Beautiful building

As part of our "children from other lands" unit we have been exploring attributes of our lives as children that are the same and different when compared to children from other parts of the world.  We have talked about clothing, foods, and celebrations.  Yesterday we took a closer look at homes and buildings from different places.  The children broke into teams and looked at three different types of structures, Asian inspired, Russian inspired, and Middle Eastern inspired.  We examined how the buildings looked alike and different and then attempted to build some structures.  They found this team challenge very exciting (be it a true challenge).  They did a beautiful job noticing the hard edges and curves of different types of buildings and comparing them to our sky scrapers and traditional American homes.

More measuring!

 Measuring lines around the room with popsicle sticks.  We learned to measure end to end for accuracy!

 The children had to measure lines of different lengths and record their findings.

We even learned to estimate by saying about "almost" a whole stick or "half" of a stick.

Papa Wright Party!

We had a special guest with us today name Papa Wright!   He came and taught us all about percussion and rhythm and beat...and the best part was we got to join him in making some awesome music.  Check out some of our in action snap shots....

Be sure to check back later tonight for some awesome kindergarten kid videos with Papa Wright!

Move over, measuring masters...

The kindergarten kids and their third grade buddies were on a roll today.  We have just started exploring measuring with non-standard units and kicked of the unit by using linking cubes to measure ourselves and our buddies.  We were even able to compare the two by looking at how many more or less blocks we used when measuring our buddies.  The students did a great job challenging themselves and counted beautifully...I was so proud of the re-counting happening as they got into the bigger numbers.  Be on the look out for more measuring challenges coming up this week and next and don't be afraid to have your child measure things around the house using their own choice of non-standard units.

Celebrations-Traditions (India)

Thank you to Nikhil and his mom for sharing about India.  The children had the opportunity to see the beautiful colorful clothes from India and learned that Indian children wear light cloth because India is a very hot place to live.  We even had the chance to model boy and girl outfits (thanks Nikhil and Amisha)!  The children also listened to music from India, heard about the native foods (many of which contain peanuts, sugar, and rice) and learned about special holidays and traditions (Diwali, henna, and bin-dis).  The children loved learning about a different place from their classmates.  We even learned how to greet someone who is taller than us....Namaste (hands together).

Measuring Maniacs!

We have just wrapped our first week of our new measurement and data math unit.  This week the children had the opportunity to read several books on measuring and learned vocabulary words such as longer, shorter, taller, heavier, and lighter as they worked to compare themselves to the word around them.  We had the opportunity today to talk more extensively about units and how when we measure in non-standard ( not fixed) units we need to look at our vocabulary attributes since they will affect how many of a unit we need to measure.  Next week we will dive into comparing the length of different objects and seeing how changing our units changes the number of items we need when measuring!