Happy Presidents’ Day! This week the Kindergarteners celebrated Presidents’ day. We read the story Presidents’ Day by Anne Rockwell. It explains that we celebrate Presidents’ day to honor those that have “lead” the country especially George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. We also talked about the President’s job and how they help our country. The president helps make laws to keep us safe. We brainstormed ideas of things we would do if we were President. Some of our ideas were realistic and some were just a fantasy. We each wrote down one of our ideas and then illustrated our idea. Then we put them together into a class book titled “If I were President….” We also completed a science experiment. We tried to clean pennies. We found out that pennies look dirty and dull because the copper reacts to the air. We tried cleaning pennies with soap+water, vinegar, orange juice, ketchup, and vinegar+salt. After we let them soak for 10 minutes, we washed them off with water. We found out that ketchup and vinegar+salt cleaned them the best.
Monday:
No School
Tuesday:
We started our day off by talking about our day off yesterday, President’s Day. We listened to the story, President’s Day by Anne Rockwell. In it we learned a little bit about 4 presidents: Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Roosevelt. We also listened to the story, This Little President by Joan Holub. We were introduced to 10 different presidents and heard an interesting fact about each one. Then we we watched a video about all of the presidents. We have had 46 different presidents! Together we read the story, Happy Presidents Day! It had information about several famous presidents like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, John F Kennedy, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. There was even a page about President Joe Biden. Next, we read our new emergent reader, The President. This story shared information about the president’s job. We were also introduced to our two new sight words, my & with. They are not exactly new since we have been working with them for a while in our writing projects. After reading through all of our sight words, we played sight word bingo.
During religion, we discussed the next liturgical church season, Lent. We watched a video in which Brother Francis explained Lent to us. We found out it starts tomorrow with Ash Wednesday. Normally, we would go to church and during Mass Father will mark our foreheads with a cross made out of ashes. The ashes were created from burning the palms that were used last year during the Palm Sunday celebration. This year is a little different. Father will be visiting our classroom and sprinkling ashes on our head.
In math, we were introduced to 3-D shapes. A 3-dimensional shape is something that has more than 2 sides. A circle, square, triangle, and rectangle are flat. A sphere, cylinder, cube, cone, and rectangular prism have lots of sides. During math, we looked at each of theses shapes and then found something special about each one. We also played 10 bears on a bus. We pulled a number card (0-10) and put that many bears on the bus. Then we created a number sentence to tell how many seats were on the bus. We started with how bears were on the bus and then we added how empty seats were left on the bus.
Wednesday:
Today is a special day, Ash Wednesday. It is the first day of Lent. Lent is a special time when we get ready for Easter. Ms. Torborg gave each of us a Lenten calendar. Each day we need to color one rectangle on the path. It will help us keep track of how long lent is and how many days until Easter. In honor of Ash Wednesday, Father visited our classroom. He had a little prayer service and then sprinkles ashes on our head.
In reading, we continued our discussion about President’s Day. Today we talked about two famous presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. We listened to two nonfiction books, George Washington: Farmer, Soldier, President and Abraham Lincoln: Lawyer, President Emancipator. We were also completed our 2 sight word worksheet, with & my. We ended our reading time by playing a game on the SMART board, 4 in a Row. It was the class against Ms. Torborg. We won the first one and Ms. Torborg won the second one.
Our Olweus lesson today focused on feeling. We started by identifying how we are feeling. Then Ms. Torborg read us the story The Way I Feel. We had to try to figure out how each of the characters were feeling by their faces, words, and actions.
In math, we played a game called “What’s My Rule?” The teacher would call a few kids us front. We had to decide what they all had in common that no one else had. For example, they all had orange on their shirt or they all had tie shoes on or they all had something in their hair. They trick was to find the thing in common that no one else had.
We spent most of our afternoon working on a science experiment. To begin, we identified all of the different coins we use and their values. We know that the penny is brown. It is made out of copper. We compared and contrasted a penny made in 1981 with a penny made in 2019. Right away we noticed one was dull and darker and one was very shiny. Ms. Torborg told us that copper reacts to the air around it. The air causes copper to turn dull and dark. Our experiment was to try to turn a penny shiny again. We started off brainstorming different ways to clean something: baby wipes, soap, soap and water and scrubbing with our fingers. We found out us that many people clean with vinegar. Ms. Torborg said we should try some crazy ideas too. We decided to try to clean pennies with soap + water, lemon juice, orange juice, ketchup, and vinegar + salt. We broke up into groups. Each person was given a penny and a cleaning agent. Our first task was to complete our paper work. We had to color the pennies show what they looked like when we started, circle our cleaning agent, and color the penny to what we think it will look like when we are done. Then we put a couple of pennies in each container and covered them with the cleaner. We spent about 10 minutes letting the cleaner work. We also took some time to walk around and see what was happening in the other containers. Finally, we washed the pennies off. We recorded our findings on our paper. Then we walked around to look at the other groups. We found out that the pennies in the ketchup and vinegar+salt came the cleanest. Then we got a chance to clean another penny with whatever cleaning agent we wanted.
Thursday:
We started our morning out gathering together as a whole school via Zoom. Mrs. Lingen lead us in the Stations of the Cross. On Thursdays throughout Lent, we are going to gather together for the Stations of the Cross. This is a time when we think about how (and why) Jesus died. As Mrs. Lingen read a passage that helped explain each stations plus there was a picture for us to look at.
During reading, we listened to the book, I Can Be President, Too! It identified some of the qualities a good president needs. Then we listened to the book, If I Were President. It was all about the President of the United States of America. We found out that the President has to do many different things including giving speeches, helping Congress make new laws, help people in need after a disaster, and talk with leaders from other countries. Because of their job, we found out that the President gets to live in the White House and has Secret Service with them all the time to protect them. After reading the story, we started talking about what it would be like if we were president. We brainstormed a list of ideas of things we would change or do. After talking about being president, we decided to write about it. We each had to write about one law we would make or thing we would do if we were president.
Our math lesson started with snack. During snack, Ms. Torborg gave us a sphere (a cheese ball), cylinder (marshmallow), cone (bugle), cube (miniature milky way), rectangle prism (vanilla wafer), circle (Ritz cracker), triangle (nacho chip), rectangle (club cracker), and a square (Cheez-it). Before we could eat snack, we had to hold up the shape Ms. Torborg called out. We also had to divide our items into 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional. We noticed right away that 3-dimensional objects are “puffy” or higher and 2-dimensional objects are flat. It was a delicious snack once we finally got to eat.
During math time, we reviewed our 3-D shapes. Them we worked on comparing 2-D and 3-D shapes. Finally, we completed a worksheet. We had to cut out the shapes at the bottom of the paper and glue them in the correct column either 2-D or 3-D.
During Lent, we spend some time learning about the Stations of the Cross. Today we discussed the First Stations of the Cross: Jesus is Condemned to Death. Then we colored a picture. We are going to color a picture of each Station throughout Lent. Then at the end, we will turn them into a book.
Friday:
We started our morning with a game, 4 in a Row. We had to try to cover 4 words in a row by rolling a dice and reading words. Then we were off to Mass.
In reading, we reviewed some symbols that represent America. Then we made a symbols book. We found that our book didn’t have any words. Ms. Torborg gave us a paper with 5 sentences on it. After we cut the sentences out, we had to read them and match the them to the picture. Then we read through our book. We reviewed the letter ww completed our letter w worksheet.
In the afternoon, we worked with the BeeBots. Our mats today were different from last time. This time they were 4 squares by 3 squares. After reviewing the rules of using the BeeBots, we were got started. We had to draw a color card and write a code to get the BeeBot from start to our color. After we found one route that worked, we had to try to find another way before we could pick a new color.