Finishing Strong

It's getting warmer, and everyone is beginning to dream about summer plans. In kindergarten we're trying to stay focused so we can finish strong. There's still a lot of learning to do and we're encouraging everyone to do their best as we get closer to completing the year.

This week in our Bible study, we'll  finish up Peter's Sermon and move into a study of the Lord's Prayer. Most of our students can recite the Lord's Prayer, but few understand the language or how to apply it to our daily life. We'll explore each phrase and the reason it is a model prayer.

We will be reading for understanding and writing using a graphic organizer. Our students are becoming comfortable writing multiple sentences now. Students will continue to practice 'red words' and digraphs in their reading and spelling. At story time, we will introduce writing an expository piece, using a topic sentence and adding supporting details from a text. We'll combine science and writing as we write about an environment and the living things within it.

For math, we are decomposing two digit numbers, noting the tens and ones. Understanding place value is key in understanding for more complicated functions in the future.

We will experiment with our Bess Beetles, observing and recording more of their preferences. Students will note the changes in our test plants, hopefully supporting our theories of what they need to grow. We will learn more about the pumpkin life cycle and the beetle life cycle. Next we'll begin to observe and discuss how living things can change their environments.

Our class will host both pre-K classes for a brief introduction to kindergarten on Friday. Students will answer questions about kindergarten and we will all let them know they have an exciting year ahead.

We will finish up our collaborative art project from last week. Students learned about Dale Chihully and the art of glass blowing. While we can't work with molten glass in class, we can and did make 3D replicas of his work. Watch for the display in the hallway!

It's full steam ahead in music to prepare for our graduation songs. Mrs. Arnold has some wonderful idea that will make the ceremony fun and memorable.

Those are the highlights of the week. We are excited to have fun and work hard everyday with the goal of finishing strong!

Mrs. Luoma