Kindergarten @ BPC

   Last Tuesday was Project Night and the Art Exhibit at Black Pine Circle. We focused primarily on group work to build the tiny towns that you saw displayed in the K classroom. This project incorporated all of our major subjects (reading, writing, math, social studies and science). It was great to see our youngest students advocating for their ideas, and showing support for the ideas of their peers. This project is a great example of one of the four tenants of BPC, "community". When we debriefed in class about  the project, a common thread was that all of our students felt like they were listened to, and that their ideas we're valued by their group. They found ways to include everyones input into their towns, right down to agreeing on the names. One of our towns (Animal/Ninja Town) even combined their naming ideas to include everyones thoughts. As is often said in our classroom "Team work makes the dreamwork!"    Another tenant of our BPC community was on

  The art show is in a few short weeks and the K's are busy working hard on the pair of projects Ms. Kim has developed for them to display at the show.  Without giving too much away, the projects are centered on personal experiences that our youngest students have had. I have had the pleasure of watching these projects take form and progress to almost-completion.   In the last week before break we also took a walking field-trip to the East Bay Nursery with Ms. Lockwood. I've added some of the pictures from our trip for your enjoyment. Whats Happening in K? Readers Workshop We shopped for new books! We learned to match our reading voice to the characters emotion and to what is happening in the story. Reading with this kind of voice can help us understand context, as well as making reading more fun! Writers Workshop The K's wrote and illustrated poems about spring. You can see them displayed on our hallway bulletin board. Math We reviewed what we have

Spring greetings!    To kick off spring we have started to explore what kindness looks, sounds, and feels like. We started our journey of kindness by gathering ideas of how to be kind from the kindergartners, and by making a poster to hang in the classroom. A picture of their wonderful ideas is posted below.    We have also begun to "catch" kindness in our classroom. If a student sees or hears a friend being kind, they are invited to write or draw what they witnesses and add it to our kindness catcher. I've included a picture of it below, as well. Some examples are "I saw some one help a friend up when they fell."  or "Some one helped clean up a station they were not working in." At the end of every day Ms. Ronquillo reads the kindnesses from the catcher, and we reflect on the day.    Watching our students participate in acts of kindness, and then celebrate those acts is truly a beautiful and fulfilling event, and we hope that you witness the

Hello K families, Last Wednesday was our class trip to the Lawrence Hall of Science. We participated in their Motion Commotion workshop, where the kindergartners designed, built, tested and revised structures to accomplish design challenges. You can learn more about this project from the write up we sent home in the kindergartners take home folders this week. We walked the museum after our workshop and participated in exhibits that explored parachute building, rocket construction, how wind farms work and many other valuable and immersive activities. But talk of the trip was, as it is every year, getting to climb on the giant humpback whale in front of the museum! Art In art class we have been making collages with our painted papers for our upcoming art show in the spring. Apparently it was so busy in the studio that there are no pictures of our cutting and gluing sessions. Also, just a reminder to please bring your empty art po

Hi all, Not much to share, since we have only had four teaching days since our last post. So, PICTURES! :) Ryan P.E. One of the best ways to create success with our kids is to have them do it together, cheering each other on, working together to triumph over a challenge and celebrating a job well done as a team. Science   Gardening      Ms. Fryke left some big gardening clogs to fill, but I’m honored to have the opportunity to work with the BPC Lower School students as the garden educator for the remainder of the school year.     February has been a remarkable time in the garden. Our focus has been on nurturing the soil in preparation for planting. Kindergarteners understand that the soil is alive and needs to be fed just like humans and animals. We have been feeding the soil with nutrient-rich compost and by creating a chopped salad of nitrogen-fixing cover