This week the Kindergarten children had fun learning more about our school mascot when the class stuffed animal Cougars went missing! The Cougars went on a tour of the school, so the children participated in a scavenger hunt to locate them. After meeting many of our school community helpers, the children finally found the missing Cougars in Mrs. Kriegel's office along with some delicious Cougar paw cookies! The children loved this activity and are getting very excited for the All School Gathering on Friday when they might even get to see the real MKA Cougar in action demonstrating some school pride.

Kindergarten-age children are so active that they rarely take the time to stop and look at themselves in a mirror.  This week our students did just that.  We invited them to sit down and take a long look in a mirror to study their faces in a way they have never done before.  Afterwards, the children drew their own faces on paper based on what they saw in the mirror.  Drawing a self portrait allows children to be both the subject and the artist and gives them the freedom to make a statement about themselves.  We listened to what the children had to say as they worked, which helped us learn so much about each child’s identity.  Please make sure to sneak a peek in the Kindergarten hallway to view an inside look at how we are learning about ourselves.

This week our Kindergarten students discussed the many different types of shapes. We examined the characteristics of each shape and then sorted them by the number of sides, color, and size. As the focus is  "All About Me" at the start of our school year, we thought it would be fun to create our own faces using the shapes! The children talked about the different shapes they might use for each part of their face and experimented as they navigated through the project with friends. This topic will help us lead into discussions about creating self portraits that the children will design next week. We learned that shapes are all around us!