We've had another busy week in Room 115! We have learned a little about Wampanoags and Pilgrims. We read a story called “Tapenum” about a young Native American. We also read a story called “Samuel Eaton’s Day” which is about a day in the life of a Pilgrim boy and a similar one called “Sarah Morton’s Day” which is about a day in the life of a Pilgrim girl. We talked a lot about the chores Pilgrim boys and girls had to do and I tried to encourage them to be helpful at home too! Our focus was where we live and the different kinds of homes we live in. We compared our homes to those of the Native Americans and Pilgrims.
We read a couple of Scholastic Let’s Find Out readers this week about Pilgrims and Wampanoags. The online version has some great videos that we watched to learn more about what their lives were like. I would encourage you to watch them at home with your children to further discussions about homes, chores, and being thankful.
The website is: http://letsfindout.scholastic.com/
The password is: Duncank115
The students wove placemats, decorated Native American teepees, and started making turkeys in the art area this week. They completed two class books about where they live and what they are thankful for. These books will be circulating around to homes along with all of our previous ones. Please be sure to read the books with your family and send them back to school as soon as possible for others to enjoy. The students also wrote about the Pilgrim boy and girl we read about and did some more rhyming activities too. Another writing project included writing facts about the changes that are happening in the fall. Students wrote about leaves falling, harvesting pumpkins, apples, and potatoes, and how animals (including bears, geese, and chipmunks) prepare for winter. These will be coming home next week.
Mr. Musselman from the Burlington Science Center visited our classroom today to teach us about clouds. We learned about different kinds of clouds and different kinds of weather and Mr. Musselman even made a cloud right in our classroom! He encouraged students to try making a cloud at home...with parent help of course! The ingredients are water, heat, cold air, and dust/smoke. It’s very similar to turning the hot water on in the shower.
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving will be a half day of school. Dismissal will be around 11:15am. A form went home this past week for you to complete and return that will let us know if children will be riding home on the bus or getting picked up by parents. Please return the form as soon as possible. We will not be eating lunch at school on Wednesday.
It's hard to believe that it's already time to start thinking about all our December activities! We will start practicing Nutcracker dances in preparation for our Nutcracker performance and to help our trip to the ballet be more meaningful. We are going to see the Nutcracker Ballet on Thursday, December 7th. We are planning to have our own Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance on Thursday, December 21st at 9:00am. An invitation will be going home soon. It is one of the biggest highlights from our year in Kindergarten!
We have been doing a lot with rhyming but I would encourage you to practice it at home with your child too. You can ask them to sing “Willowby-Wallaby Woo” or listen for rhyming words in books or even just try to list as many words as possible that rhyme. It would also be wonderful if you could help your child practice with counting, ordering, and writing numbers to 10 and even into the teen numbers. Even simple things like counting stairs as they walk up them or counting how many bites of food they eat would be helpful!
There is a great website that has some great activities to support rhyming, early reading skills, and even math practice. It is www.starfall.com. It may be fun for the students to explore at home.
I am looking forward to meeting with you for conferences the week after Thanksgiving. Please be sure to check the schedule and let me know if you can’t make it.
Have a great weekend!
Melanie Duncan
Also… Please make sure your child brings warm clothes to wear outside for recess now that the weather is getting colder and please help them practice putting all their stuff on too!
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