Kindergarten: Starting with Love

I was thrilled to finally have kinder testing complete so that we could start classes.  I will meet with my sweet kindergartners on Friday mornings.  Our first Friday was Valentine’s Day, so we wrapped some GT thinking skills around this special day of love and friendship.

We started with a logic puzzle, a Valentine Soduko.  One of my kindergartners knew the rules for Soduko and was able to teach the rest of his classmates.  The kids used the SmartBoard to drag the letters in LOVE to fill in our Soduko board.  They did a great job working together and explaining why certain letters worked in certain cells.

Photo Feb 14, 2 04 34 PM

After using our Convergent Thinking skills to solve our logic problem it was time to give our Divergent Thinking skills a work out. They started with a fluency activity, brainstorming all the ways we love.  They had some great ideas: HUGS, KISSES, LAUGHING, PLAYING, SHARING, etc.  Many of the kids discussed how hearts showed love, which led nicely into our next activity.  I showed them a cut out of a heart and we discussed what job the heart could have when it wasn’t busy at Valentine’s.  Each child glued a heart to a piece of paper and added details showing what other job it could have. They were quite creative.
Hearts at Work on PhotoPeach

We also read a wonderful poem called Honey, I Love by Eloise Greenfield.  The poem is a list of all the things that she loves, but in a twist at the end she shares something she DOES NOT love.  The kindergarteners made a list of the many things they do love and one thing they do not love.  I enjoyed reading their lists as it gave me some insight into their personalities.  I compiled their lists into a Wordle.  The bigger the word, the more it was used.  You can also see the sentences of the things they do NOT love.  Just like my kids, having to go to sleep is one of their not so favorite things. 🙂

kinder Wordle

And lastly, right before we finished our day we brainstormed many different things we love.  I hope you will add to our Padlet below!