This week in science, we are starting a very exciting project — our Butterfly Journal! The students are observing live caterpillars growing in our classroom, and we’ll be documenting their transformation into beautiful butterflies. We will incorporate drawing, labeling, and writing into our journals to observe their transformation. This hands-on experience is helping us learn about the life cycle of insects, the process of metamorphosis, and how to be careful, curious scientists.

We can’t wait to share more with you as our butterflies grow! 🐛➡️🦋

This week we are going to be doing a little bit of a Science/Social Studies mashup, and we are going to be focusing on Maps! We will start the week by talking about position words (Left, Right, up, down, etc.) then move onto symbols (rivers, roads, lakes, buildings etc.), then make a map of our school. To finish out the week, we will move to a bigger scale and talk about the globe and different land formations around the world. Use this week to talk to your students about different directional landmarks that you might see on your drive to and from school, as well as showing them of the area around their house! 

At Westgate, we believe we have a duty to contribute to our community. To support this mission, each grade level has a service learning project, where they learn ways to create meaningful change in and out of Westgate. Kindergarten’s service learning project is all about pollinators! Throughout this year, kindergarteners have been exploring the importance of pollinators and what we can do to support them. This week, we are going to showcase all that we’ve learned with an interactive poster project. With these posters, student’s will be able to demonstrate how pollinators use the parts of a plant to survive and help plants grow. 

We are learning all about what animals do in the winter in our classroom! We will be exploring what animals hibernate, migrate, or adapt in the winter and what they do to survive. 

What can you do at home to support your kindergarteners? Learn about animals in the winter at home. Go outside or look outside from a window. Listen and look for animals! What animals do you see and hear? What do you observe them doing? 

This week we will be learning about the life cycle of a pumpkin. Your students will learn how pumpkins start from a seed and grow into a pumpkin. On Friday, we will get the opportunity to dissect pumpkin as a class. We will review what living things need to live and grow. Plants need air, light, space, soil, and water to live and grow. 

Pumpkin Life-Cycle

Seed → Sprout → Vine → Flower → Green Pumpkin → Pumpkin 

This week we will get to learn about another pollinator, bats! Remind your students that pollinators are useful because we need them to help plants grow. There are many types of pollinators and they all do their part to help plants flourish. 

This week, we will be taking a break and beginning another unit in Science. In preparation for our field trip to Miller Farms on September 25th, we will be doing a unit all about the difference between living things and non-living things. During this unit, your student will learn all about what is living vs. non-living. At home you can ask your student if something is living and non-living and see if they can do it! 

This week in Science, we will be discussing weather and seasons. We will track the weather as a class and learn how weather is made up of a combination of sunlight, wind, snow, rain, and temperature from specific regions. Encourage your kindergartener to engage in discussion about what they notice about the weather and what kind clothing they should wear each morning. To support their learning, we will create weather dolls and your student will get to dress them up based on the weather/season.