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Kindergarten News October 16, 2009 Dear Families, Our
healthy walk was a great success. The
children were very proud to walk a mile.
Afterwards, they each received a water bottle and a juicy apple to munch
on. We were able to eat in the lounge inside the Whittemore Center and after we
refueled we walked over to the Field House and tested our balancing, jumping,
and arm strength on the rings. We are
very strong and healthy kindergarteners. Next
Wednesday, October 21st During center time we will join other children from CSDC in the
garden to “put our garden to bed”. Dot
Perkins, a local gardener, helped us to create our garden many years ago will
be visiting CSDC to help us with this task and teach us about sheet
composting. What is a superhero? Over the past few weeks we have been investigating
superheroes. The children have been working very hard on their drawings
where they created themselves as a superhero. They have identified
special powers that each superhero has such as super speed, “hi ya” power,
flying power, hiccupping away bad guys, singing, and strength. When we
asked the children what they thought a super hero was they came up with answers
like “someone who has special powers, someone who saves and protects people,
and someone who has a cape.” With blueprints drawn and ideas astir, we are
going to create superhero puppets from the drawings. The brainstorming of
special materials will begin next week, and we are excited to see how things
will turn out. What
do you know about chipmunks? We have been immersed in theory making and researching about
chipmunks. We have learned that they live in burrows and they are 10 inches
long. Since learning this information,
children have approached the blocks in a new way. They are recreating tunnels
and mazes with the Kapla blocks as the entrance and tunnel system for the
chipmunks. They are studying photographs
of chipmunks to see the color, striping, features and size. Children are also using inch blocks and
rulers to make sense of ten inches. While playing in the front yard, we had the
opportunity to see the chipmunks scurry across the deck with a mouthful of
acorns and into a hole at the corner of our deck and the building. It was very exciting to see this up close. Movement
class On Thursday, October 22nd we will travel to NH Hall for our first
movement class. Our Kindergarteners
serve as the class for UNH students who are taking a Kinesiology class and
learning to teach children. They will
have stations set up that have games focused on kicking, throwing, and catching
balls as well as balancing. The
students will observe motor development of five and six year olds. We will
travel to NH Hall at 11:15 am on the following Thursdays 10/22, 10/29,
11/5,11/12, 12/3 and 12/10. Halloween
Halloween is right around the corner. During this time of year
children become excited to dress up and go trick-or-treating. As part of our
Holiday policy we do not celebrate Halloween at the Center. We love to hear
what children are going to dress up as and enjoy seeing pictures of them in
costume, but we do not allow children to bring or wear their costume to school.
Also, as part of our food policy we do not allow children to eat any kind of
candy at school. Please save all candy for home. This is a fun time of year for
children, but we also want to respect the children and families who do not
celebrate Halloween. Here are some other reasons for our policy: * Commercialism of
costumes * Economic pressures it
places on families * Diversity of family
cultures and beliefs * Difficulty of
monitoring what costumes are appropriate for school In collaboration with children, we have decided that for our share
on 10/30 children could bring in a picture of them in their costume. Please keep costumes at home. Mark your calendars
Have a good weekend! Nikki
and Sara Kindergarten
News September 24,
2009 Dear Families, Thank you all for helping to make our annual Harvest Festival such a huge success. The weather was beautiful and the rain held off so we could all enjoy the afternoon outdoors with our entire CSDC community. We hope you all had as much fun as we did. On Monday, we had a wonderful walk to the apple orchard with all the children and teachers from CSDC. Kindergarteners were expert apple pickers filling our bin very quickly and then helping other classrooms fill the other bins. We are enjoying eating our apples this week and hope to bake some apple treats next week! Early Sprouts This week Amanda and Kelsey explored tomatoes with children on Tuesday, cutting, comparing and tasting them. On Thursday, Amanda made honey mustard dip with the children during center time, many children seemed to enjoy it. The recipes were placed in your home folders so you can try it out for yourself. The take home bags will go home every other week. On the off weeks we will place the recipe that we made at school in your home folder so you have a chance to make and taste each one. Enjoy! Abstract face
painting As we embarked our second week of face painting on Plexiglas, children continued to amaze us with their attention to detail. We were curious to see if working on face painting for another week would sustain children’s interest or if it would wane. They continued to use the face painting books we found at the library adding more colors and elements to their work. What will you create? Pattern blocks are a great tool for children to explore shape, symmetry, and perspective taking. The basket was placed on the rug this week and the children have been taken off running with this material! They have been creating individual designs as well as working collaboratively to create and explore. Mark your calendars
Celebratory News
Reminders
Have a good weekend! Nikki and Sara |
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