Wee Mail is Here!

Kindergarten is super excited that Wee Mail is about to begin.  Although our prep time was cut a little short by the snowstorm, the children and teachers worked hard last week to get everything ready!  The children all designed their own stamps on the Ipad and these have been formatted and printed by Fred and Pam (thank you!)  We will be selling stamps every morning this week from 7:45 to 8:10 a.m. in the lobby. Stamps are 2 cents each!  The children also painted mailboxes for each Lower School classroom, Middle School and Upper School offices, and Scott House.  Posters were decorated and hung around campus and we've been telling everyone we see about Wee Mail!

We encourage parents to send their children letters using Wee Mail.  For the address, write your child's name and KA or KB.  Attach a stamp and put it in one of our Wee Mail boxes!  If you don't normally come to drop off or pick up, let us know and we can help you out!  We also encourage cards for Valentine's Day to be sent through Wee Mail. Your child can bring in money and purchase stamps for these.  Please remember to help your child write the address on each one!  (And no candy!)

The children have also been learning how to write letters.  We wrote a letter to first grade as a class, and learned about the parts of a letter. Then each child wrote letters to their Reading Buddies and Senior Buddies which will be sent through Wee Mail.  Math lessons this past week focused on money to help prepare everyone for selling stamps.  The children learned the names and values of the coins and then played a fun banking game with Lori to reinforce the concepts.  

This week we also looked at maps. We read the book My Map Book which was written by a 7 year old and includes maps she drew about herself.  Kindergartners then created their own personal maps - "Map of My Heart", "Map of My Tummy", etc  The children have loved using Google Earth to find where they live and you can actually see everyone's home!  Later in the week, the children built a 3D map of our campus using blocks and small buildings that a previous class had made.  It was hard work figuring out where each building on campus is,  but it will be very helpful when we are out delivering mail! It's been a busy week but loads of fun!

 Magic 5 

While our snow is quickly melting, there is a good chance we will see more before winter is over. Whenever there is snow on the ground, please make sure your child has Magic 5 for snow play!  All children need waterproof coat, snow boots, waterproof snow pants, gloves/mittens, and hat/hood. Please send in a spare set of shoes as well.  The snow boots are often wet, muddy, and cold when we come back inside and need to be left in the hallway.  Thank you!

Curriculum Highlights

Language Arts  - Learning the parts of a letter, writing letters to Reading Buddies and Senior Buddies, writing a group letter to first grade, post office books and vocabulary

Math -  Money - the names of coins, the value of the different coins, trading coins (5 pennies for a nickel, 2 nickels for a dime), Counting by two's. 

Science -  Snow and ice exploration outside

Social Studies -  Wee Mail! What does a postal worker do?  How does mail get from one place to another? Learning the Wee Mail jobs, advertising and setting up mailboxes for each classroom, creating maps about ourselves, building a 3D map of our campus.