Investiplorers Gazette November 17-21 Parent Teacher Conferences Thank you for letting us share your child’s accomplishments and providing you with a glimpse of their kindergarten lives. We value your involvement in your child’s education and looking forward to continuous communication. It is amazing how much the children have done over these fifty five days of school. Shared Readers This week, the Investigators read and worked with the book “Seven Blind Mice” by Ed Young. It is a story about seven blind mice that describes an animal by feeling different parts and they describe what it is by what they feel. The concepts were taught by reading this book and looking at parts of a whole and ordinal numbers. The Explorers read “The Enormous Carrot” by Vladimir Vagin. It is about a farmer and his wife who plants a carrot and need help from their friends to pull it out of the ground. The children made pictures of themselves pulling a giant pumpkin out of the ground since we have been doing activities with pumpkins. They practiced ordinal numbers by identifying the children by their placement. Next week, the classes, will switch readers. How Many Seeds Are In a Pumpkin? This week, the Investiplorers opened a pumpkin and guesstimated how many seeds were in the pumpkin. In a group, they took turns counting ten pumpkin seeds and putting them in a cup. When they had ten cups, they were place on a plate which changed the place value. They continued this process until all the seeds were counted. The classes also made non-cook pumpkin tarts by following a rebus recipe. Torah Talk Avraham and Sarah had special visitors who they welcomed with open arms. The visitors told Avraham that Sarah was going to have a baby this caused Sarah to laugh. Nine months later, at the age of 90, Sarah had a baby named Yitzhak because in Hebrew that means she laughed. Eight days later, Yitzchak had the first brit milah. What will happen as Yitzchak grows up? Israel with Smadar The Kindergartens headed down south to the Dead Sea and Ein Gedi. They floated in the salty sea and saw the springs and wild life at Ein Gedi. The children watched a power point presentation and a movie about the area. They observed what happen when an egg is put in a salt saturated container. In the activity, the students used salt, water colors and picture of themselves to make a Dead Sea picture Language The children continue to work on handwriting and phonics. In Hand Writing Without Tears we started Center Starter Letters and Numbers. We can form many words with our two vowels (a and i) and our many consonants (b, m, f, t, r, d, h, l, n and p). We continue to build our sight word vocabulary. We are working on using descriptive words so that when we read our writing our classmates can see the picture in their heads. Thanksgiving Both classes listened to a book about the history of Thanksgiving. They discussed why the Pilgrims needed to leave England on a boat with terrible conditions to go to a new land. Also, the role of the Native Americans was explored through the eyes of the book. Home-School Connection How many words start or end with /th/ as in the word Thanksgiving? Write a story as if you were a Pilgrim Child beginning a new life in a new land. Ask a parent for two different size and shaped glasses. By using a measuring cup, which one contains more liquid? Compare two license plate numbers. Which number is larger? Can you identify a word for each letter on the license plate? Set the table for dinner. How many pieces of silverware did you use? Make a picture to help describe your answer? Items Needed We would like stationary, post cards, writing pads, and any other office supply you are not using anymore at home. Both classes have a writing center and we would like to stock the box with different materials. We are also collecting large plastic coffee containers. Announcements • Wednesday 11/26: Thanksgiving- Noon Dismissal • Thurs.- Fri. 11/27-28: Thanksgiving- School Closed • Mon.-Fri., 12/8-12: Book Fair Week • Thursday, 12/18: Chanukah Program Early Childhood & Elementary 6:00pm