Our Kindergarten class is having a fantastic beginning to our school year. The children have been working hard these first few weeks learning new rules and routines and building stamina for both physical and academic activities. Our school’s Bible verse for the year encourages us that we have the Victory! “Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 15:57
Mrs. Sprengeler is teaching our Kindergarten Religion class, but learning about Jesus and the Bible happens all day long. We have class values that we refer to often. We discussed how a value is something important and worthwhile that we believe in and live out to the best of our ability. Each value has a Bible verse that shows that God values these things too. As a class we are striving to be:
Thankful (1 Thessalonians 5:18)
Diligent (Colossians 3:23)
Honest (Proverbs 12:22)
Patient (Galatians 6:9)
Forgiving (Matthew 6:14-15)
Respectful (1 Peter 2:17)
Kind (Ephesians 4:32)
Attentive (Hebrews 2:1)
Self-Controlled (2 Timothy 1:7)
Joyful (James 1:2)
Obedient (1 John 2:3)
Loving (John 13:34-35)
On the first day of school we read “How Full Is Your Bucket For Kids” by Tom Rath and discussed how to fill each other’s ‘buckets’ with kind words and actions. We have a small bucket students can fill with pom poms when other people are kind to them. When the bucket is full we celebrate with a class party. We just earned our first party this week! It takes many pom poms to fill a bucket so there have been many acts of love and friendship in this first month!
Calendar is a big part of our morning routine and incorporates many different literacy and math skills. We count days of school, spell the month and recognize and continue patterns. This is another area where we’ve been practicing good writing as we write the month and day of the week every day in interactive calendar notebooks. We also chart weather to introduce bar graphs.
In Literacy we have learned 9 letter sounds, the difference between letters, words and sentences, and how to make a list. We’ve been doing a lot of writing: in our journals, in our handwriting books, making books of our own, and practicing writing our first names correctly. We’ve also read many, many books!
For Math we have studied positional words such as top, bottom, middle, above, below, before, in front of, between, after, behind, left and right. We’ve also gone over colors and how to spell color words, and are starting on 2D shapes.
Every day of the week we have a different learning activity. On Make It Monday we do art which has included careful coloring, patterns, watercolor and cutting so far. Techie Tuesdays are STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) activities. We made lemon volcanoes, built bridges for teddy bears and learned about the life cycle of an apple tree to start off. On Walking Wednesdays we take a walk around the neighborhood to enjoy God’s creation. We work on our walking in line skills, and on observing the world around us. The kids really enjoy Thinking Thursdays when we do puzzles or play memory/thinking games. Fridays we work on Fine Motor skills such as scissor skills and handwriting.
Our first few weeks in Kindergarten have gone by quickly and have been filled with fun and learning. I look forward to seeing all the ways the kindergarteners grow this year, both academically and in their faith and character.
