Kindergarten Mrs. Manning Greetings from Kindergarten! We would like to welcome our newest classmate, Seren, to our community of learners. She joined us just in time to learn about some fun holidays in Social Studies. We discovered together that Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow again this year on Groundhog’s Day meaning 6 more weeks of winter. While we know this is just a Pennsylvania Dutch superstition, not science, it sure was fun to watch. There might be something to it, because it has sure been an unusually chilly Texas winter. We learned a little bit about Chinese (or Lunar) New Year during this Year of the Dog. Dr. Morris shared some Chinese artifacts and interesting tidbits about the holiday during Morning Meeting, a valuable part of each school day. As Valentine’s Day approached, we enjoyed reading stories about the special day. Students designed and created their own mailboxes to hold Valentine cards and treats from their classmates during our Valentine party. We created hand-made hearts and cards and enjoyed the extra focus on friendship and love. We can’t forget about the 100th Day of School! What a day filled with fun,100 related activities, and what a CUTE bunch of senior citizens I got to teach that day. In science we have spent a lot of time exploring various animals of interest to the students. From geckos to polar bears and domestic cats to lions, our focus has been on the animals’ habitats. We now know that each animal gets its needs met through its environment. Animals of all kinds need food, water, air and shelter. If an animal is removed from its unique habitat, it may not survive. For example, an iguana would not be able to live in a frozen, snowy environment. We also explored the difference between pets and wild animals. In math we expanded our experience with number sentences. We have demonstrated story problems using a variety of manipulatives to express both addition and subtraction. The students particularly enjoyed using math story mats. Using a familiar tool for number concept, we performed addition using ten frames. The kids were THRILLED to experiment with addition by counting on and were proud to see that they could add up to a very large number using this strategy. We have become experts at writing our numbers from 1 to 100 as well. 7
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