The kids came back to school after the break to find that severe inflation had hit our classroom economy! Now, instead of prize cards costing 5, 10 or 15 cents, they cost 25, 50, or 75 cents! BUT, on the flip side, now the kinders earn nickels instead of pennies: a nickel for each day they bring back their folder, a nickel for bringing back their reading blue slip, and a nickel for each Popcorn Word they pass off! Along with a mini lesson on inflation, we also worked on identifying and counting dimes and quarters, in addition to pennies and nickels that we have been using all year! Here the kids are playing a game to see if they can identify coins with their eyes closed... noticing the rough edges and the size just using their sense of touch.
We made number sentences with coin stamps, discovering different ways to make equivalent amounts of money!
Thank you to everyone who helped their kindergartener collect spare change to donate to the food bank drive. We will continue to collect coins until next Thursday, when we will sort and count our coins, and then take them to the bank to buy a "Helping Hand" from kindergarten to donate to the Food Bank! This is a great way for our class to learn about coins and help our neighbors in Tok at the same time!!!
We began a new unit on hockey in P.E. this week! The kids are working on puck handling skills, shooting, and passing, and soon we'll have some scrimmage games!
In music Ms. Fastenau brought out lots of instruments for the kids to hear, touch, and try to play. They were SO excited! They got to play 3 kinds of drums, the xylophone, tuba, trumpet, flute, violin, ukelele, guitar, and cello. They also were able to compare sizes and sounds, learn about low and high sounds, and discover how the size of the instrument affects the tone of the notes.
In science we learned that one way arctic animals like whales keep warm is to have a thick layer of blubber to insulate them against the cold! So if you're like me and gained some blubber over the holidays, just look at it this way... you'll be a little bit warmer now! We made beluga whale pictures, and did an experiment by putting both hands in ice water, but one was in a bag insulated with blubber (shortening) to see how much the blubber helped us stay warm!
Continuing our study of arctic animals, we watched some cool videos about polar bears and learned some interesting facts about them. We read The Polar Polka by Fairbanks author Cherie B. Stihler, and then we tried being polar bears ourselves! We played a polar bear version of musical chairs: The kids hopped from iceberg to iceberg, but each time the music stopped, some icebergs (blue paper squares) melted away. Then they had to try and catch fish while staying only on the icebergs. The kids found that it was VERY challenging to reach the fish in the ocean when most of the "icebergs" had melted! But they had a great time hopping from iceberg to iceberg, and it was lots of fun. We talked about what we could do to help slow down global warming and help the polar bears, like walking, riding our bikes or using public transportation, turning of lights, and finding other ways to conserve energy.
We jumped right back into the swing of things this week, and had a great start to the New Year! The kids were happy to be back at school, having fun and being with their friends. It always amazes me to look back and see how far they've come in just a few short months since the beginning of the year. One of my favorite questions to ask them is, "Could you do that when you first started Kindergarten? Look how much your brain is growing!!!"
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