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 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 - President’s Day
Tuesday:
No School - Winter Weather
Wednesday:
We started our day off by talking about our day off on Monday, 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. Then we completed our 2 sight word worksheet, with & my.
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. After several rounds, we reviewed our 3D shapes before we played I Spy 3D shapes. Then we completed a 3D shape sorting worksheet.
In religion, we listened to the story of the Good Samaritan. Then we cut out the different characters from the story. The next time we listened to the story, we used the characters to act out the story as it was being told. We also tried telling the story on our own. Finally, we watched the story of The Friar: The Good Samaritan.
Thursday:
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.
We were also introduced to the letter Xx. We watched a short Xx video, created a list of words that contain an X, and completed our Xx letter worksheet.
During math time, we reviewed our 3-D shapes. Then we worked on comparing 2-D and 3-D shapes. We went around the room finding different 2D and 3D 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.
Friday:
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 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.