Kindergarten News - Week of January 26th

 We have had 89 days of school!

Announcements/Reminders:

                          Happy Birthday, Frankie!! (Jan. 28th) 

• ​SHOW and T​ELL on Monday (February 2nd): Talia, Kinnick, and Olivia​. Please bring one item from home to show to the class.
• Scholastic Reading Club orders for the month of February are due back on Wednesday, February 4th.
• FOLDERS: Please check these and remove all papers.
• Bloomz: Please check the Bloomz App for reminders and the latest photos - in the “January 2026” album.

•    Practice at home:

• Unit 3 intro
• Tapping out three letter words
• Recognizing sound at beginning and ending of words
• Math “Race You to 15 cents”

A Peek At Our Week:

January Birthdays. Special Happy Birthday to Frankie!! On the last Friday of the month we also celebrated Isa's (PreK) Birthday.

MATH: Two-Dimensional Geometry:

It was so exciting for Kindergartners this week to be handed a handful of pattern blocks and have a chance to play and explore. We talked about the Square, Triangle, Hexagon,Trapezoid, and Rhombus - thinking about the different properties of these shapes. We also learned about the circle and talked about its properties. With some modeling clay everyone made a flat pancake (circle) and then a solid ball (sphere). Whenever you have a chance (ball, orange, moon, marble, etc), ask your child if they remember the name of a solid ball. Please check the Bridges in Math Unit 5 overview for a look at what's ahead in Math.

Reading Buddies: Our first time with our 4th grade Reading 

Buddies and everyone was so excited! We were together in the

library this week, but will use the Kindergarten classroom and ELC 

patio next time. We’ll be meeting every Friday. Yay!

 

Show and Tell: Iron presented his Show and Tell to the class this week. He had an article about his dad when he was a baseball player as a teeneager and had struck out 18 players! Wow! Iron also had a baseball and his dad's baseball glove to show the class. Well done, Iron! Looking forward to Talia, Kinnick's and Olivia's show and tell next week.

Global Perspectives/Science:

We continued talking about keeping healthy this week, with a 

focus on Dental Health. The class knew that eating sugary foods is bad for

their teeth. Some shared their tooth brushing habits (after every meal

or twice a day), and it was generally agreed that water was the healthiest

drink and also the best thing in the absence of tooth brushing.

We then had the opportunity to perform a little experiment. We used eggs,

because the shell is a good representative of our tooth enamel.

Each eggs was placed in a cup of Coca Cola, a cup of juice, a cup of vinegar,

and a cup of water. After some discussion, each student made predictions

about what effect each liquid would have on the egg. A few said that the egg

in the soda would explode! After a couple of days we checked the eggs and

discovered that the soda really stained the egg and could not be cleaned

completely. The one in the juice got slightly discolored but could be cleaned

fairly well. The one in the vinegar had the most dramatic change. The egg

became rubbery and the shell was paper thin! The one in the water?

Perfect, as predicted.

Kindergarten News - Week of January 19th

  We have had 84 days of school!

Announcements/Reminders:

• Weekly News: Please see the Kindergarten Blog for a quick recap of our week. 

• ​SHOW and T​ELL on Monday (January 26th): Olivia and Iron​. Please bring one item from home to show to the class.
• FOLDERS: Please check these and remove all papers.
• Bloomz: Please check the Bloomz App for reminders and the latest photos - in the “January 2026” album.

•    Practice at home:

• Letters ​Q​, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z
• Tapping out three letter words
• Math “​Frogs and more Frogs”

A Peek At Our Week:

• 
  STAR STUDENT: Our Star Student is Francesca (aka Frankie) and her birthday is next week (January 28th)! Frankie absolutely adores her baby sister Laney - who was a big focus as Frankie talked about her pictures. Frankie's favorite color is purple and her favorite food is corn. She enjoys playing with Lanie, snuggling with mommy, and going to the store with daddy. Her favorite sport is soccer. And when she grows up Frankie want to be a mommy and a lawyer like her mommy.

• MATH: Comparing & Measuring Length: We had fun measuring all sorts of things in the classroom this week. First we measured two long lines that ran across our classroom. As we discussed different ways to measure them, we all decided that measuring one step at a time would work best. On another day, we split into groups and measured classroom items using popsicle sticks. Finally one team measured with sticks and the other with unifix cubes. Each time we used the language “greater or longer than” and “less or shorter than”. 

• 
  ELC Gardening: After weeks with no gardening, Kindergartners were happy to get back out there and see what was growing. Some of them picked some green beans to try and Ms. Christina gave them some dry ones which they later took the seeds out to plant. They also 'unwrapped' the gourd of the loofah plant to reveal a whole loofah sponge!
  

• ART: Penguins everywhere! Thinking of all those people who may be dealing with a winter storm this weekend, we thought the penguin would be a animal to showcase in Art this week! Adorable and resilient. Skills used included tracing, cutting, gluing and coloring (using paint sticks).

• 

Our Families: Fiona presented her family (via picture) to the class this week. She was very proud to talk about her sister who she clearly looks up to, but also said about every member of her family that they are very good to her.

Kindergarten News - Week of January 12th

 

We have had 80 days of school!

Announcements/Reminders:

• NO School: Monday, January 19th - Martin Luther King Jr. Day

• NEXT SHOW and Tell: Olivia and Iron on Monday, January 26th

• Bloomz: Please check our latest photos in the “January 2026” album.

•    Practice at home: 

• Letters I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P

• Tapping out three letter words

• Math “Adding Pennies”

• Word Wall review: this, like, to, too, she, he, said

Show and Tell:

It was so much fun to resume Show and Tell this week! First Nylah presented her Robokitty. As usual, Nylah spoke very seriously about this special toy, but then surprised everyone when the kitty started to do some tricks! It walked backwards, danced a little, rushed towards them and even tried to do a flip! Needless to say it made quite an impression. Next up was Leith with his T-Rex toy. It looked so real with his sharp teeth and claws! When someone asked "What does it do?" Leith said "Nothing", but then demonstrated that when you use your imagination, it can do just about anything you want it to. Great job to both. They got the next round of Show and Tell off to a great start!

MATH: Fives & Ones With Money:

On your next shopping trip
your Kindergartner will be able to help you count the change! At least all the pennies and Nickels! This week we practiced counting by 5’s and 1’s using Nickels and Pennies. As usual we practiced through fun math games. In “Money March” we used a spinner which had combinations of Pennies and Nickels to determine how many spaces we could move forward. At the end of the week we introduced the last Work Place for Unit 4 “Race You To 15¢”, where we practiced counting up to five by 1’s and then by 5’s to 15 using Penny and Nickel coins.

SEL (Social Emotional Learning):

This months lesson reviewed how to manage conflict. Ms. Bird reminded the class about the meaning of conflict and they discussed how to manage different situations where there is a conflict. Then she read the book "Up the Creek" by Nicholas Oldman, which followed a moose, a bear, and a beaver trying to solve conflicts. To conclude the lesson, everyone had the opportunity to act out a conflict and then how it could be solved. For example, two friends get to the swing at the same time and argue about who should get to use it. One friend then decides to use the monkey bars for now and the other friend follows up by saying they could switch in a bit, giving both a turn on the swings. Once again, great acting Kindergarten!

Social Studies/ART: 

With the upcoming MLK holiday, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was our main focus this week. The class as a whole engaged well in our discussion. Aside from the coloring sheet, we will be creating a "peace tree". Everyone should be thinking about things they promise to do to be peaceful citizens. The idea came from a Sesame Street video(Sesame Street: Martin Luther King Jr. Day). I encourage all family members to add a leaf to our tree when it's ready.

Our Families:

Kinnick brought his family picture to add to our family section of the classroom. He did a wonderful job of introducing his family members and talking about the exciting family vacation in Arizona!

Kindergarten News - Week of January 5th

                                        We have had 75 days of school!

Announcements/Reminders:

• Show and Tell on Monday, January 12th for Leith and Nylah. We're resuming Monday Show and Tell! Please bring one special item from home to show to the class. Thank you!

• NO SCHOOL on Monday, ​January 1​9th​ - Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

• Folders: Please check these and remove all papers.

• Bloomz: Please check the Bloomz App for reminders and all of our photos - ​new pictures can be found in the “​J​anuary 202​6” album.

A Peek at our Week:

Happy New Year!! I hope everyone had a good break. This will be a very quick update -

Our week was very short and sweet. We were very happy to welcome Fiona and Kinnick to our Kindergarten family! We spent the week getting to know our new friends and reviewing some routines and procedures for our classroom. At the end of the week we decided to try some colorful "Abstract Art" (also known as Scribble or Doodle Art in this classroom!). It was interesting to see the hesitation, but thankfully everyone was brave and gave it a try. The resulting masterpieces are all unique and very colorful!

Have a great weekend!