CLICK HERE FOR UPCOMING WCDS EVENTS
- October 6th – No School (Fall Long Weekend)
- October 10th – Special Persons Day (More Details coming soon!)
- October 18th – Vantoberfest!! (More Details coming soon!)
Hello JK families,
Did you know there are 100 languages of children? 100 ways to play and explore their world! This week we dabbled and tinkered in a variety of ways to play. There’s no better way to get to know this new group of children than by presenting them with a range of ways to interact with their world and see what they do! First up was an invitation to make marks on giant paper that covered the floor. Markers, crayons, changing leaves and harvested flowers filled the paper. Some children we inspired by the seasonal offerings and worked to depict what the saw with their marks, while others chose to draw portraits of family and rainbows. Some even drew right on the flower petals!! The best part was watching the children walk around after and admire the work of their friends. Next we explored light and sound! During the light provocation, the children were presented with a white sheet, an old school projector, disco lights, and flashlights. The kiddos figured out that if you place a stencil behind the sheet it created a shadow. They were delighted at the movement of the disco ball and even attempted to put on a “show” for each other. We’ve noticed that the children love to bang on cans and pans to make music so we decided to invite them to explore sound. They were presented with a variety of glass jars filled with water and utensils to tap the jars to make sound! They discovered that the jar size and level of water determined the pitch of the note!
As the children’s love of rocks continues, we decided to let them excavate their own gem that they would get to keep! It was no small feat to dig, carve, and scrape away the chalk to get to their treasure. What a testament to hard work and determination of the children. They were so proud when they finally unearthed their reward! We also gave the children a chance to vote for a rock book of their choice. The options were A Rock Sat Still by Brendan Wenzel or Scribble Stones by Diane Alber. The winner was Scribble Stones! The class loved hearing how the a simple gray rock found his colorful purpose!
In language and literacy we continued talking about letter Nn and introduced our next letter, Mm. The children practiced the sound and felt how it made their lips tickle when they vibrated. They enjoyed practicing the formation of the upper and lower case letter.
In math the children played a fun listening number game! Inspired by their interest in making music, we asked the kiddos to listen and count the number of beats we made on a tambourine. Once they identified the taps they had to find the corresponding number card from 1 to 6.
In character development our characters Munchy and Jumpy were ready to talk about coping strategies but we noticed a need to talk about a very important word instead, respect. So we pivoted and with the help of Sesame Street, we shared some ways the children can show respect to their family members, teachers, and peers. They found out that respect means, “treating people the way you want to be treated.” In our small world it often involves safety and following directions too! We will continue to talk about this super important word and hope that you will at home as well!
Have a wonderful weekend,
Miss Liz and Miss Gina
Mark Making
Light Exploration
Sound Exploration
Digging up our gems!
Life in Junior Kindergarten
