The youngest group of students have been investigating DINOSAURS! We took a long time to read Dinosaur Valley and Maia: A Dinosaur Grows Up. Dinosaur Valley follows a family of Orodromeus dinosaurs. Maia is a story of a Maiasaura, a duck-billed dinosaur, as she grows up, travels, and becomes a mother herself. In both stories Read More >>
Fractions and Geometry: Parts and Shapes
The youngest students have been taking part in a math class learning about fractions and geometry. They loved the hands-on activities! In fractions, they began by identifying and creating equal parts of objects. They used playdoh and cookie cutters to cut shapes in half. By playing games such as Pizza Fractions and Fraction Pies they Read More >>
Emergent Writers!
As children develop an awareness of letters, and the sounds they make, they also have to learn how to form letters smoothly and automatically, writing from the top of the letter to the bottom. This year our youngest children have enjoyed a variety of classes where they are given the chance to practice copying words Read More >>
India
Students in Kindergarten and First Grade have been learning about the culture of India through the use of the book Count Your Way Through India by Jim Haskins. We started at one and learned about how to say this number in Hindi and about the amazing banyan tree. Students then drew their own banyan tree Read More >>
Printing
The youngest group of students are participating in a printing class. They are working their way through the alphabet learning how to form all the capital letters correctly. They have worked on the letters A-M so far and will continue to practice the rest of the capital letters before moving onto lower case letters.
Solar System
The youngest children started learning about the Solar System in January. Children developed questions they wanted answered about each plant. As we listened to The Magic School Bus, Lost in the Solar System, and books by Seymour Simon children drew and wrote notes about each planet. We started with the gas giants and then moved Read More >>
Listening Center
Once a week the youngest students listen to a book on tape. As they listen they copy the title of the book and start drawing a favorite scene in the book. More recently children have been asked to write one or two sentences. Some of the titles they have listened to this year include: Thidwick the Read More >>
Centers for our youngest students
Centers are an important part of the day for Kindergarten and First Grade students. Every day they participate in at least one language arts, math and gross/fine motor center. Children learn by playing games in these centers, whether they are adding, subtracting, learning letter sounds or reading sight words. To simplify their contracts, we use Read More >>
Lyle the Crocodile
Students in Kindergarten and First Grade are exploring the fun of Bernard Waber’s loveable crocodile, Lyle. Each week we read a Lyle book and then draw and write about one part of the book. Students love predicting what will happen in the story from the pictures, discussing vocabulary and drawing their own pictures for each Read More >>
Measurement
Inch by inch we built our own measuring tapes and used them to measure our thumbs, ears, wrists, and waists. We were excited to find how much easier it is to use a measuring tape to measure around things than it is to use a ruler!