and thin.  Broadleaf trees lose their leaves when the weather turns cold. We discovered that there are more broadleaf trees in our neighborhood; however, we did find some conifers. The children even collected pine cones!

Conifer or broadleaf?

Collecting pine cones underneath a conifer

 Matching a broadleaf to its tree

 The children collected leaves to create their “Lorlds” ( Leaf worlds). They created “leafle” (leaf people) “lanimals” (leaf animals) “livers” (leaf rivers) and more!

 We had our election to determine what our dramatic play area will be! Each child was given a chip to place in one of the bags that represented some of the local businesses in our community including, a bakery, fire station, post office, and library. Once everyone voted, we counted the number of chips in each bag and determined that the post office received the most votes. Over the next few weeks, we will conduct research and visit a post office to help us create props for our dramatic play area, and learn how post office colleagues work together. 

As we explore the concept of negative space, the children created their tape paintings. They used masking tape to create various images including, plants, animals, and sunshine. They used watercolors to paint the space around the tape, and pulled the tape off of the paper, revealing their images. 

We played Sight Word Musical Chairs! The children danced around the chairs, stopped when the music paused, and read the sight word card that was placed on their chair. The child with the “magic word” picked the next word for the following round. We enjoyed this game and look forward to playing it again!

We enjoyed our first (two!) birthday celebrations of the year! Happy birthday Naftali and Hadas!

Each child shared something special about Naftali and Hadas, and helped them to decorate their birthday tracings.

Naftali’s mom, Marni, brought in Oobleck–an amazing substance that is both a solid and a liquid!

You can make your own Oobleck at home!

Materials:

1 cup of water

1 to 2 cups of cornstarch

Mixing bowl

Food coloring (optional)

Preparation:

1) Pour one cup of cornstarch into the mixing bowl

2) Pour the water in, mixing slowly as you go. Keep adding more water until the mixture becomes thick. Add more cornstarch if it gets too runny, and more water if it becomes too thin.

3) Add a few drops of food coloring (optional)

4) Roll up your sleeves, put your hands in, and have fun!

Thank you to Naftali’s family for supplying the ice cream sundaes and Hadas’s family for sending in the blueberries. We all enjoyed the yummy birthday treat!

We’ve had a very busy week in Kindergarten!

In math, we played two new games: Grab and Count and Roll and Record.  These games help the children develop strategies for accurately counting and keeping track of quantities up to twelve. By “grabbing” handfuls of Unifex Cubes out of paper bags, the students decided how they wanted to represent the quantities using pictures, numbers, etc. By rolling dot cubes, the children developed visual images for quantities up to six, while connecting number words, numerals and quantities, and recording numerals to represent the quantities.

 This week, we talked about how people in communities cooperate. The children reflected upon their home and school communities, and then illustrated pictures depicting the ways in which they cooperate with others. We learned that many friends help their home community by setting the table, cleaning the dishes, playing with younger siblings, etc. At school, friends work together to keep the classroom clean, show kavod, help our friends and teachers, share toys and materials, and have fun!

We read Miss Bindergarten Takes a Field Trip and learned some new “Amazing” vocabulary words!

Park

Library

Post Office

Bakery

Fire Station

Chaperone

 In this story, the children, chaperones, and the teacher cooperated with one another as they explored various places on their field trip including the park, bakery, post office, fire station, and library. Afterwards, the children thought about places in our community they would like to explore on a learning expedition. They drew pictures depicting their ideas, and we will be taking a vote to discover where our class will be going. Additionally, we will be turning our dramatic play area into this (as of now) mystery place! The children will create all of our props in the Design Lab!

It’s quite Fitting that this blog post is going out on Friday morning, as we have been exploring the letter F! The children created the letter F alphabet card and practiced Forming the letter with pipe cleaners. We will be using the visual of a fire pole to help us learn how to write a lowercase f. We will even practice sliding down the fire pole on the playground! Fantastic fun!