Food Day

Health and Fitness

This past Wednesday, October 24, was Food Day. This is "a nationwide celebration and a movement for healthy, affordable, and sustainable food.” In honor of this day, Nikki (our Middle School Health and Physical Education teacher) stopped by our classroom to do an activity with the Kindergarteners. Both kindergarten classes got together and Nikki did “a little vegetable quiz” with all the children. She brought a range of vegetables with her, from the usual such as carrots to the more complicated such as cauliflower to the more obscure such as rutabaga.

Nikki arranged groups of five so that each group can work together at guessing which vegetable she would display. Once the group came to a consensus, each child took a turn at writing their guess on a piece of paper. What a great activity to expose us all, the young AND the old, to new and different vegetables. Also, this activity helped the Kindergarteners develop and practice a range of early literacy skills such as active viewing and listening, making predictions, comparing and contrasting, expanding oral vocabulary, associating spoken and written words, listening to and identifying sounds in words, developing fine motor skills through handwriting, and much, much more. Thanks so much Nikki!

Shape Creation Walk

During Spanish class on Friday, we reviewed the Spanish names for flat geometrical shapes. To reinforce our learning, we played the “Swatting Game.” Please ask us how it is played and we would love to share it with you.

After our wonderful Spanish class, we decided to take our learning to a different level. In connection to our tree study, the teachers introduced us to Andy Goldsworthy’s creations. Andy Goldsworthy is a sculptor, photographer and environmentalist whose media consist of nothing more than items from nature.  He creates exquisite sculptures from twigs and stones, leaves and snow. After looking at some photographs of his work of art in the pages of his book, Andy Goldsworthy: A Collaboration with Nature, we went for a walk. Inspired by his work, we went searching for natural items to create a shape. Once we formed a geometrical shape, we had to name it ... in Spanish.What a fun way to develop a basic understanding of geometry as we describe, name and create two-dimensional shapes and explore their properties. Ask us which one we made.

Filling Buckets in Kindergarten

We recently read Have You Filled A Bucket Today? By Carol McCloud, 

and How Full Is Your Bucket?

 by Tom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer

By now you may have heard your kindergartner talking about how full or empty their bucket is.  The books state that we all carry invisible buckets around with us, and they hold our good feelings in them.  When someone is kind, our bucket fills with good feelings.  When someone is unkind our bucket empties.  When you are kind to others, you are a bucket filler.  When you are unkind to others, you are a bucket dipper.  The children have decided to use rainbow hearts and stars (like the ones in the book) to write about how their friends have filled their buckets.  

These books have helped the children understand empathy.  They have also helped us sculpt a culture of kindness in our classroom.  Whenever someone is sad, and we say, "empty bucket alert", a classmates offers love and kindness to the person with the empty bucket.  If only the adult world were so open and supportive! :-)

Science Class News - Enviroscape!

The Kindergarten students were treated to a guest presentation in Science class.  Dottie Baumgarten, from the Philadelphia Water Department, came with "Enviroscape".  Enviroscape is a hands-on teaching tool in which students can see first hand the effects of pollution in a watershed.  Using chocolate sprinkles and powdered drink mixes to represent different kinds of pollution  the students were able to see how easily pollution ends up in water sources when it rains.

¡Noticias de Alicia!

¡Saludos a todos; familia, amigas, y amigos! Greetings to all! In Spanish class, we have been practicing las formas (the shapes). We read Formas by Scholastic and identified and named basic geometrical shapes using the Spanish vocabulary. Can you guess what shape these words represent?

 

círculo

óvalo

triángulo

rectángulo

cuadrado

rombo o diamante

estrella

corazón

 

To reinforce our learning, we played the “What’s missing” game. I began by displaying three different shapes. Using a small blanket, I covered all three and pulled one out. The object of the game was for the Kindergarteners to figure out which shape was missing and say it in Spanish. These Kindergarteners were amazing! It wasn’t long before I needed to add more shapes into the game to make it more challenging. Go ahead. Try it at home and see for yourselves how smart they are.

 

¡Hasta pronto!

 

Paz,

Alicia

Outdoor Classroom

Now that our new nature playscape has been completed, we have the opportunity to explore this space from different perspectives. Not only is it an inviting area that was designed to engage our children in outdoor exploration and discovery, but it is also an area that can be utilized as an “outdoor classroom.”

This Wednesday we held our very first Meeting for Worship outside. We sat on the wooden benches to enjoy the sights and sounds all around us as we settled into silence. Some friends were inspired to share their thoughts and stood up to speak their mind. “Meeting in quiet is so peaceful” one friend shared as another said, “Moment of silence means we’re calm.”

And, on Thursday, our newly designed “stage area” was the perfect spot for us to sit and have our Morning Meeting. What a wonderful way to start our school day and connect with the beauty and wonder of nature.

Community Building w/ 3rd grade

One of the many ways in which we foster relationships with others on campus is through our partnerships between grades.  As Kindergarteners, we get the chance to partner with Felix’s and Karolye’s 3^rd grade class.

We paid them a visit this past Friday and gathered for Morning Meeting. Everyone got the chance to greet one another, “Kindergarten style.” We sat down in a circle and one by one we stated our name and then “passed the peace.” Afterwards, we sang Bob Marley’s song “Don’t worry about a thing...”

   

Following our greeting, the 3^rd graders were asked to share their thoughts about why we have moment of silence and what does it mean to them. One of the third graders replied, “It’s a time to get your bad feelings out and not worry about things” and another answered, “It’s a time to relax your body and share something.” And yet another responded, “You can share your mistakes too!”

Thank you 3rd graders! We are looking forward to many more times together.

Nick Bruel's visit

After having to postpone his original visit to AFS, we were fortunate to meet Nick Bruel on Friday. Nick Bruel is the bestselling author and illustrator of the beloved Bad Kitty series. Nick introduced himself to us and explained how he knew early on that he wanted to be a writer. He shared his story of how “he loved nothing more than to write stories and make drawings to go along with them”. Using the SMART Board, Nick showed us some of his most popular books and read them too. In an extremely funny and very entertaining way, he read Bad Kitty, Poor Puppy and A Bad Kitty Christmas. He had us all laughing hysterically.  

After the read alouds, Nick discussed how he comes up with a story. He said that once he gets an idea, he then asks many questions. To demonstrate this strategy, Nick showed us cards with different words and invited us to share our ideas on what the story may be about for each of them. For example, one of the words was “Splash.”

“What do you think a story with this title is about?”

“Swimming”

“Who is swimming?”

“A dog and a lion”

“Where is the dog and lion swimming?”

“In the ocean”

“How did they get to the ocean?

“They ran to the ocean”

“Is the water warm or cold?”

“Warm”

“How long have they been swimming in the ocean?”

“2 minutes”

And Nick and the Kindergarteners went on and on. Please ask us how the story ends. We would love to share it with you. It’s a great way for us to practice retelling and summarizing a story as we identify the beginning, the middle and the end of the story.