Week 27: Kindergartener’s Journey Through the Galaxy

Dear Family,

We hope you all had a wonderful and happy week just like we did. Our children continue to grow each day with their thinking skills, active learning, and love for discovering new things. As always, let us take you through the different sessions we enjoyed throughout our week…

Large Group

Our large group takes place after early morning outdoor play and classroom free choice time, helping our children settle in before we begin our circle time. With a cheerful song transition, we gather around the blue mat ready for our daily routines. Since Monday was a holiday and we returned to school on Tuesday, we talked about how we spent the long weekend with our families. Along with this, we continued our regular routines of singing songs, updating the calendar, and helping our caterpillar grow one number longer each day. This week’s large group focus was word formation with missing vowels. Our children took turns coming to the board, choosing the correct vowels, and placing them in the missing spots to complete the words. It was a fun and engaging activity, and they enjoyed helping each other figure out the right sounds.

“I went to Africa and saw giant white tigers, giraffe, baboons, and very big monkeys” -Samuel

“I eat chocolate” -Betselot

“Betselot and Yemariam need to tell about their weekends together cause they’re twins and they live together” -Leul

“I went to church and chewed gum and then I watched a lot of tv and I went back to church again” -Solomon

“I watched TV and I slept and after that I rode my scooter” -Yadon

“I went to church and then ate something there and then Jamie’s mom came and she only kissed me after 6 o’clock cause it wasn’t allowed before that by the church” -Liyat

“I eat pizza and then we eat cake and chocolate” -Yemariam

“I watching tablet after church and Lutanda was jumping so I played magnets in the trampoline. And at night I slept and I was dreaming and it became Monday and daddy told me it’s a holiday and there’s no school” -Lubono

“I went to a water fountain at night with my mommy and daddy” -Kian

“I found a tiger block and I played football on Saturday” -Ismael

“Before yesterday I went to friendship park and I went to the basement and I saw the water dancing like going up and down its like Adwa museum but it’s a different place in 4kilo. I went with my friend Hermon” -Leul

Literacy

This week in our literacy sessions, we focused on writing and gave our children the opportunity to show off their alphabet writing skills. Sitting around our classroom tables with plain white paper and pencils, they practiced writing the letters of the alphabet while thinking about the sounds each letter makes. This activity helped strengthen their letter recognition and writing skills, as they worked on both uppercase and lowercase letters. It also gave us a chance to observe where each child is in their learning journey; seeing which letters they confidently recognize and write, and where they may still need a little more practice.

“Whatttt are we writing letters like

Pre-ks?” -Leul

“I can write it so fast even backwards starting from Z” -Solomon

“Can we write it with colors so it’s colorful?” -Liyat

“I like to write numbers not letters” -Ismael

“Do we put them in clouds after we write them like last time?” -Kian

“L is like My name and Lutanda’s” -Lubono

Math

This week in math, we continued learning about skip counting by 5s and discovered that one hour is made up of 60 minutes! Together, we practiced skip counting all the way to 60, which helped our children better understand how time works on a clock. We also worked on adding the clock hands to the DIY clocks we created, making the lesson more practical and exciting. For our second math session, we revisited one of our favorite activities; the Kindergarten Alligator comparing game! Using number flashcards and alligator themed comparing signs, our children had so much fun feeding the bigger numbers to the hungry alligator. As they played, they practiced comparing numbers and quickly remembered the concept.

“We can cut papers for the arrow” -Yadon

“Or let’s take the markers and stick them so they become the arrows” -Liyat

“I don’t know about kinder Alligator because me, Yadon, and Kian were in Pre-k class” -Lubono

“I also was not here when they learned about this… I was in America” -Solomon

“Kinder alligator bites big numbers okay” -Samuel

“If it’s big the mouth eat it” -Ismael

Science

This week’s science was beyond fascinating as our children dove into the world of galaxies. We began by sitting together and sharing what we already knew and what we imagined galaxies might be. Our children had wonderful ideas and questions, which led to a lively discussion. To learn more, we watched a short Dr. Binocs video that helped us discover interesting facts about our very own galaxy, the Milky Way; the huge galaxy where our planet Earth lives, along with billions of stars and planets. We also talked about another nearby galaxy called Andromeda, our galaxy’s neighbor in space; just like neighborhoods on Earth have many houses, space has many galaxies, and the Milky Way and Andromeda are like two giant neighborhoods filled with stars. After learning about them, our children sat at their tables and began drawing their own ideas of what galaxies might look like. During our second session, we went to the art room where they painted their own Milky Way galaxies, using colors, swirls, and stars to bring their imaginations to life.

“I have a galaxy hat at home” -Yadon

“Some galaxies have a black hole but not all….when the sun gets out of field the black hole inside it will eat it” -Solomon

“Galaxies are very very big even the black holes can’t take them in cause they’re too big” -Lubono

“It’s made up of stars, dust, and also gas” -Leul

“Black hole take all things in and in only” -Samuel

“The black hole can take the sun and Mercury” -Kian

“The black hole is scary” -Ismael

“I’m 4 billion years we will not be alive” -Liyat

“I like Andromeda” -Yemariam

Art

Since we have been learning about galaxies, we decided to connect our art session with this exciting theme. Our children worked together on a beautiful galaxy mural project using a large chart paper placed on an easel. Taking turns, each child added their own touch to the mural, choosing their favorite colors and carefully painting their part. It quickly turned into a wonderful group effort where everyone contributed. To create the galaxy effect, the children started painting from the center and slowly blended the colors outward toward the top, gently rolling one brush in circular motions to mix the colors together. They watched with amazement as the colors swirled and merged, just like the glowing stars and clouds we see in pictures of galaxies. When the mural was finally complete, the result was absolutely stunning, and our children were so proud to see the beautiful galaxy they had created together.


“Wow! It’s so cool. I want to buy this” -Kian

“No, I will buy it cause I chose this art” -Liyat

“Guys you know, if we put more white in the middle it becomes very scary cause even if it’s white it’s still a black hole” -Leul

“I want to paint pink” -Yemariam

“I want pink too” -Betselot

“I think it would be so awesome if we did andromeda instead of milky way so we surprise our parents” -Solomon

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.

• Every Wednesday and Friday, we have football, so please make sure our children wear their football jerseys if they have them, or any comfortable shorts.

We can’t wait to share more of our Kindergarten adventures with you next week!