We were very excited to welcome Asees’s Mom to our classroom to help Asees share an important upcoming holiday for her and her family- The Sikh New Year! As our class has studied American and Chines traditions around New Years Celebrations, it was fun to learn about another New Year celebration important to our classroom friend!  Asees and her Mom shared some beautiful pictures, a few children’s books, and a short video with the class. Asees also wore her special New Year’s outfit to class that day to share with friends. It was beautiful!! Thank you so much Asees and Pav for sharing with our Kindergarten class!!

With the help of Bethany (school psychologist) and Karen (Speech Pathologist), Kindergarten has ben learning the art of “personal space.” Our class has been participating in “Personal Space Camp” twice a week over the last few weeks and into the next few weeks. We are learning that we each have an invisible “personal space bubble” around us. Our bubbles are smaller for family (family may be closer to us) medium sized for friends and teachers (we can be close to friends, but not TOO close), and larger for strangers (people we don’t know shouldn’t invade our bubbles).

We sing songs, play games, share stories, and practice personal space in fun ways (such as using hula hoops to help us better visualize our personal space. We learn techniques for calming our bodies, and how we can use visuals (such as stop signs) to remind us to interact and play in hands-off ways that do not “pop” each others personal space bubbles. We carried our personal space hula hoops around for the ENTIRE day today!! It was a lot of fun, and I think we learned A LOT!! Thank you Bethany and Karen!! We can’t wait to see what you have planned for us next week!!

Kindergarten has been hard at work making discoveries about seeds! After several close observations and searching for items we think might be seeds, Kindergarten planned a seed experiment! In small groups, students picked 4 items they believe to be seeds, and four items that we think are not seeds. We then planted all 8 items, gave them water, sun, and air… and waited…. and waited…. and waited some more! Each week student teams record their observations in their journals. Some of our seeds have sprouted! We have also been observing the growth of grass seeds, bean seeds, various flowers, and root vegetables. We have been busy!! Our study continues as we will be “dissecting” lima beans and learning about the parts of seeds and plants, and the life cycle of plants.

Thank you to everyone who came out to support Kindergarten and their polished and “published” narrative writing pieces. We had a great turn out and everyone enjoyed reading and listening to some great stories! I am so proud of how hard the K kiddos worked on their pieces and how much their writing skills have grown! Congratulations Kindergarten!

John Porcino will be visiting LES over several weeks. He is a fantastic story teller with a big personality! He will be visiting with the K classroom twice a week, helping us with our narrative writing pieces and using a story teller voice (reading with expression!). This week we reflected on our “heart stories.” Some topics included thinking about someone we love, and a place that we love. We also thought about a time we could remember that really made us laugh. All great springboards for discovering true stories that are fun to share! Don’t miss the Story Festival April 14th at 6:30!

Engineering leprechaun traps! After reading several Irish Folktales and learning about the folk lore of leprechauns, Kindergarten set out to create some working traps! We used materials and colors that might attract a leprechaun and prepared for their trickery. We also thought about what we might wish for if we caught a leprechaun or found the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Be sure to check out our ideas on our bulletin board in the hallway by the library!We even created rainbows with a pot of gold to hang around the room. Do you know what the colors are in a rainbow??