We have had plenty of inside fun on colder days...
And outside fun, too!
We are learning about how animals survive the winter. We did a sort to find out which animals hibernate, migrate, or stay here and adapt (that's most of us!)
Sarah Germain, from Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge came over a couple of afternoons to help the class learn about animals that stay here in the winter. She brought lots of furs for a fun show and tell, and then took the kids outside looking for animal tracks. Then they came back inside and made their own tracking stories using rubber track stamps!
Also in science we learned about germs, and how to stay healthy. Here the kids are "sneezing" on each other with a spray bottle, and then practiced using a "germ blocker" tissue to stop the spread of germs when they sneeze. We learned about our immune systems and white blood cells. The kids were amazed when we looked up what germs actually look like, and we had fun creating our own giant-sized germ creatures!
In writing we used the rhythm and rhyme based on the Llama, Llama, Red Pajama books to come up with some great winter poetry to put on our Poet Tree. The kids had an author's circle to proudly share their writing with each other!
We also did a VERY important study of letter writing, when we wrote our letters to Santa. You can't believe how great the handwriting was, and how hard everyone worked on this assignment!
A couple of weeks later we just happened to be having our Book Buddies Christmas party with the 5th graders, when Ms. Walsh from the front office came into the library with a special announcement! A package had arrived for the Tok Kindergarten from the NORTH POLE! Our Book Buddies helped the kinders read their reply letters from Santa's elves! It was SO exciting!
We also did a STEM project with our Book Buddies during our Christmas party, based on the book How to Catch an Elf. The kids had to work together to engineer an elf trap! (That would be the contraption that came home last Friday.) We told them that elves are VERY sneaky, so don't be surprised if they don't catch one... But they had LOTS of fun making their traps and sharing their ideas with the class!
We just finished a reading unit on the Gingerbread Man. We compared and contrasted several versions of the story, and looked for similarities in plot and characters. As a capstone for the unit, we made gingerbread cookies! We had to read the recipe to make sure the cookies turned out yummy... which they did. But they were also NAUGHTY! Those cookies jumped right out of the oven, and they left us clues which had us chasing them all over the school!
We finally caught up to them playing with our classroom pet, Eragon. We quickly closed the door so they couldn't get away, and then decorated our gingerbread people!
The kids made Santa Countdown pictures at the beginning of December to help practice number identification and count down the days until Christmas! One cotton ball for each day in December. Santa's beard should be getting pretty full by now!
Christmastime is so busy, but take the time to treasure this wondrous season with your Kindergartener. These kids give us all such a gift of excitement, not only for getting, but also for giving, and help us all believe in a little bit of magic. This week we will be as busy as Santa's elves working on gifts to give. Our Christmas party will be after lunch on Friday. Families are welcome to have lunch with us that day and/or attend the party afterwards from 12:40-1:30. Friday is an early release day, and school will get out at 1:45.
The Christmas concert is at 5:30 on Tuesday, Dec. 19th.
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