K3 The Place To Be!

Hello K3 Families,

I hope you all had a great Spring Break! We went to NYC and enjoyed sight-seeing as a family. It was so fun to hear what everyone was up to!

We had such a fun week in K3, here's what we've been up to:

Today we had a very special visit from Ella’s mom, and grandma, who joined us all the way from Australia! They introduced the children to an Australian Aboriginal art technique, which is a traditional style of art created by Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal art often uses dots, patterns, and symbols to tell stories about nature, animals, and important cultural traditions.

The children traced their hands and then used dot painting techniques to create patterns and designs around them. Each piece turned out incredibly unique and beautiful, just like the artists themselves!

A big thank you to Ms. Alyce and Ms. Ruth for sharing their time, culture, and creativity with us, it was such a meaningful and memorable experience for our class.

In the Library this week we enjoyed an amazing puppet show presented by a Springhill parent, Mrs. Brihdish (1st and 4th grade mom.) This engaging story was called Grandmother Magic. An old folktale, it was all about working together and cooperating. Afterwards Mrs. Brihdish let the children touch her handmade felted puppets and she described the process in which she makes the puppets using hand dyed wool roving that she has sourced from local farms when possible. 

We started a unit on Farms and Farm Animals this week. The children learned about all the different responsibilities that farmers have in their daily lives and all the different kinds of farms there are. We painted our favorite farm animal, created colorful sunflowers, and are learning some fun poems about farm animals. We are learning a fun song about farm animals that we are creating a song book to go along with. All this new information and learning is a wonderful way to get ready for our Kindergarten Musical, Down on Springhill Farm!

We are excited to be getting ready for our Kindergarten musical, Down on Springhill Farm! The performance will be held on Wednesday, April 29th at 11:00 in our Springhill Multipurpose room. The performance runs approximately 30 minutes. It will be a fun way for the children to share their knowledge of a Farm as a working community and tell about some of the animals that may be found on a farm. This is a very child centered production! The most stressful part is getting a parking spot on the day of the performance so please allow extra time for that. There will be no need for supplying a costume; we will provide them for you. We are encouraging your child to wear a white shirt and either jeans or jean overalls for the performance. If your child does not have any of these clothing items, no worries, just have them wear something plain. Each child will have a line or two to memorize in addition to learning all the songs. We will be practicing the lines each day in class, and will be learning all the songs at school and in our music class each week. Please practice your child’s lines with them at home! Your child will need some help with this. Thanks in advance.

This will be an opportunity for your child to work towards a collective goal with their peers, develop confidence and poise, and be exposed to the experience of participating in a musical production! I know that it will prove to be a worthwhile and memorable endeavor for all!

If your child will not be at the performance, please let us know a.s.a.p! If you have any questions, please reach out.

Looking ahead, our annual Kindergarten Open house will be held on Thursday, April, 23 from 5:30-6:30 in our classroom! The room will be open to families from 5:30-6:30. Your child will be taking you on a guided tour of the classroom by referring to a map that we will create in class. They will also be sharing lots of work from the past few months with you. At the end of the evening, your child will be able to bring some of their shared work home with them. I know it will be an amazing evening! Hope to see everyone there! Please mark your calendars!

In social emotional learning we discussed feelings. We focussed on the unpleasant feeling of being grouchy. We read the book by Eric Carle, The Grouchy Lady bug and discussed ways that we can move through being upset and grouchy in a healthy way. We wrote about what can make us feel grouchy, and created our very own grouchy ladybug!

In phonics we focused on the “r” blends, and continued to work on red words and our reading fluency. Next week we will begin to learn about long vowels and introduce the “silent e.”

In math, we continued to work on subtraction. He learned a pirate subtraction song, and then created subtraction stories and equations to go along with the song. It was very fun!

We only have 7 more weeks of kindergarten! The time is flying by! Thank you again to all the parent volunteers this week! We were able to have smoother rotations and more art with your help! Please consider volunteering in our room!

Lindsey Spansail