A Journey of Self-Reflection

As we begin the year 5770 our kindergarten children began a journey of self-reflection. Throughout the days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the children took time to think about how a new year can be a time for new beginnings. We discussed that in the New Year it can be a time, to start over, try harder, and thus, our journey of becoming our “best self” had begun. But, we recognized that sometimes it is easy to forget our good intentions, and we need a way to help us remember our goals. With this in mind, the children decorated beautiful mirrors, and studied their reflection to ponder just how they would try harder in the coming year. Realizing the struggle we will sometimes feel, we hung up our mirrors in order to remind us of our journey this year to be our best self! As the year progresses, the children and I will continue to dialogue about their individual journeys. We will add documentation as the children continue their self-reflection to becoming their best selves!

Birthdays are cause for celebration, and in kindergarten our celebrations are both fun and meaningful. As a classmate’s birthday drew close during the time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we had an opportunity to discuss how our own birthday is our own individual beginning…our own “new year.” Together, we came to understand that each of us has our own special purpose, and we can all affect the world in a positive way by bringing goodness to the world. We shared our ideas, and will be creating individual books in honor of our birthdays, about how we bring goodness to the world! Our birthday celebrations include a “baked from scratch, healthy cake”. The children have an opportunity to use math skills measuring both the dry and wet ingredients. This special cake, called a Wishing Cake, was super yummy and very special, as each child made a wish for our birthday girl, as they dropped in chocolate chips to our batter! After sharing the cake, the children enjoyed dancing to their favorite songs, and reading the books our birthday girl bought as a gift to our classroom.

Math a mystery? It was in kindergarten! With the help of our “Mystery Math Box” the children enjoyed a multisensory experience as they worked on their counting and one-to-one correspondence skills. The children reached inside the Mystery Math Box and described how the objects inside felt. Then, they tried to count the objects while they were still inside the box! Finally, we opened up the box, and checked their guesses! After being introduced to the class, The Mystery Math Box was placed in the manipulative center and the children have delighted in continuing to use it with their friends. Patterns were explored with the help of our pattern blocks. We learned the proper names for all the blocks, and they then created their own unique patterns with them. The pattern blocks continue to be a classroom favorite!

We are learning our color words in our shared reading book, Birthdays. In our journals, we wrote a sentence about our favorite color and then made an illustration of something that color. We also went on a color hunt! Each child received a card with a color name on it, and we went on a color hunt in our classroom to search for objects in that color!

As September draws to a close, and the cool fall weather arrives, our class is growing as a community of learners and friends. Our daily routines have become established, and the children are growing in confidence and maturity. I am so proud of all of them!