Kindergarten Week 13: Around the World with Curiosity and Color!

Dear Family,

What an exciting week it has been in Kindergarten! Our classroom was buzzing with exploration, color, and creativity. From learning about the seven continents and comparing numbers with our new math friend, Kinder Alligator, to watching flowers magically change color and creating amazing art from shapes; our children were unstoppable! Each day was a new adventure. Read on for some more details……

Large Group

This week’s large group took us on a journey around the world! Using our globe and classroom map, our children explored all seven continents, pointing out where they live and noticing how big the world really is. We sang our catchy “Seven Continents Song,” danced around pretending to travel from Africa to Asia, and shared what we know about different places. Our weekly story, “Me on the Map,” helped us understand geography in a way that felt close to home starting from our room, to our home, our city, and then all the way to the Earth! It was a beautiful connection from the minutia to the big picture. Of course, we kept up with our daily routines too: setting the date, updating our caterpillar calendar (we reached Day 61, only 39 days to go to our 100th day of school!), and practicing our Zoo Phonics sounds. The classroom was filled with excitement and pride as our children became little geographers!


“Both Yichen and Samuel are from Asia” -Leul

“Dubai is also in Asia, and I’m going to Asia on December” -Liyat

“I am North America” -Yemariam

“I am both England and Vietnam. I have two countries” -Samuel

“Let’s draw a map like her” -Ismael

Literacy

Our children became word detectives this week! We focused on our five sight words; A, I, And, The, See. In the first session, they traced, colored, and practiced writing each one with care beautifully on their papers. Some even decorated their words with tiny doodles! In the second session, we turned into Word Hunters; each child picked a favorite book and searched for those same sight words hidden in the pages. Every discovery was celebrated with smiles, cheers, and proud “I found it!” moments. It was wonderful to see their growing confidence in recognizing and reading sight words independently.

“Look, A” -Betselot

“I finished faster than everyone so I’ll choose the next word” -Leul

“Look I found the” -Samuel

“I color it and I circle it and I trace it fast” -Ismael

“The party! It has ‘the’ “ -Liyat

Math

Math this week was full of fun and friendly competition! We learned how to compare numbers using the greater than (>), less than (<), and equal (=) symbols. To make it fun, we introduced the “Alligator Mouth” game where the alligator always wants to eat the bigger number! Inspired by our Zoo Phonics character “Allie Alligator,” our children named this math-loving friend Kinder Alligator. They practiced comparing numbers on flashcards, took turns feeding the right numbers to our alligator. During the second session, they did worksheets where they drew the symbols themselves, deciding which side had the greater amount. It was a playful and engaging way to build number sense and reasoning!

“Let’s call it Allie Alligator” -Samuel

“Alligator” -Nai

“Let’s call him Kinder Alligator because we are KGs” -Leul

“This is bigger so it will eat him” -Ismael

“If they are the same Allie Alligator I mean Kinder Alligator will both” -Liyat

“This is big” -Betselot

Science

Our science sessions this week were truly magical! Since we’ve been learning about plants, we explored how the stem helps water travel through the plant. Based on that we made science come alive with a color changing flower experiment. We set up outside by the art room, poured water into cups, added different food colors, and placed white flowers inside. They recorded their predictions on paper guessing what might happen to the petals overnight. The next day, their excitement was priceless when they discovered their flowers had changed colors! They wore their art smocks, sat in the classroom, and drew the results next to the predictions they made the previous day. Our children truly observed how the stem carries water and color up into the petals, and it was beautiful to see how science sparked pure joy and curiosity!


“My flower is white and I make yellow” -Yemariam

“What will happen if we leave it forever?” -Liyat

“The blue one doesn’t work like the others we will not use the blue food color after now” -Leul

“Let’s water the plants this” -Samuel( wanting to reuse the colored water from their cups)

Art

This week in the Infants and Toddlers art room, our little artists turned simple shapes into creative masterpieces! We began by talking about what kinds of things are made up of shapes like houses, cars, rockets, and even people! Our children then drew circles, squares, rectangles, and triangles, carefully cut them out with scissors, and used glue to piece together their own creations. Some made houses with triangle roofs, others built rocket ships flying to the moon, and a few just went wild with their imaginations creating abstract art! It was amazing to see how each child expressed their creativity through simple shapes and big ideas!

“I need two rectangles one for my rocketship and one for my car” -Leul

“This is triangle” -Yemariam

“I want to make a boat” -Samuel

“I want to cut a heart and then I will have a heart house actually I will make it a surprise” -Liyat

Cooperative Game – Our Classroom on the Map!

For our cooperative game this week, our children worked together to draw a big map of our classroom on chart paper in two groups. Inspired by our weekly book “Me on the Map” and our continent explorations, they added everything they felt represented our space; shelves, caterpillar numbers, flowers, the reading corner, and even tiny details only they would notice! It was a lively teamwork activity filled with creativity, laughter, and proud moments as they saw their classroom come to life on paper.

“Look am drawing the word wall” -Leul

“And am drawing our caterpillar numbers” -Liyat

“I drawing flower” -Yemariam

“I’m drawing the book shelf” -Ismael

“I draw the basket” -Samuel

“I draw this” -Betselot (pointing at one of the plants)

“Red Red Red) -Nai

Next week’s schedule:

Monday – Math, Literacy

Tuesday – Literacy, Science

Wednesday -Library, Math

Thursday - Science, Music

Friday - Library

Specials:

Monday- Art

Tuesday - Gym

Thursday - Ethiopian center/ clay



Reminders and notes:

• Please make sure that our children are wearing suitable clothes on Monday as we have art class and activities get messy sometimes.

• Every Wednesday and Friday is library day. Our children will be bringing home a book of their choice in their library folder, so please make sure to read the book with them over the weekend. Please return the folder the following Wednesday so they can get a new one.


• Every Tuesday, we have gymnastics, so please ensure that our children come dressed in comfortable and loose-fitting sports attire to facilitate their exercise.


Our children continue to amaze us with their curiosity and creativity. Here’s to more discoveries next week!