Wee Mail 2016

Wee Mail 2016 was a great success!  We processed over 4,000 pieces of mail in one week and had a fantastic time doing it.  Special thanks to all the parents for getting their children here early for stamp selling and also to the fifth graders for helping us out!  More pictures to come, but here's a peek at what the week looked like!

Call for  Empty Bowl Help….Please Share fresh Celery to Help Others

The Empty Bowl Dinner is coming up soon on Sunday, February 21^st, from 4-7 p.m.in the Westview Cafeteria. Please join us at our 6^th bi-annual event as we help others by fighting hunger. No reservations are needed, and after a simple meal, you will be able to take home a lovely handcrafted ceramic bowl made by someone in the community.  

The kindergarteners have been very busy participating and  learning how they too can use their creative abilities to help others. They skillfully and very determinably used their fingertips by pressing them into the clay to make cute flowers. The lovely draped bowl shapes were then glazed by the 2^nd graders. They also took on the glazing of the 4^th grade made bowls, with attached feet and handles, by learning about and using color families of opaque glazes.

In addition to their creative ceramic endeavors, all the SSFS students are being asked to contribute to our pot of Stone Soup for the dinner! Do you know the fable of Stone Soup?  There are many versions of this old traditional fable, but all conclude with a tasty dinner, made by a little of this and a little of that, all shared with generosity.

A hungry person enters a town and asks for a bit of dinner, however, the villagers deny having enough food to share. So, the man pulls out a stone from his knapsack, and invites everyone to partake in the soup he plans to make with a pot of water and the stone. Amazed, the townspeople start to contribute by adding just a little bit of flavor to his wonderful magical soup made with just a stone: a carrot here, an onion there, and soon, the cauldron is brimming with delicious vegetables. A delicious soup for the whole community made from everyone’s sharing! A version of the story will be read to all LS students before the dinner.

In making our plans for the dinner, we are asking the K’s to each bring in bunches of celery hearts for our soup. We will a have cooler in front of the carpool circle the days between February 8^th -19^th, as well as a box at Pam’s desk.

I greatly appreciate your participation and support with this wonderful signature SSFS project. I look forward to seeing you at the dinner.

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.

Winter is Here!

After a very warm winter thus far, colder weather is finally here!  The children have loved cutting snowflakes out of white paper, looking for ice on the playground, and dreaming of snow!  Please make sure your child has a warm winter coat, hat or hood, and gloves/mittens on these cold days.  We do go outside to play unless it is exceptionally cold.  

The new year has brought us a new science topic - magnets!  The children love to explore with the magnet set we have in the classroom and have made some wonderful discoveries about how magnets work.  We have watched kids science videos about magnets and have begun doing our own experiments.  The children have made predictions about how many objects they think a particular magnet will pick up and then tested this idea.  Magnets sure do pick up a lot of paper clips!  We counted the paperclips in piles of 10 - some magnets picked up over 70! 

            Life Skills - Connected and Respected 

This week in Life Skills we talked about kindness.  The children first brainstormed someone in their lives who was especially kind.  Then, as a whole Kindergarten we created a list of kind words and actions.  KA and KB are already experts at kindness - have you seen our Good Deed chains?  In each classroom the children report when someone has done a good deed for them.  We write it on a strip of paper which we then make into a paper chain hung around the room.  We are hoping to make the chains go all around the perimeter of the rooms by the end of the year.!

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and Peace

Our spiritual theme this month is "Peace" and we have been focusing on the life of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.  We read the story Martin's Big Words which detailed Dr King's life and his peaceful words and actions.  With our third grade reading buddies we decorated pieces of paper that had some of his important words on them.  These words and pictures with our buddies are out in the hallway for all to enjoy.  We learned that Dr King used his words to make changes in the world, not his fists.  He was able to fight back against adversity through peaceful protests and speeches.   We have had some wonderfully rich classroom discussions about Dr King - ask your children what they have learned!

Curriculum Highlights

Language Arts - Reading Horizons, letter sounds /n/, /p/, and /r/, slides with short vowels /a/ and /e/, adding to the Most Common Words list, punctuation.  Writing Workshop - publishing our first stories, Writer's Share, how to sequence a story or "how-to" book, creating covers for our books.

Math  - Number 10, creating 10 using different combinations of numbers, addition facts to 10, writing numerals and number words, word problems.

Science  - Magnets - "attract" vs "repel", experimenting with magnets, determining how strong magnets are, recording data, making predictions.

Social Studies - Roots - Sam, Johannes, Vivien, learning about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, I Dream of a World book and reflections, Martin's Big Words book and activity with Reading Buddies, talking about peace

Winter Radish Harvest!

The unusually warm weather this December led to our radishes cropping up - again!  Right before we left for the holidays we were able to harvest a good crop and brought our radishes to the Dining Hall for the salad bar!

Gingerbread Houses!

Happy New Year!  We are so glad to have everyone back.  We wanted to share some pictures of an amazing activity the children did before we left for the holidays.  Emmi Horne's mom Terry made each child and teacher their very own gingerbread house!  These houses were absolutely beautiful and carefully detailed.  The children added icing and candy pieces to decorate their houses before taking them home.  Thank you to Terry, Owen, and Emmi for sharing this special activity with us.  Please enjoy the pictures from school photographer Margaret Rosser in the "Photo Gallery" section of our blog.

Celebrations of Light!

It's hard to believe the holidays are already upon us!  This month in Kindergarten we are focusing on light and the different celebrations of light around the world this time of year.  We will read stories and talk about Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa as well as any other holidays that our Kindergartners celebrate during the winter months.  If your family would like to share about a holiday tradition or celebration please let us know!

Our spiritual theme continues to be Simple Gifts and Service.  We have been talking about how simple gifts come from the heart and how special they are to those who receive them.   Both classes made lists of simple gifts and then drew and wrote about their thoughts.  Check out their "packages" in the hallway.  Some of the Kindergartners did a service project Friday morning with reading buddies.  Our "Smart Sack" program involves SSFS students bagging up dry goods to send home with local elementary school students whose families are going through a difficult time.  The food we pack up ensures these children have healthy food for the weekends.  Half of the Kindergarten participated this week, and the other half will do this activity next week.  

We've had some exciting times and special activities the past few weeks.  On Friday, November 20th the entire Lower School went to the University of Maryland women's basketball game.  Our Lady Terps did an awesome job and the children loved going to the big university and seeing the game.  It was especially exciting when the mascot, Testudo, came and visited us in the stands. Right before the Thanksgiving break, Kindergarten celebrated all that we are thankful for by having a mini-feast.  Thank you for the parents who signed up to bring snacks!  And just this past week, Kindergarten participated in a Lower School tradition by making candles in the Art Barn with Kate.  We sang holiday songs as we walked around and dipped the wicks in wax.  Candles will be coming home before the holidays.

Life Skills - Connected and Respected 

This week in Life Skills we talked about feeling angry.  First the children went around the room and talked about something that "bugged" them.  We talked how we all feel angry sometimes and that is is OK to feel this way.  People feel anger in different ways - some people feel it in their tummies, some people feel it in their arms, etc  We then talked about different ways to handle anger. We emphasized that it's OK to feel angry, but it's not OK to be mean.  We brainstormed appropriate ways to express or handle anger such as taking a deep breath, counting to 10, yelling into a pillow, etc.  We will continue this discussion in coming weeks.

Curriculum Highlights 

Language Arts -  Reading Horizons - letters and sounds /l/, /m/, /j/, and the short vowel /e/, slides with short vowels /a/ and /e/, nonsense and real words with both vowels, Writing Workshop - creating "How to" books, breaking down processes into single steps, adding spaces between words, adding more detail to our work.  

Math -  Numbers 7, 8, and 9 - writing the numerals and words, combining quantities to make 7, 8, and 9, creating addition problems from the Morning Message, 

Science  - making "Goop" with cornstarch and water, exploring magnets 

Social Studies  - Roots - Toni, Davey, Michela, and Colette, Talking about Celebrations of Light, Community Service - "Smart Sacks"

Special Events  - Making candles in the art barn, special holiday craft with Reading Buddies, field trip to the University of Maryland women's basketball game, mini Thanksgiving feast