We are deep into our project and have begun choosing our topics for our "Happy and Healthy Me!" blog. We have a variety of topics ranging from yoga, junk food, and Zumba! This time of year is especially exciting because of the great growth our Kinders have made. They are confident and have become stronger readers and writers. In fact, during one of our small group discussions, I shared that we had too many Yoga entries. Immediately, Samantha came up with a solution. She said, "Maybe I can write about animal poses." Then, Ahastari shared, "And I can write about candle pose!" Then amongst themselves, unprompted by me, they began a discussion about what specific topic in Yoga each person would write about and made sure no one's topic overlapped. I just sat back and listened in complete awe. It was so beautiful watching our Kinders working together, listening to each other's ideas, and coming up with their own solutions! This week we also learned about germs and the specific germs that can make us sick. We read the book, Germs Make Me Sick by Melvin Berger and learned about bacteria and viruses. We also learned that our bodies our designed to fight many germs and that one of the best ways to keep harmful germs away is to wash our hands thoroughly! With the help of "Glo Germ" (www.glogerm.com), our invisible germs became visible under a black light! We then washed our hands and inspected them again to make sure we washed away all of our "germs." Some friends did a great job washing their hands--there was no evidence of any Glo Germ left. Others learned that they need to do a better job of washing their hands! Washing hands with warm water THOROUGHLY is another way to stay happy and healthy! A special thank you to Ms. Michelle and Andrew for generously donating a bottle of Glo Germ and a black light so that we could engage in this experiment. We have begun our subtraction unit and the children have caught on very quickly. We have worked on creating our own subtraction stories with counters and have practiced writing subtraction number sentences. As many of you may already know, this trimester we have been working with Ms. Latanya in Performing Arts. We have been exploring a variety of music and dances from around the world. Here is a clip of our class learning how to dance Bollywood from India: The children also learned how to dance "Tinikling," a traditional dance of the Philippines. Check out a clip of their "Tinikling" adventures here: The children are experiencing and learning so much! I look forward to another fun-filled week with them. Next week we will begin our blogging adventure with the help of our fifth grade buddies!
To another fabulous week, Mrs. Rosemarie
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We had another wonderful week of learning at HTe! For our "Happy and Healthy Me" project, we focused on nutrition and mindful eating. We discussed how to make healthy and balanced choices and learned about the five major food groups: grains, dairy, meats/beans/nuts, fruits, and vegetables. During this study, we investigated the food we had in our lunch boxes. We found that we had many healthy choices such as whole wheat bread and fresh fruit and vegetables. We also found that we had some not so healthy choices like cookies or other forms of dessert. After our sort and share, we had some worried Kinders--they were afraid they were eating "unhealthy food." I shared that they need not worry, as it is perfectly fine to have oreos AS LONG as they stay active and eat nutritiously MOST of the time! We also had a discussion about reading food labels. We learned that if there are too many ingredients that are too hard to read, then it probably is not the best choice. One of our Kinders asked, "If there are foods that are not healthy for us, then why do people make them?" I turned the question back to our Kinders and asked, "Why do YOU think people continue to make food that does not help our bodies stay healthy?" We heard some interesting answers:
As part of our project, we are exploring fun ways to stay active. This week, we did Kinder ZUMBA led by our very own Ms. Mariely (who also happens to teach Zumba at L.A. Fitness). The children LOVED it! In the middle of the routine, one of our Kinders shouted, "I love this! I am getting healthy!" You can check out a clip here: Lastly, as the year comes to an end, our students are becoming even better readers. This makes our Center Rotations time even more important! If you are free from 12:45-2:00 Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, we would LOVE to have you support one of our learning centers! Please email me if you are available to volunteer. Thank you so much! To Another Great Week, Mrs. Rosemarie We had another incredible week of learning in Kindergarten! For our "Happy and Healthy Me" project, we focused on feelings, emotions, and self-esteem. We discussed that in order to be our best possible selves, we need to take care of our bodies AND our hearts and minds. We talked about different feelings/emotions, shared out experiences connected to those emotions, and brainstormed a list of ways to handle strong feelings. We shared that it was okay to have many different feelings and what really mattered was what we did with them. To handle strong feelings, the children came up with the following list:
We also watched a video about anger on Brainpopjr, an educational website that provides a variety of developmentally appropriate videos on a multitude of topics. The video really resonated with our Kinders and served as a great springboard for our discussion on how to handle strong emotions. We also discussed the power of positive thinking and how good thoughts about ourselves gives us the energy to do wonderful things in our life. We will continue with our work on self-esteem next week. For Math, we talked about the concept of "greater than" and "less than" amounts by counting our number of heartbeats per minute while sitting and comparing it with our number of heartbeats per minute after exercise. First, we looked for our pulse and counted the number of heartbeats in one minute. Then, we engaged in three minutes of cardio intensive exercises: running in place, jumping rope, jumping jacks. We made sure that our bodies were moving NON-STOP for three minutes! After wiping off our sweat, we discovered that our "sitting heartbeat" is slower or less than our "heartbeat after exercise." We then engaged in some deep breathing and stretches. We discovered that when we slowed down and took deep breaths, our heartbeat slowed down too! Lastly, we had an amazing visit to Suzie's Farm on Friday. The children learned why the vegetables are considered "organic" and what jobs are needed to run a vegetable farm. And the most exciting part was that they got to harvest many different types of vegetables all along the way! We harvested and tasted different types of kale and chard. We pulled up "rainbow" carrots which come in many different colors such as red, orange, and yellow. We also harvested artichokes, fennel, and snap peas! It was so wonderful to watch our Kinders discover where our food comes from. In this age of technology with more and more opportunities for our children to be "plugged in," it was great to get our kids outside in the dirt surrounded by delicious, local veggies. Our field work at Suzie's Farm will serve as our launch into our unit on nutrition. This was definitely one of my favorite field work experiences to date and according to all the squeals heard when carrots were pulled up, I am sure it was a favorite for many of our Kinders as well! To a happy and healthy lifestyle! With Love, Mrs. Rosemarie Our final project, "Happy and Healthy Me" is in full swing! This week we investigated our body systems and the major organs associated with them. We learned that our bodies are made of parts that we can easily see such as our head, legs, arms, and chest. We also learned that our bodies are made up of parts that we can't see such as our brain, heart, lungs, stomach, kidneys, bones, and muscles. We created inside/outside diagrams of ourselves, played a vocabulary matching game, and sang a "Body Systems" song to anchor these new concepts.
We learned that in order to keep all of our body systems in tip top shape, we need to be active and exercise. We wrote about our favorite forms of exercise which included:
We ended our week with a fabulous Yoga Assembly with Children's Yoga Instructor, Ms. Sunje. Ms. Sunje taught us a variety of new animal poses (mouse, frog, snake) and also taught us the energizing "Sun Salutation." The children did a wonderful job! They were focused and took this yoga practice very seriously. Ms. Sunje even commented that our Kinders demonstrated a maturity level beyond the norm--they knew their "yoga." When we returned to class, the children were noticeably calmer and more focused. We ended up having a very productive afternoon! In Math, we continued to practice our addition strategies with a new game, "Dice Addition." In this game, students roll a die and use the number rolled to create number sentences. The Kinders were also introduced to the "Count On" strategy. With the "Count On" strategy, children take the greater number in the number sentence, "hold" the number in "their head," and count on the remaining number. For example, in the number sentence, 5+4=___, "hold" the number 5 in your head, and count on 4 more: 5--->6, 7, 8, 9. The answer is 9. We will continue to work on our addition and problem solving strategies. We had a lovely Cooking Center led by Ms. Norma. Our Kinders learned that they can cook with milk substitutes made from soy beans or almonds. They studied pictures of soy beans and almond trees and sampled both types of milk. Finally, they created strawberry shakes with soy or almond milk. Thank you to those of you who continue to donate the ingredients that make this experience possible. Lastly, we are still looking for volunteers to assist students during our Centers Rotation. If you are available Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and/or Friday from 12:45-2:00, we would love to have you join us! To Another Fabulous Week of Learning, Mrs. Rosemarie |
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September 2017
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