We are thankful....

In Kindergarten this month we have been focusing on the idea of feeling thankful.  To be thankful is to be grateful, and to recognize all that we have.  This can be a pretty hard thing to do in a world that keeps pushing toys and the latest gadgets in our faces!  We have read books such as The Secret of Saying Thanks (did your children tell you the secret?) and thought about all we have to be thankful for - family, friends, food, clothing, homes, etc  The children created paper turkeys and then wrote about what they were thankful for. Come see our turkeys on display in the hallway!

Connecting with the idea of thankfulness is our spiritual theme for November and December - Simplicity/Simple Gifts.  We have been talking about how everything doesn't have to be fancy or cost a lot of money.  Simple gifts come from the heart.  For example on Brenda Crawley's birthday, we gave her simple gifts - a song, some hugs, and homemade cards and notes.  Sometimes it's the simplest things that matter the most.  

Life Skills - Connected and Respected

In Life Skills we have been talking about our feelings.  We have many different feelings and some that we feel at the same time!  When we are feeling two things we call that a "double-dip feeling".  The children brainstormed and created an amazing list of different feelings - the teachers were very impressed.  Then, we made feeling soup.  Children represented the different feelings using facial expression and body language and joined the soup! Can you identify the feelings the classes are showing?

 

 Curriculum Highlights

Language Arts -   Reading Horizons - Most Common Words - "and", "the", and "of", capitalization rules - beginning of sentence and the letter "I", letter and sound for /h/.  Writing Workshop - What are we thankful for?, putting spaces in between words when writing sentences.

Math -   Comparing numbers from 1-5, math language "greater than", "less than", "same".  The number 6 - how can we combine numbers that will equal 6?

Science -  Nature walk, looking for different leaves outside and identifying them, looking for signs of fall.

Social Studies -  Roots - Cora, Katie, Alexa, and Toni, Learning about Divali with Anjali's family.

Special Events -  Making special thankful turkeys with our Reading Buddies, Third grade play - "Oliver Button is a Star"