Kindergarten enjoyed a special visitor, Dr. Kovtun! Dr. Kovtun taught us all about the tools a doctor uses. We got to look inside our ears with an otoscope, and hear our heart beat with a stethoscope! We learned about vibration and Dr. Kovtun checked our reflexes. One child remarked, “a reflex makes your knee move when you are not really moving it!” We learned that we could keep healthy, by washing our hands frequently and not putting our hands on our face! After the doctor left, we read a story about going to the doctor, and the children shared their stories about going to their own doctors! Many of them shared about how brave they were when they had to get a shot!
As we explore the fall season together, the children have been dialoguing about how nature sustains us and we sustain nature. The children discussed how we need water, air and food to live and that nature provides all of these. We also focused on how we need to take care of nature so we will have it forever! Nature depends on us to make responsible choices to respect, preserve and nurture it. Likewise, as one element of all that Hashem created, we must also respect and take care of ourselves. We talked about all the ways we can take care of our bodies: eat healthy, exercise and rest.
Our dialogue about trees led us to discuss all the uses for trees. We spoke about how we use trees for paper, books and houses. The children pointed out that we should not use all the trees, because they give us such important things like oxygen, air and shade! They suggested we could save trees by sharing books, instead of buying new ones and bringing in their unused paper products from home to reuse at school!
The children have been enjoying noticing the leaves on the trees change colors. We read the book, Why Do Leaves Change Colors? and then we took a walk outside and observed the different kinds of trees and their leaves. The children pointed out the evergreen trees and that they have needles, not leaves! They identified a maple tree by the shape of its leaf and a weeping willow by the shape of its branches and leaves! We found one tree that we could see from our classroom window and once inside, the children then drew a picture of this tree! We will continue to observe the same tree throughout the seasons and record our observations in their pictures!
During Literacy centers, the children enjoy using different materials to form words! Using letter cubes, letter tiles, and even play doh, the children form sight words, color words and their names. During math centers, we went on a number hunt throughout the building! The children wrote down the numbers they saw and we discovered many important ways we use number! The children had a blast, and we learned how important numbers are in our daily lives!
This past week we took some time to reflect on our past accomplishments, fun times and learning in kindergarten so far this year. As the children and I look back we are also discussing and planning ideas for future learning and fun. It is an important life skill to learn to take time to reflect on the past, evaluate our accomplishments and areas we would like to work on, in order to best plan for our future! The children enjoyed the process and we will set time aside throughout the year for these reflections!
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