During the morning free choice time, some of the children were busy creating a beautiful winter mural of things they like to do in the winter and winter weather. It is hanging in the hallway. Take a look at it when you come in the school and ask what your child drew. Or what their favorite thing to do in winter is.
Our winter theme continued this week with fun outside as well as inside. The children continued to ask questions about how to build things in the snow and get answers by jumping right in it! Thanks Mother Nature for the snow this week:)
The morning meeting continues to be a time of great learning for the children. We have incorporated so much differentiated learning to meet all the students individual needs. They are practicing listening skills, writing, reading, tracking words, beginning and ending letter sounds, popcorn words, one to one correspondence, weather words, and so much more.
Mr. Hunter came to visit the JK classroom this week for music class. The children were so happy to have him visit the room and he was so engaging as always!
In the Fine Motor center children practiced writing letters, numbers, and words in shaving cream. Shaving cream actvities are very sensory rich and engaging for the children.
In the Language Arts center, children worked on a sequencing activity. We have been reading and sharing ideas of how to build things in the snow so this Language Arts activity tied nicely into our theme by having the children put pictures in chronological order. First you roll the snowballs. Second you stack them, and third you decorate him.
In the Math center the children were introduced to a new game called grab and count. This is an activity that you can do anywhere with the children. You need a container of manipulatives (buttons, cubes, beans, etc.). Each person estimates how many of the objects he or she can pick up with one hand. Then each person grabs some of the manipulatives. Count out your objects. See how close your were to your estimation. Then you can you can make addition and subtraction problems with your objects, or compare more and less. These were all things the children did with their partners in the math center this week.
In small groups the children also explored melting ice from their experiment last week and then they explored snow indoors. They scooped and measured, patted, and shaped the snow. They talked about what happens to snow in the warm room and how long does it take for it to melt.
Also during small group time, the children wrote in their journals about what they know about winter or their favorite winter activity.
During circle time the children sang a song to retell the story The Mitten by Jan Brett sung to the tune of the song Hi Ho Cherry O. The children sang and used words and pictures to represent the animals crawling into a mitten. They took turns tracking the words to the song and putting the animals in the mitten to get cozy and warm.
This week they were introduced to a snowflake poem too where they practiced tracking the words, finding popcorn words, then played a game where the snowflakes fell in the classroom. Each snowflake had a popcorn word or a thematic word like snow written on it. When the snowflakes fell the children had find their partner with the same word as them. It was really a great movement game and an enriching way to practice popcorn words.
Finally to culminate the weeks activities we went out to the court yard to explore the snow and practice our building skills. The children were engaged in conversations about packing snow and soft snow, how to build a snow pile, what makes some of the snow hard like ice vs other soft snow. How to make snow angels and so much more! 
We tried to practice safety and manners to by not throwing snow in each others faces as that is so painful! The kids had a blast and so did the teachers:)
A Peek Ahead to next week...
Continuing with our winter theme, we will focus on the two polar regions at the north and the south of the earth. We will focus on the animals that live in these polar regions, and how they survive in those areas.
We will continue to work with our popcorn words and introduce new ones. In Math, we will focus on simple addition story problems using manipulatives and seeing the number sentence written out (5+2=7). In Science, we will continue to explore the snow and ice and how they melt. Also we will study the polar animals like the polar bear and the penguin. In Social Studies, we will focus on where the polar animals live compared to us in the Chicago Area. The children started working on their self portraits at the end of last week and will continue to draw representations of themselves this coming week and then they will write in their journals about the polar animals that we are studying. We will continue to assess their individual skills this week and focus on reading groups too. In reading groups we might focus on popcorn words, sequencing, tracking words, or comprehension questions. The children will also be working on making popcorn words with popcorn for a great fine motor and sensory experience.
We will also welcome Kyler Bunton to the classroom on Tuesday. Kyler is one of the Upper School students and is completing his January Short Term project (JST) in the JK classroom. Kyler will assist with small groups and centers. He will interact and read with the children. For his time with us he is interested in the social and emotional development of the JK kids and their academic skills. I am personally excited to have in the classroom as he is a former first grade student of mine:)
