Spreading Christmas Joy and Kindness at School

This week our Kindergartners took time to spread love and joy to our school community by creating handmade candy cane huggers and delivering them to our faculty and staff. We told each one of them how much we appreciated them and what they meant to us. Here is a show from our special day of spreading kindness to others. 

https://vimeo.com/247567373

Music Around the World--Session 2--Week 2--Africa

We had so much fun in our Music Around the World Class on Friday! We began our afternoon by reviewing our songs from last week. Ask your child to sing "It's a Small World" and "Kookaburra" for you! We are really working hard to learn the words for these two songs. After a quick review, we jumped into learning all about our new country of the day--Africa!

We were introduced to a child from Africa and learned about a day in her life on our Time for Kids website. Then, we were in for a fabulous treat--a visit from a real musician, Mr. Mark! Mr. Mark taught us about some of Africa's favorite instruments--drums! He played several different types of drums for us. We loved them all! Then, we enjoyed some traditional African music from the African Children's Choir. We were so inspired by these musical experiences that we decided to create our own African instruments--drums, tambourines, and shakers. Finally, we learned an African chant and our own rousing rendition of "This Little Light of Mine" complete with African drums, tambourines, and shakers! Here is a show of our afternoon! Check it out and let us know what you think by leaving a comment below. We have also included some pictures from another great day! We hope that you enjoy them! Today was so much fun! We can't wait until next week! :) 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CkRINTq3lv8WzK99a56x_9XNGRziA4v6/view?usp=sharing

Sharing and Caring Service Project

This holiday season we are talking about how it is important to give back to our community and to show kindness and love to others. In order to show our students how they can help to make a positive difference in our world, we have them be a part of real life experiences through service projects. Our Kindergartners were so excited to participate in our Sharing and Caring service project on Friday! They traveled to Brookdale Senior Living Center in our neighborhood and spread Christmas joy and love through a Christmas musical. They also passed out Christmas cards that they had made and peppermint sticks. The residents really enjoyed their performance and have already invited us to return! We hope you enjoy our show. Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yPpCxWdd_TSEcIMTQfPc1DjB7B33wzkS/view?usp=sharing

Music Around the World--Week 1--Australia

Welcome to our Music Around the World Club! I am so very excited that your child is joining me in this journey as we travel around the world exploring different countries and their unique music. I have two loves in life—music and children— so I could not be more thrilled to share this experience together with your child. We are going to learn to play instruments and sing songs from different countries. Then, we will share our music with you all at a Music Around the World Celebration Night in May. It is sure to be a night that you will not want to miss! Thank you again for allowing me the privilege to work with your child. I can not wait to share this experience together!

We began our musical tour around the world today by talking about the universal language of music and how it can touch all hearts and help all people. Then, we enjoyed singing "It's a Small World" together before flying around the world to Australia. 

The land down under had a lot to offer us! We learned about everything from koala bears to kangaroos and spent a "day in the life" of a girl from Australia on the Time for Kids website. We were also introduced to two of Australia's favorite instruments--bilmas and digeridoos. After listening to one of Australia's traditional songs featuring these instruments, we made our very own bilmas and digeridoos. Boy were they cool too! Finally, we began learning the Australian song that we are going to perform, Kookaburra. It is a silly song that will make you giggle and laugh, while allowing you to soak up the unique sounds of the digeridoos and the bilmas. Here is a show of our first day together. Leave us a comment and let us know what you think about our first week in Music Around the World!

https://vimeo.com/245664822

Nutrition News

This week we studied about nutrition. First, we learned about how the foods that we like to eat come from farms. We created a circle map of plants that can be eaten, which are grown on a farm. Then, we learned about healthy food choices. Finally, we used magazines and cut out pictures of healthy foods that we would like to eat. We are sharing these projects with you here in this post. Leave us a comment and let us know what you think.

Needs and Wants

We have been talking about the differences between needs and wants. We have learned that a need is something that you can not live without like food, water, shelter, and clothes. A want is something that you would like to have but could live without like toys. games, and even books. This week we had the opportunity to explore ways that we could meet our needs. We held a class jewelry store where we learned about self-producing, buying, and trading. We made bracelets (self producing), traded a few with our friends, and then used our hard worker dollars that we earned while working to buy new bracelets at our classroom store. Here are some pictures from our fun week. Leave us a comment and let us know what you think! Thanks!