Our Kindergarten Community: Interviews, Shares, Birthdays, Plays, and MORE!

Hello Hardworking Journalists' families!

Here is a quick recap of this week's adventures:

I've provided a space for friends to test out another material in our class: Yarn. Friends are practicing their fine motor skills in wrangling the yarn and scissors to do what they want them to do in order to represent their idea and test how they can manipulate the shape of the yarn.

This week, our Buddies came to give us an interview for their American Dream Project. They are studying America’s History of Immigration and the status of the American Dream, literature, music and film based upon the American Dream, audio recording, editing and journalism. The Hardworking Journalists were asked what their understanding of the fairness of the world and the health of the American Dream. Check out our reflection of how it felt to be interviewed, what went well, and what we could do differently next time in our Discussion Notes binder!

It's nice to have so many friends who wish to share what they think is interesting and inspiring to others. Our Recess Shares are a great time for friends to get together and chat about personal excitement regarding things that happened after school, during the home days, or whatever might create connections with their peers.

Here friends check out a bead creation of a fish made by a friend.

Others listen to another person sing a song she learned in Hebrew.

This friend shares how a magnetic force affects a compass.

What is your child excited about?

As we continue to study equations, the students continue to study equations, the friends helped to generate a list of the different symbols they were familiar with and which words help define them.

We are now trying to explain the different steps it takes to complete an arithmic task as if we were having to teach it to someone who has never been exposed to this before. Being able to teach someone something can be very difficult for some people to do, but these friends are taking a stab at it!

During our discussion, friends began noticing how numbers in equations related to each other. They were excited to see that if you add a + b you will get c, and if you add b + a, you'll STILL get c! This is known as the commutative property of addition. What fun math discoveries have you made with your child?

Thank you to Zach for being our Family Reader this week!

Thank you to Amanda (Jacob's mom), Barbara (Mirriam's mom), Barbara and Edgar (Isaiah's mom and dad), Daniella (Xander's mom), Dennis (Fiona's dad), Lauren (Lorenzo's mom), Natalie (Bryson's mom), Seng (Patrick's mom), and Tom (Kayla's dad) for helping us with our field trip this week! After reading two different versions of the Princess and the Pea, the Hardworking Journalists watched a marionette performance of yet another version of the classic tale.

After the play, friends were asked to journal about how this play differed from the two stories they had read previously. Check out their journals to see what they noticed! We later took a brief walk to the big water fountain for our lunch break. Students were noticing the beautiful architecture found in the different buildings, reading different signs, making predictions about how the fountain worked, and engaging with the local wildlife, respectfully.

Back at school, friends shared two different kinds of puppets for us to study: marionettes and finger puppets. We tested their mechanics and attempted to isolate different body parts by using only our wrists and fingers.

We ended a busy work week with a special moment to honor another friend's birthday. We sang her Happy Birthday, recited one of our newer poems, The Wind, gave Birthday High Fives, played a few intense rounds of Steal the Bacon, and enjoyed a delicious and nutritious special treat.