It was another busy day exploring God's world today. In addition to investigating the spider, we looked at a caterpillar that Zoey brought in and then she found another one during our noon recess. We tried to investigate what kind of caterpillars they are. We think they might turn into moths rather than butterflies. We will see. It was fun to watch a video of a similar type of caterpillar spinning a cocoon. Some of the students also found some mushrooms. We thought of some fiction stories for them about ants using them as umbrellas in the rain. The inside of them are particularly intriguing. I did have the girls that found them wash their hands well, since we do not know what kind they are. We also looked at dandelions today and found the different stages of growth including the seed stage. It is always fun to blow the seeds off of a dandelion plant, unless of course you are the homeowner trying to keep these weeds out of your lawn:)
We put some creatures to the insect test in a little emergent reader book today. The creatures had to pass the test of 3 body parts, 6 legs, and 2 antennae. The book will come home tomorrow hopefully. We had a great day! It was especially fun to sing our song about insects again. You may enjoy seeing it on the videos below. Tomorrow we look forward to investigating a spider that was caught. We will check it for two body parts and eight legs. We had another very busy day in kindergarten. I did not get to take as many photos. It was interesting to learn more about Joseph through the use of some learning videos. How amazing it is that God turned a terrible situation into good. We watched how Joseph forgave his brothers after they showed such hatred towards him. We can only forgive one another because Jesus forgives us. Then God used Joseph to take care of His family. What an ironic twist of events! Who could have imagined what God was doing, but He knew. He does the same for us. It is not short of amazing that God continues to love us and promises to take us to heaven in spite of how our actions show less than love towards Him. We pray that God will help us to trust in Him that He will work all things out for our good. He has the best in mind for us and the best in store for us...HEAVEN! It doesn't get any better than that! Praise God!
We continued the morning with a new rotation of literacy and thematic centers. Throughout the day we have been working on trying our best and giving God our best. We are Americans and in the word "American" we see I can at the end of the word if you pay attention to it. That is what used to define Americans. Americans used to have a strong work ethic. I am trying to instill that in the kindergarten students. God has blessed this class so very much! Everyone has hands, eyes, feet, etc. that work. Let's use these to serve God and do our best. I am trying to get the kids to look for quality in their work and to not just do things sloppily to just get it done. Please help by looking over your child's papers. If you know your child can do better, go over it with him/her. Practice at home. Help your child to realize that he/she can do better. This will make such a difference. Today we learned about how God used Joseph. He was hurt by his brothers and sold, but yet God worked things out for good in order to save his family. We can be sure that God has everything in life under His control. We often cannot see or understand the reasons for everything, but we can rest assured that God is in charge and that His saving grace prevails.
We began a new set of literacy centers today. Students are learning to write stories and to choose original characters to fit a setting. Often students want to put themselves in the story as the characters. However, it is good for them to learn to write about a fictional character. They are also sorting cards by character or setting. Another center helps them to play a sight word spinner game to see which sight word gets to the top first. At the Phonemic Awareness center students are using magnifying glasses to find pictures that begin with the same matching sound. At the alphabet table students are using dabbers to create a path of letters that match letters they roll on a letter cube. We continue with some insect thematic centers. I will describe those more in depth in the next couple of days. They are writing about insects, sorting insects and spiders by the number of legs, drawing insects and spiders in a jar, and creating a special bug book to practice the sight words in, is, and it. We had a lot of fun learning about insect parts through some videos and some movement songs. It was also fun to learning about some unique spiders today through a special video. We learned that some spiders jump to catch their prey. Others create a net that they cast to catch their prey. Another type of spider creates a trap in the ground with a trap door. Finally the most unique spider we learned about catches fish. What a unique world of spiders that God created! It was a very exciting and busy day in kindergarten! The students had fun making applesauce from the apples that they picked at the orchard on Monday. They had fun estimating how many seeds were in the apple that they picked to put in the applesauce. After they used a special machine that peels, slices, and cores, they had fun seeing who had the longest apple peel that did not break. Zoey won the contest and Henry's peel was just about a foot shorter! Each student then finished chopping their slices and added them to the bowl. It was fun for them to add water, sugar, and cinnamon. While they waited, they worked on little apple books. When each child got their apple core, they counted the seeds and compared the actual number to their estimate. Most guessed more seeds than the apple actually had. It was fun to glue the seeds into their books. After the apples were cooked and soft, the kids had fun turning the handle on the food mill to finish the process of making applesauce. It was a great treat to eat the homemade applesauce. The students also made thank you letters for Anderson Orchard. We thank God for them and will keep them in our prayers. We worked more on comparison in Math as they identified which sets had fewer. The students also compared their apple seed estimates to the actual number counted and identified which number was less. Later they had fun playing some Math games to practice more and less. We started new literacy centers this week. Kids are having fun using bingo dabbers as they spin for a letter and dab a corresponding picture that begins with that sound. At another center they are finding words to write in a mini picture dictionary. At the Reading center students are learning to sequence steps to make an owl book. Then they are learning to put on their owl eyes as they use picture clues and initial sound clues to determine the last word in predictable sentences. They are also learning to match beginning sounds as they label pictures and think which word would match each picture. At the phonemic awareness center students are sorting pictures to determine which words have one or two syllables as they clap the word parts. In gym class the students had fun learning various animal walks. Our exercise leader picked a movement card and called out the walk and students made their way around the gym with various movements such as "the elephant walk", "bunny jump", "frog jump", "crab walk", "gorilla walk", "seal walk", etc. In Math students learned to make sets of 6-10 pumpkins. As they arranged them on the page, they noticed that to go from one number to the next you add one more. It looks like a staircase. This visual is very important for students to learn about the concept of "one more". Students also had to use problem solving skills as they had to figure what to do for numbers 9 and 10 as the pumpkin strips only had 8 each. Some drew the extra pumpkins. Others finally determined that they could use the extra pumpkins left over from numbers 6 and 7.
The kindergarten students enjoyed the apple orchard and learned so much. We even learned about pumpkins and nuts. Thanks to everyone that drove and helped to watch the students. I really appreciated it! During the afternoon the students learned more about the growth of apples through some books and special learning videos. We even had fun singing some special apple songs. In addition, we learned about ways to show kindness to our families and friends and how to be polite. We made a leaf pictograph to help us visualize how each number in sequence is one more than the previous number. Later we reviewed our Science unit on day and night.
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