Announcements

This week in Kindergarten we finished introducing the alphabet! It was a very exciting occasion. We also monkey-ed around with measuring, practiced counting by 1’s, 5’s and 10’s, introduced our number words for zero thru ten with a Turkey counting book and learned about how to use tally marks! First, Jacob was our expert for the letter Yy. He introduced us to the letter Yy and taught us its sound and the proper way to make the letter. We put yellow yarn on our reading wall and we ate yummy yogurt for a snack (it was vanilla and we added sprinkles and everyone loved it!) Our puppet was a yak and we glued yellow yarn to our Y cutout. Our expert for Xx is Micaela. She brought a picture of a Xylophone for our reading wall and taught us the correct sound of letter Xx and how to write it properly. Our puppet was a fox in a box! We understand that “x” usually is found at the end of words and that is where it makes its “ksss” sound. For snack we made our cheerios into an “X” shape! Lastly, we cut up some old x- rays and glued them to our “X” cutout. Our expert for the letter Zz is Levi. He brought us a zipper and a “Z” shaped crayon for our reading wall. Levi taught us the sound and correct way to write the letter Zz. Our puppet was a zebra and we ate zebra cakes for snack (Little Debbie makes them)! We used fancy scissors to cut out zig-zag strips of paper and then glued them on to letter Z. Levi treated us to some yummy fruit flavored zebra striped gum. It was a special day to have the whole alphabet introduced!! Wednesday was our wonderful Voyage on the Mayflower. Thank you to everyone for helping your child pack their bags! We have been learning about why the Pilgrims left England and chose to sail on the Mayflower to a new world. Our classroom was transformed! There were no tables and chairs, but instead, a ship! We gathered on the carpet and colored a map that showed where we started and where we were going. We each got a ticket to board the ship. Lined up in order of our numbers and got on with our bags. We were cramped together as we shared the items we each brought and talked about why we had chosen those things. We sorted the items by wants and needs! They were all sorry to hear that toys fall into the want category. Luckily for us, some children brought things we really needed, like a fishing net, and tools for building when we got there. We had a couple compasses, lots of pillows and blankets, lots of books and Bibles, some medicine and even some underwear : ) The children just beamed as they talked about what they had chosen! While on the ship, we went to sleep and woke up 65 times just like the Pilgrims! We kept track of these days with tally marks and then used the tallies to help us count by 5’s! We also had our snack while on the ship: cold biscuits, beef jerky, and raisins, not their favorite. When it was time to get off the ship in the new world, we were ready! In America, we made our log cabin books and found out about the life of Pilgrim children. They had many more chores then children of today, luckily none of us had to fetch firewood or feed the chickens before we did our school lessons. We wrote with chalk on “slates” to practice our sight words, and sentence writing. Later in the day we met “Squanto” (who looked an awful lot like Mrs. Logan) who taught us how to grow corn. Squanto gave us fish ( little paper ones) to put in the soil with our corn seeds… hopefully they will grow. Please ask your child about our voyage and see what they have learned about how this national holiday began. I am truly thankful to be your child’s Kindergarten teacher. I try to bring the curriculum to life each day and help your child to seek out opportunities to learn and discover new things. Thank you for entrusting me with your precious little children and thank you to the children for trying their best even when it is hard for them. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Try this after your Thanksgiving meal to burn off a few calories! Turkey Pokey (Hokey Pokey) You put your right wing in. You put your right wing out. You put your right wing in, And you shake it all about. You do the turkey pokey And you turn your self around. That's what it's all about. Additional verses: Left wing (left arm) Drumsticks (legs) Stuffing (tummy) Wattle (head) Tail feathers (bottom) Turkey body (whole self)