The month of March was full of new vocabulary. I have underlined some of the words your children learned throughout our lessons. Test them at home to see how much they remember!
 
We began the month learning about food chains.  The children defined a food chain as how living things get nourishment.  We first discussed two of the parts of a food chain; producers (living things that get their nourishment from the sun) and consumers (living things that get their nourishment from other living things).  Children also learned to define living things by what they eat. Living things are either plant eaters, called herbivores, who consume leaves, branches and the fruit of plants; or carnivores, who are meat eaters and consume other living things such as cows, chickens, and rabbits.  Then the children were asked if they thought we were plant eaters or meat eaters.  Some children said we are meat eaters, some claimed we are plant eaters. In the end, we discovered most humans eat both meat and plants.  We then learned that creatures that eat both meat and plants are called omnivores.  Finally, we discussed how decomposers add nutrients to the soil to start the cycle over again. 
 
During the next week we dove right in to art. Children explored different art mediums and practiced with a few of them.  As most of us knew, we discussed how we can draw with pencils, crayons, and markers.  The first two "new" mediums the children used were pastels and charcoal. Everyone had a great time drawing and getting very dusty fingers using the pastels and charcoal.  We also discussed how we can create art by painting with oil paint, acrylic paint, and watercolors.  Students were challenged to create paintings without using paintbrushes.  Some amazing art was created using sticks, crinkled aluminum foil, sponges and Q-tips.  We ended the week by discussing different types of sculptures.  Some very creative works of art came from the clay we introduced to the children.  Children learned that being an artist means many different things. Artists can express thoughts or ideas, or they can simply create a picture or sculpture others will enjoy viewing.
 
"O 'top of the mornin' to ya!" On St. Paddy's day everyone is Irish and our theme of the week was Irish folklore.  We took notice of the many shades of green each of us wore on St. Patrick's Day. Children learned that the shamrock was one of the symbols of Ireland.  We found Ireland on our puzzle map of Europe and learned what the Irish flag looked like.  The children thought it was very funny that people hang upside down to kiss the Blarney Stone. They also thought it was strange that people thought kissing a stone would bring them grace and elegance.  Wide eyes stared at me when I told the myth of the leprechaun.  All the students found it entertaining that leprechauns are no bigger than each one of them, but look like old men.  I told them that leprechauns were pranksters and if you catch one you better keep an eye him or he will disappear.  And if you do hold on to one he may lead you to a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. 
 
In science we explored deeper into density by making another density bottle but putting drops of food coloring on top of the oil.  The food color floated until the students poked the drops through the oil into the water below and the children looked in awe as the food coloring made some really cool patterns before mixing completely in the water. 
 
Our spectacular Kindergarteners have continued their work diagramming sentences. They have been learning and working with different kinds of words and learning to recognize them in sentences.  We first reviewed nouns and verbs, which was easy for them.  We learned that pronouns take the place of nouns and worked with 6 pronouns he, she, we, it, they and you.  Children were also introduced to 3 simple words a, an, and the, which are called articles. They learned about the "an/a" rule. (Parents, ask them about it!)  We then looked at the ever so descriptive adjective.  We will review diagramming sentences when we return from spring break.