Fish Faces

Fish Faces by Norbert Wu is a book filled with colorful pictures of beautiful, fierce, and unusual looking underwater creatures that come in different sizes and shapes. After listening to the story, we created our own fish using construction paper and gave it a name. Then, we wrote what it ate and liked to do underwater.

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The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Even though it is warm all year round, we still are delighted since 'Spring has arrived'.  There is new life all around, especially in our classroom.  Elon's grandmother has been bringing in more caterpillars which have turned into chrysalises.  Very soon they will 'nibble' out of their cases and become butterflies. We created our own paper hungry caterpillars and wrote about the story. 

National Dot Day

Today is 'National Dot Day'. To celebrate this occasion, Mrs. Okamura, our school Librarian, read us the story The Dot by Peter Reynolds.  It is about a little girl, named  Vashti who thinks she can't draw. But later in the story she realizes she is a 'really great artist'.

We tried our hand in creating dot pictures using just paint and cotton swabs.  We  realized we were also ' really great artists'! Don't you agree?

Growing Vegetable Soup

Listening to stories is one of the  things we like best.  Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert was a really 'souper' book.  It was about a father and little child who planted  vegetable seeds, watered,  and watched them grow.  Afterwards, they  cut the vegetables and made a tasty soup. We didn't make any real soup, but we did the next best thing by making our own  soup,  using construction paper, with vegetables we like to eat.



Reminders for the Parent :

• Thursday, September 15th - Picture Taking Day.  Please dress  your child accordingly and submit payment.
• Thursday, September 22nd - All the children have expressed their excitement about Mathletics!  Great.  Many of the children completed their activities due on September 22nd.

What Is It?

Dr. Riley, our Head of School, visited and surprised us by teaching our class today.  She read us Seven Blind Mice, by Ed Young. This book was about seven blind mice who found something strange by their pond.  They tried to guess what this 'thing' was.  The seventh blind mouse 'saw' the whole picture and realized it was an elephant.

Our job was to trick our friends by showing them only a shape glued on our paper.  Then inside of our  folded paper, we showed them the shape within our 'whole' picture.  Dr. Riley was so much fun.  Hopefully she'll return and teach us again.

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Please remember:
Monday, Septembr 12th - Flu Consent Forms due.
Wednesday, September 14th - HTY play at Tenney Theater. Mahalo to chaperones Ms. Kanayama and Mrs. Umetsu. HMS t-shirt should be worn.
Thursday, September 15th - Picture Taking Day.  All  payments for pictures should be submitted by September 15th.

Jack and the Beanstalk

Jack and the Beanstalk is a  timeless folktale loved by children around the world.  The K-1 keiki enjoyed listening to the story and seeing the illustrations from the picture book. But, do you wonder what Jack would look like if you cut and glued parts of his body together with construction paper through the eyes of  a Kindergartener? The students were so excited as they created, collaborated and shared their version of Jack.  They also used their Math skills to measure various parts of his body.

When asked what they liked about this activity, their responses were genuine and spontaneous.

Bastien - Helping my friends doing the things I need to do
Reise - When we measured Jack
Zaffron - When the pants were big and fat
Sydney - When we measured the shirt

Michael - When we had to cut and paste the pieces for Jack
Brooke - Gluing all the pieces to make Jack 
Jake K. - Measuring Jack
Ashley - Everything

Mimi - It was fun because I like to make things.                                                                                Chase - Gluing on the shoes and measuring it                                                                                Stephanie - Doing the head and gluing the stuff on                                                                      Courtney - Gluing the pants and arms

Jake  L. - Measuring all the pieces                                                                                                   Christa - Working together                                                                                                                Aidan - Measuring the body

 

Junie B., First Grader (at Last!) by  Barbara Park is our current  Literature unit of study. This  story has fun plots and bridges the gap between summer school and the new school year that is quickly approaching. Have conversations with your child about their thoughts and feelings of entering first grade.

Where Can I Read?

After reading Green Eggs and Ham  by Dr. Seuss, we created a list of rhyming words.  The list was quite long, which was a good sign. We decided to write rhyming words of favorite places we could read.

Math is filled with  hands-on and collaborative activities.  All the keiki enjoyed  the Shapely Jungle  lesson where they formed animals from plane figure shapes, Scenes of Symmetry where colorful symmetrical shapes were cut to create a picture, and Shape It was an opportunity  to use Play Dough to form solid shapes. Maybe you can practice with your child identifying  objects that have symmetry in your home.

Wishing everyone a Happy 4th of July weekend.

Peter's Chair

Peter's Chair by Ezra Jack Keats is truly a classic. A new baby girl is now a part of Peter's family and his parents have painted his cradle and crib pink.  He wants to keep his baby chair for himself, but discovers it is too small for him.  Peter offers it to his dad so it can be painted pink.

The children created their own "How I've Grown"  illustrations and sentences about themselves as a baby and something they could do now. Listen to their  stories.

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Counting money and telling time  were covered this week in Math.  There was much laughter and priceless smiles when they were engaged in activities such as Cup of Coins (counting money) and Our Human Clock. Please continue to connect these math concepts when you are with your keiki because Math is used in everyday life.

Jennie's Hat

Jennie's Hat  by Ezra Jack Keats is about  a little girl named Jennie, whose favorite aunt was sending her a hat. Jennie was sure it would be beautiful with big colorful flowers.When the box arrives, the hat is very plain. However, she receives a surprise from some special  bird friends who decorate it for her.
After listening to the fanciful story, the children had the opportunity to decorate a dream hat of their own. Everyone was so excited to show off their hats!!

Slideshow personalized with Smilebox The children continued to listen to other books written by Ezra Jack Keats including: Whistle for Willie, Apt. 3, Hi Cat, and Peter's Chair.   They could compare themselves to the main characters and their problems as they face these challenges in their everyday life too. Math topics covered this week through games include Addition and Subtraction, Place Value to 100, and Greater and Less Than. Reinforcing these Math concepts in real life situations can be entertaining and amusing.....so please continue the good job you've all been doing with  your keiki!