This week the kindergarteners explored Thanksgiving, everything from the first Thanksgiving to the special food we eat. We learned about why the Pilgrims left England, their ship the Mayflower, and how some of them died that first year. Then we explored the different ways the Wampanoag people helped the Pilgrims and the feast they had together to celebrate. We also compared what life is like today to that of the Pilgrim people. Then we made a new class book. We each had to create our own Thanksgiving dinner menu. Next we read the story ‘Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving. The children in the story save the turkeys and try to convince people to eat something else. We decided to do the same thing. We each wrote a list of things you can eat instead of turkey. We also created a picture of us with a turkey stuffed underneath our shirt.
Monday:
In reading, we reviewed all of our letter sounds before we were introduced to our new letter and letter sound Ff, We watched our letter f video, created a list of words that stated with and ended with f, and completed our letter f sorting worksheet. Next we worked on sounding out CVC words. Ms. Torborg wrote a CVC word on the board. Together we worked on sliding it down our arm as we identified each letter sound. Then we blended it together to read the word. Finally we played a new game, I Have…Who Has. We each have a card or two. The first player read their card, I have fish. Who has octopus? Then the person with the fish card reads their card and so on until all of the cards are done.
After recess, we explored the first Thanksgiving, determined the reason we have Thanksgiving, and compared and contrasted our Thanksgiving with the first Thanksgiving. First to defined some important words like pilgrim, Wampanoag, Mayflower, harvest, & feast. We started by looking at the voyage the pilgrims took. While looking at the globe we traced their journey. We also traced their journey through a slide show that described some of the thing they went through. We found out that the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in the middle of winter. Then we watched a short video clip about the first Thanksgiving. We found out that it lasted more than 3 days and was a celebrate for the thanking the Wampanoag people for teaching them to hunt and plant.
Just like the Pilgrims were thankful for everything they had and the help they received. We spent some time thinking about some things we are thankful for. Then we started a Thank You God! book. Each day we will write 1 thing we are thankful for. Then we have to draw a picture of it.
In religion, we talked about priests, bishops, and the pope. We found out the hierarchy of the church is similar to that of the school. The teacher is in charge of the classroom just like the priest is in charge of the church. The principal in charge all of the teachers just like the bishop watches over all of the priests in the diocese. The superintendent watches over all of the schools in the dioceses just like the pope watches over all of the bishops. Our parish priests are Father Jeff and Father Brian. We are part of the Dioceses of New Ulm with Bishop LeVior. And our current Pope is Pope Francis.
In math, we worked on grouping or sorting number. The first time we did it, we started by putting the number cards 0 to 10 in order in a line on the floor. Then we placed the corresponding tens frame card under each number. Finally, we place each of the corresponding dot cards under the numbers. Once Ms. Torborg checked it out. We put all of the cards on a pile and mixed them up. Then we sorted them again. This time we didn’t start with the numbers at the top and we didn’t put the numbers in order. We ended math with some math stations.
Tuesday:
In reading, we reviewed all of our sight words before we were introduced to our new sight word, you. We used you in a sentence. Then we completed our you sight word worksheet. We also worked on identifying it in our new emergent reader, Thanksgiving Dinner. Before we read it, we used a highlighter to marked the word you each time we found it. The next time we went through the book, we took note of how many words and sentences were on each page. Finally, we made a book about our Thanksgiving Dinner. Before we started writing, we listened to the story, No Turkey for Thanksgiving. We talked about how not everybody each turkey and we each shared our favorite food. Then we created a Thanksgiving menu. A menu is a list of things that will be served for the meal. We had to write down at least 6 things that we want to have on Thanksgiving. We could only have one dessert! Next to the menu was a place setting with dishes. We had to draw what our plate will look like on Thanksgiving if we made everything on our menu.
In religion, we listened to the story, Only One Man Said “Thank You”. We heard about how Jesus healed 10 people with a terrible disease, but only one person took the time to return to Jesus and say Thank You. Then we took some quiet time to think of all of the things our moms, dads, grandpas, grandpas, siblings, etc. do for us. Do we always say Thank You? We said a quiet prayer for them. We also completed another page in our Thank You God book.
In math, we played the spinner game. First, we played together as a whole group with a giant board and people as game pieces. One person spun the spinner and the game piece had to move that many spaces on the board. Then it was the next person’s turn. We kept taking turns until one person make it to the end. The second time we played with a partner and a small game board.
Wednesday:
In reading, we reviewed our sight words, letters and letter sounds. We watched our letter F video and completed our letter f worksheet. We also reviewed lists. Yesterday, we found out that when you make a list, you write one thing on each line. Today, as a class, we made a list of animals. We also read the story, Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving. A group of kids visited a turkey farm. When they found out that the turkeys were going to be eaten for dinner, they hid them under their shirt and took them home. Together as a class, we made a list of different things we could eat instead of turkey. Then we each has to create our own list with 6 things that we would like to eat for Thanksgiving dinner instead of turkey.
Our Olweus lesson today was about talking and listening. We were introduced to the talking stick. The only person who can talk is the person who is holding the talking stick. Everyone else job is to listen. Ms. Torborg asked us several different questions. Sometimes everyone got a chance to hold the talking stick and answer and sometimes only a few people did.
In religion, we completed another page in our Thank You God book.
In math, we worked on identifying tens and ones with number tiles and blocks. We started with the blocks. Ms. Torborg showed us a number on the board and we had to show her the corresponding tens blocks. We had to figure out if we had to use the ones pieces or tens pieces. We figured out that the groups of ten needed to have a zero at the end of the number. We were getting good at identifying which blocks to use, so we switched jobs. Ms. Torborg showed us a group of blocks and we had to use the number tiles to represent it. We had to figure out if the number was a single digit or a group of ten and then use the corresponding number tiles.
Thursday:
In reading, we worked with the -im word family. We started by watching a short video. Then we created a list of words. We had to pick a letter, identify the letter sound, and then put that sound in front of the word –it to create a word. We also had to decide if the word we created was a real word or a nonsense word. Finally we created our -im flip book.
We also listened to the story, Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving, again. This time we identified the main characters in the story along with the setting. We also created a background for our writing project from yesterday. We wanted it to look like we had a turkey stuffed under our shirt. Ms. Torborg gave us some pieces to trace and cut out and others just needed to be cut out. We really had to just our fine motor skills, so that it looked just right. We started with the shoes. After we cut out all of the pieces, we glued them together. Then we did the legs, feathers, shirt, and head. After cutting out each section, we glued the pieces together. The last thing we did was glue our writing on.
In math, we played a new game roll and record. We had to roll the dice and then record that number on our graph. Once one of the columns was filled, we had to analyze the data. Then we could play again on the back of our paper.
In religion, we watched a video about St. Andrew. His feast day is November 30th, and he is the patron saint of fishermen. He was one of Jesus’s Apostles. He left his life as a fisherman to follow Jesus. As we watched the video we colored his picture in our saint books.
Friday:
We started our day with calendar. Then we spent some time talking about things we can do to stay safe and healthy. Ms. Torborg told us about some of the changes that are happening next week to keep us all healthy. One of those changes started today with Mass. Instead of going to church, we watched the Mass on the SMARTboard. We participated just like when we are at the church only we didn’t get to go up and receive the blessing.
After lunch, we listened to the nonfiction story, Thanksgiving. We talked about what life was like for the pilgrims. We compared and contrasted the things we use now to the things the pilgrims used. We decided that we are happy we live with all of the great technology we have. We also did a worksheet in which we had to cut out several objects and then glue them in the right column (Now or Then).
In math, we played a new game, Monster Squeeze. You play monster squeeze on the number line. Today we used the number line from 0 to 10. We started with one monster in the beginning and one monster at the end. One person picks a number from the number line. They are the leader. The rest of the group tries to guess the number. After each guess, the leader had to tell them if the number is higher or lower. Then they move the corresponding monsters to the right spot. If the guesser picks 4 and the leader says no, it is higher. The leader moves the beginning monster to 4 and so on. We played together as a whole class several times. Then we broke up into groups to play.
We ended the day by reviewing the story of the pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving and then watching This is America Charlie Brown: The Mayflower Voyage.