Donamo's Kindergarten

 This week we learned about Chinese New Year.  We learned that children get Red Envelopes with money in them as a gift for Chinese New Year.  We made red envelopes and pretend coins to add to our envelopes.  We decorated our red envelopes with Gold Glitter, stickers, and a Chinese word.  The students chose what Chinese word they wanted on their envelope - Horse, Goat, Ox, or Good Luck.  We also learned about Chinese Zodiac animals, and what they represent.  This year is the Year of the Ox.   Most of our students were born in the year of the Goat, and two of our students were born in the year of the Horse.  "My Chinese Zodiac animal is a Goat." "My Chinese Zodiac animal is a Goat." "My Chinese Zodiac animal is a Horse." "My Chinese Zodiac animal is a Goat." "My Chinese Zodiac animal is a Goat." "My Chinese Zodiac animal is a Goat." "My Chinese Zodiac animal is a Goat." "My Chinese Zodiac animal is a Goat." ...

 Three weeks ago the students learned about storytelling and we read a varitey of "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" stories.  The students compared and contrasted the different versions of the stories.  Then they drew pictures of their "Three Billy Goats Gruff" stories and used the pictures to re-tell their version of the story.  Below are the pictures of their picture stories:

Two weeks ago the students had the opportunity to spend time drawing pictures on their whiteboards.  Then they were challenged to add words to their pictures.  Some students chose to sound out the beginning letter, other students sounded out the beginning, middle and end letters, while others chose to use kid-printing to represent their words.  Kid-printing is a very important stage of Early Literacy.  When using kid-printing the students write a random assortment of letters to signify the words they mean.  These pictures capture each students Early Literacy Skills: