The students got a new perspective this week as we learned about the life of a pilgrim. We read a little each day of The Pilgrims' First Thanksgiving by Ann McGovern. I wrote the key vocabulary words on the board as we learned them. Your child should be able to tell you who the pilgrims were, what the Mayflower was and what life was like on the voyage to America. They may even remember the name of the town, Plymouth, and the native American, Squanto, who taught the pilgrims how to live on the land. We practiced retelling what we'd heard of the story each day and we made 'text-to-self' connections in our journals. Aeden had some wonderful, detailed entries this week. 
To help with our journal writings, we made several anchor charts this week to show what our best work looks like. The goal is for everyone to move up a "star level". Some struggle with choosing a topic to write about/their answer to the prompt, so those students are working toward a 2 star level. Other students are ready to start telling more with their words and are working on 3 stars. By the end of kindergarten, everyone should be up to the 3 star level. But I expect to have some even writing on the 4 star level!
Some of our centers had a Thanksgiving theme this week. In the math center, the students played Turkey Trouble (yet another variation of Bingo). The students rolled two dice, added them up and covered the amount (with a turkey feather!) shown in the ten frames.
The Number Work center was also a new activity this week. The students pulled cards with teen numbers on them and had to recreate the amounts using the base ten magnets. 
This was a big week as we finished the ALPHABET! (Start working on those letter-themed costumes now). Below is a link of the PM class doing ALL of the letter chants. You may notice the 'T' chant is different from the cd. Instead of "teacher, teacher, teacher - Mrs. Lukacsko is our teacher," the students say "turkey, turkey, turkey - Mrs. Lukacsko's not a turkey." Every month, one of the letter chants will change to go along with that month's celebrations. Last month, the 'g' chant changed to 'ghost.' Next month, the S chant will be about, who else? Santa!
We wrapped up our unit on the First Thanksgiving with a special guest speaker. My good friend (and former student's parent), Amy Neel came to speak to our classes about her Native American heritage. She grew up in Pawhuska, OK on an Osage Indian Reservation. She taught the students some words in the native Osage language (Howa is pronounced hoo-way and means hello) and showed the students examples of the traditional clothing they wear when participating in ceremonial dances. She brought her fan, some mocassins, a picture of the arbor they dance under, and a friendship blanket.
Then she taught the class a few of their dances and we gave 'em a whirl! (The 5 videos below will only show up on a PC or desktop computer- sorry mobile viewers)!
Your child has a new poem to recite this coming week. It's attached to your newsletter. We learned it from a music video on youtube by Harry Kindergarten. It's a bit trickier than the last one (and shame on me for not putting picture clues on the poem print-out - I borrowed it from the somewhere in cyber space). So please click the link below if your child needs a refresher and draw some picture clues within the poem if your child needs them. Write the names of everyone your child recites it to for the next week and return the sheet on Friday. We will visit another big kid class and recite it to them.
Before I go, here are some pictures from the wonderful Veteran's Day program we had on Monday. The morning class did a great job listening and participating. Many thanks to our veterans!
No comments:
Post a Comment