Friday February 14

Happy Heart Day! Valentines Day is such a fun holiday to celebrate with kindergarten, because they love sending sweet messages to friends, family, and teachers. This week we capitalized on that motivation to write and made anonymous Valentines for staff and teachers around the school. I wish you could have seen their faces when the kids skipped in their rooms and stuffed mailboxes with hearts reading, "You are beautiful" and "You are kind."

We also had a week-long free choice Valentine center open all week containing heart patterns, paper, scissors, and markers so that children could make Valentines to share with anyone they wished. Every day the table was full of kids crafting heartfelt notes... maybe you were even on the receiving end!

In math, we are beginning to think about decomposing numbers into parts. This is a precursor to addition and subtraction. Before we learn formal adding and subtracting, we will take time to explore how totals can be broken apart in many different ways and represented with numbers. (For instance, 5 is not just 1 and 4 and 2 and 3, but also 1 and 1 and 3 or 2 and 1 and 2. )

Thanks to everyone who organized, volunteered, donated, and helped write tiny names on cards in preparation for our Valentines Party... you really made it special for the kids and I'm grateful. Here are a few pictures from the party!

Velcro ball toss

Valentines crafts!

Cupcakes and BINGO

Happy Valentines Day!