News for week of 12-10-07

What a great week we’ve had! The children had so much fun with the rest of our Hanukkah activities. They LOVED the surprise pizza lunch on Wednesday! The Hanukkah party was great, they got to move between the two classrooms and enjoy being grouped with students from Miss Liz’s class. The activities were lots of fun and creative and it was like having our own little “Hanukkah Carnival” right here in Kindergarten. I hope you enjoyed the mosaic tiles, they all worked so hard on them for two weeks and it was such a satisfying feeling to see the finished product. I think most of them were surprised they would turn-out so well. When they grouted the tiles, everyone got a bit concerned about how it would work out. I think they were all so beautiful, I had a hard time parting with them. I told them, we will definitely have to do mosaics again this year!
Back to work…
Centers:
The kids worked hard at centers this week. When they bring home their “pile of papers” ask them to tell you about them. I think it gives them pride in their work to show off for you.
Writing: They used dreidel shapes to create words with word families. We’re really focusing on this now, as it will empower them in their reading when they can recognize familiar words.
ABC: They worked on ending sounds. This was a new concept and a little tough for some. It’s a transition to go from knowing beginning sounds to adding an ending sound. It was unfamiliar territory, but I think with more practice the kids will catch-on quickly.
Pocket Chart: This was a cute poem about a pig “Mistress Pratt”. It was great practice for word families also and a cute poem too!
Science: In honor of our “Vv” week, we did an experiment using vibration. It was great to see the kids really thinking as they tapped the different glasses and noted their findings. We also talked about vibration having two qualities: sound and movement.
Overhead: The kids worked on dreidel math. It was simple adding game, played with a partner.
Math: They had to build a menorah and follow the directions for building it using their number recognition.

In Writing this week, we worked on writing in our journals, completing a sentence:
“I like to…” They also started using a title for their writing. I explain this as: “one or two words that explain what you are going to write about”. We also worked on writing the steps to a process, I demonstrated with “making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich”, they had to write the steps to making a volcano.

In Science we made our own volcano! We measured and mixed the batter and molded the volcano deciding what colors to use to make it look more authentic.

We completed the assessment for Theme 3, which was included in their Friday bags. This test was assessing the specific skills we covered in our last unit. I tell the kids I only use it to show me what I need to teach them more.
Dear parents
This week we added to our vocabulary the words “aba” (dad), “ema” (mom), “veh” (and).
The children can now make short sentences like: ani eme (I am mom)
Aba veh ema (mom and dad),yeld veh yaldah(boy and a girl).
We use pictures and words printed on cards to make sentences, I show the cards with the pictures and the children produce a sentence.
The children love to do it and feel so proud of themselves.
Our favorite word to say to each other is the praise word yofi (great).
The letter of the week is “kaf”.
Vocabulary for “kaf”:
Kelev – dog
Kipah – yamakah
Kovah – hat

Have a great week
Leah