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- Monday, January 19th– Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service Buttons for Flood Relief: In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Early Childhood grades have teamed up for our service project. Our classes will be doing our annual button sale with this year’s proceeds benefiting flood relief through the United Methodist Church. The handcrafted buttons made by the children will go on sale beginning Monday, January 19th before school in the gym. The buttons will be 1 for $2.00 or 2 for $3.00.
- In addition we are also asking for donations of non-perishable items to help fill their pantry. Think canned goods, rice, pasta, laundry soap, etc. You can send these items to school with your child next week. Thank you for your support in our effort to help the children understand the importance of helping others.
Hello JK families,
Last week’s story “Those Mean, Nasty, Dirty, Downright Disgusting… but Invisible Germs” by Judith Anne Rice, made a lasting impression on the children. When they returned to school on Monday, some had even encountered a germ over the weekend and were happy to be feeling better! We decided to re-introduce the germ characters from the story to the children and let them draw their own version of a germ! Some chose their favorite character (earache, sore throat, headache, fever, or tummy bug) while others created a whole new germ! We showed them how to draw their germs using simple lines and curves projected on the wall by an old school overhead projector. They used flare pens to draw the outlines, and colorful sharpies to bring their germs to life on the paper. Here is what they had to say about their germs:
“Look how many eyes, he runs away from people but he’ll make you throw up.”- Avery
“I’m making a new one, just a normal germ that doesn’t do anything to you. He had eyeballs and ears and 100 bellybuttons.”-Lincoln
“It’s this one! It will make you throw up” -Gemma
“It’s the germ, the sun.”-Ripley
“Ear ache!”-Lennon
“Guess what this gives you…a hot forehead! It’s the kind that will make you fart!”-Leland
“My germ does a little bit of tricks. It makes your belly sick after you eat too much alphabet soup and you throw up and then you have a sore throat! -Archie
“It’s a black germ and it’s angry.”-Kemper
“The throat one, and with a mouth- he’s mad, because he’s a germ.”-Sebastian
“This one gives you a headache.”-Abigail
“This one is an ear headache… an earache!” -Levi
“When I was at my old house the fever made me hot. I couldn’t come to school because my belly hurt, it was from this germ. Toast made me feel better.” ”-Destry
“Remember when I was at school and I threw up at school, on my way to see daddy.”-Nala
“One time I threw up on my sister’s laptop.”-Clara
“My germ gives me a tummy ache sometimes!” -Ben
“His throat is sick and needs a doctor. This one needs a permanent doctor.”-Donato
“My germ had to throw up in the toilet. This is gonna make him feel better.” – Isla
“This germ hurts my nose all the time.” -Zuri
“It gives you loud sounds and makes you sick.”-Maverick
“I made a fever.”-Brody
“My germ is a bellache one.” -Audrey
“Sore throats hurt.”-Atticus
All the excitement around germs led us to begin exploring how they come out of our bodies! Sneezing and coughing are major culprits of spreading germs to our friends. We read Sick Simon by Dan Krall where it tells the tale of a boy that goes to school even after showing signs of being sick! Simon’s snotty nose was quite a site! The children giggled at the snot and boogers in his nose. They were then invited to throw “boogers” (pom poms) into the nostrils of a giant nose, and blow them into a bucket using a paper towel roll. These silly and snotty games were a wonderful way for the children to build their gross motor skills.
Next, the children learned how the body sneezes and just how fast (100 mph) and far (up to 35 feet) a single sneeze can travel! The teachers unrolled streamers 35 feet long and stretched them across the classroom to demonstrate just how far a snotty sneeze can go! They children also watched a video of a slow motion sneeze. In the video they illuminated the area the sneeze reached with glow in the dark paint and a black light. We then let the children fling glow in the dark paint as far as they possibly could into a giant sneeze box!! We charted everyone’s sneeze distance and then made it glow in the dark! The kiddos loved pretending to sneeze as they splattered paint. Our friend Gemma reached the highest point by flinging paint on the cardboard ceiling!
We’ve enjoyed coming up with clever ways to depict germs in our environment, but the best way for the children to really understand their invisibility is to swab real germs and watch them grow on petri dishes. We teamed up the children and let them decide where they wanted to swab for germs around the school.
Nala & Zuri- wall & cushion
Brody, Ben, & Maverick- gym bathroom toilet
Isla & Clara- gym bathroom sink
Ripley & Audrey- floor
Sebastian & Abigail- tables
Lincoln & Avery- classroom toilet
Levi & Atticus- classroom sink
Lennon, Gemma, & Archie- toys
With one extra petri dish, we decided to swab the fingertip of all 22 kids and see just how germy those little digits are! We placed the petri dishes in the dark and look forward to seeing their growth next week.
In Language and Literacy this week, the children practiced the letter formation and sound for Kk. We also did a letter review and played “smash the sound.” The teachers said a letter sound and the children had to find the letter that makes that sound and smash it’s play-doh ball! The class did a wonderful job recognizing letter sounds.
In Math the children practiced the formation of numbers 1-22 (one number for each kiddo) in a multisensory way. They pinched pipettes to fill them with liquid watercolors and squeezed the fluid on cotton balls. They also continued to build their understanding of a number line using road pieces and a car parking lot! Each child was given a car to send down the shoot and down the road to the parking lot where they parked the car in the corresponding space.
In Character Development the children re-visited the concept of respect. We divided the idea up into three important categories: How can we be respectful to people, places, and things.
People: manners-say please and thank you, don’t interrupt people, calm bodies-keep a nice distance
Places: be quiet indoors, don’t run, draw on paper not furniture
Things: respect books, clean up toys, don’t take-be kind and share
Next week the Junior Kindergarten class, along with the other early childhood classes, will be selling their handcrafted buttons in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day! They painted and drew beautiful designs on small paper circles. Once placed inside a really cool button maker, those small paper circles were transformed into beautiful pins! Here’s a look at the button production:
