COMPUTERS - Mr. Friedman

Kindergarten students began the year with an introduction to the new lower school lab. Students were told all about the new computers and monitors, and were also informed about our Internet AUP, Acceptable Use Policy, for Internet usage. Several exciting and enriching technology activities unfolded during this first session of school. Children used Kid Pix Deluxe 3.0 to create slides for the Halloween slide presentation. The students also began their keyboarding lessons using the highly animated program, Kid Keys 2.0. This program teaches the children letter key recognition through fun tutorial-based typing activities. Kindergarten students also used the program KidWorks Deluxe to design and print Thanksgiving booklets. Children learned to insert text and graphics in this fun-filled word processing lesson. Finally, students were informed about the year-long boat race, Around Alone. This is an around the globe race that involves skippers piloting a boat by themselves. Each class chose a skipper to follow for the year. Students, using our web browser Microsoft Internet Explorer, kept track of race news from the Internet. The students also contributed to the winter concert by creating program covers using the program Kid Pix Deluxe 3.0.

MUSIC - Mrs. Moorhead 

During the fall semester kindergarten students have learned the concepts of steady pulse, rhythm versus beat, quarter and eighth notes, and quarter rests by echo-clapping, reading, and writing patterns from their song repertoire. Through the singing of folk, multicultural, holiday, seasonal, and general interest songs the children have begun to develop an awareness of pitch-matching and vocal technique. They have especially enjoyed learning repertoire for Halloween, the all-school Thanksgiving assembly, Shipley Today, and the winter concert in December. Music listening examples have included compositions such as Mozart's Variations on a French Folk Tune and Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Xylophones, various percussion instruments and hand chimes have been used in class to accompany songs and dramatize stories. Call-and-response music games have facilitated the children’s ability to distinguish high from low and loud from soft sounds. The students' musical and social skills have been developed through creative movement, line dances, and partner and group games.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION - Ms. Whelan

The program is designed to provide opportunities for the child to increase his or her knowledge and skills that promote physical activity as a part of everyday life and to enhance his or her self-image through active and successful participation in movement activities. These activities include locomotive skills such as walking, running, hopping, sliding, galloping, skipping and marching. Also incorporated into the first semester are manipulative skills that encompass throwing and catching an assortment of objects such as balls, Frisbees, and beanbags. Bouncing and catching a ball, dribbling a ball with two hands and one hand, and throwing a ball into and at a target are skills that are developed. Both locomotive and manipulative skills are taught through drills, partner games, low organizational games and cooperative games. These abilities are reinforced in a skills challenge class, which is made up of 6 to 12 stations, each developing the different skills being taught in that particular unit. Another component of the kindergarten program, body awareness, is taught through exploration activities such as interpretive movement to music. Music is also used during the warm-up and fitness component. Emphasis is placed on listening, following directions and cooperation.   

SCIENCE - Mrs. Moorhead

Kindergarten students began the year by discovering that air has weight and pressure, and that wind is moving air. The children then studied a unit on water and its properties, cycles, forms, density, and sources. They did experiments to test the degree of absorption of various materials and weighed slices of cut fruit to determine how much water had evaporated over a period of one week. Subsequently the students did experiments with thermometers to measure, compare, and graph temperatures of cold, warm, and hot water. The computer program Sammy's Science House was used for class instruction during the weather unit. Classroom projects included making books about the wind and the fall season. In the geology unit the children examined and compared various types of rocks, minerals, and fossils. As part of a lesson on measurement, the children used rulers with metric markings to measure various objects. The semester concluded with a unit on the solar system.