Things got spooky and monstrous during Halloween week in Kindergarten! On Thursday, the Kinders walked into a room full of monsters! Each monster looked very different and had several physical characteristics that only they had (like stripes, color, polka dots etc). The Kinders spent the day working of describing characters physical traits along with personality traits like scary, huge, and creepy.
   Then, the Kinders switched gears and read a story "I Need My Monster!" We have been talking a lot about needs and wants, so this was a perfect time to review things that we actually need and things that we want. After reading the book, the Kinders wrote about what they needed along with what they really want.
    Lastly, the Kinders each received a "Make a Monster Kit" and they were able to create their very own monsters and described them! What a roaring success monster day was! The Kinders had a blast and learned SO much!

Even while social distancing, the Kinders are enjoying play based learning, using their imaginations, and having a little bit of fun! At the start of the year, we do an ABC bootcamp, focusing on a single letter each day, with the goal to build confidence, knowledge, and learning all of our letters/letter sounds quickly. Wow! Are they ever doing amazing! Monday-Thursday, we focus on a letter and on some Fridays, we have been turning into Alphabet Detectives! With some detective music in the background, the Kinders use their magnifying glass, their fancy detective marker (aka...a highlighter!), and got to work solving all the letter mysteries. They try and identify individual letters, beginning sounds, and sorting letters. They are loving the chance to use their imaginations and are building their confidence in their abilities. We are eagerly waiting to finish all the letters since we'll be having quite a celebration then!

Now that we have finished our unit on how our pictures tell a story and using "The Magic Line" when creating illustrations, we moved on to adding labels to our illustrations like authors do! To kick off this learning, we learned what a label is and then labeled Miss Keenan! After that, we used our schema and labeled apples! The Kinders were given all the parts of an apple and then were challenged to use their friend Lips the Fish (he helps us find the beginning sound in a word!) and figure out what the word is and then gluing it on our apple creations. Watching their little brains sound out words, problem solve, and show off their finished projects was so much fun! They are quickly becoming blossoming readers and writers!