Mrs. Miller's Kindergarten Class

Hello K1 Families,

The leprechauns visited our classroom on Tuesday. He made quite a mess. He wrote to the students and left them a goodie bag that came home on Tuesday with your child.

This week in social emotional lessons we discussed the emotion of worry. We talked about what worry is and how it feels in our bodies. We charted all the healthy ways to deal with worry. Some of the children’s ideas were: snuggling with their family,  listening to music, being in nature and talking to somebody you love. We then discussed how breathing and blowing bubbles is another way to handle worry. We learned a poem called Blow Your Worries Away. The children are all bringing home their own bubbles with the poem to continue practicing this powerful technique with their families at home.

This week in phonics we worked with the consonant blends; /fl/, /gl/, /sl/, /pl/, /bl/ and /cl/. Consonant blends are groups of two or three consonants where each letter retains its individual sound when pronounced, unlike digraphs where two letters represent a single sound. We read a reader that focused on the /sl/ blend and practiced writing and sorting these /l/ blends. Next week we will work with the /s/ blends. Please read the Bridge to Reading letter your child is bringing home to give you ways to practice these blends at home. 

In math, we enjoyed a visit from Mrs. Nitsos, our district math specialist. She focused on addition and subtraction story telling. She read the book Pigeon Math, by Asia Citro and then let the mathematicians break into groups to brainstorm math stories using a story mat and manipulatives. The children had so much fun creating silly math stories. To conclude the lesson, Mrs. Nitsos showed the students how to capture their stories using simple drawings and equations. We always welcome the opportunity to have Mrs. Nitsos in our class! 

We continued to celebrate Women in History and we learned about the American Poet, Maya Angelou. We especially loved her quote, “Be the rainbow in someone else’s cloud.” We took this inspirational quote and made a rainbow crown to wear. We also read her book Life Doesn’t Frighten Me, illustrated by Jean-Michel Basquia.

March is also Disability Awareness month. We read a biography of  the Mexican artist Freda Kahlo and next week we will create a picture inspired by her art. We also learned the song, Don’t Laugh at Me by Steve Seskin. This song is a beautiful way to talk about physical and neurological diversity.