January 26-28

 Hello Families,

It was a short week- but a busy week!  The sun was shining, our pumpkin started growing up our window, we played, we laughed and we learned all kinds of amazing things.

We learned all about the letter O and the sounds that it can make.  We practiced writing the letter O, identifying words that begin with O, and hearing the O sound in the middle of words. We learned how to draw octopuses and practiced making circles in our fine motor journals. 

In math, we continued to explore circles as we jumped into learning about and exploring 2D shapes.  We practiced identifying different shapes in our classroom,  we counted sides of different shapes, and we used a variety of shapes to create "shape pictures".   You can ask your Kindergartener to tell you about some of the shapes they know and even have them show you different shapes around your house.  They are fantastic "shape-finders".

We ended our week reading a very story called "Moira's Birthday",  It was about a girl who wanted to throw an enormous birthday party and needed lots and lots of pizza.  We pretended that we were pizza chefs making pizzas for the party- and made our own "shape pizzas" using different shaped toppings.  We practiced identifying the shapes, counting the shapes using one to one correspondence and recording numbers on our pizza box.  

Important Dates to Remember:

Winter Olympics are beginning this coming Friday. To celebrate in Kindergarten, wear red and white to show our Canadian pride and support our athletes. 

TUESDAY (PM) and THURSDAY (AM) are library days. Please remember to send back library books each week. Thank-you! If students have library books out before library day. they will no longer be able to take a new book home. Please take a peek for any of those lingering library books at home!

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6: AM Class ONLY

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11: Wear red, purple, pink or white for Valentine's Day

FEBRUARY 12, 13 & 16:   No school for Teacher's Convention and Family Day              

***Valentines Day information will be sent in a School Messenger shortly.*** 

Here are some pictures from our week:

January 19-23

Hello Families, 

We started the week by learning about the letter N and what sound it makes. We practiced writing the letter N in our fine motor journals as well. Let me tell you some words that begin with the letter N!  We read stories about newts and narwhals.  We especially liked reading the story "Narwhal makes a sandwich".  We learned how to draw our own narwhal in our writing journals.

Next, we practiced hearing the different sounds between the letters M and N by doing an M/N sort. We cut out different pictures of things that start with M or N. To sort, we said the word and then asked our friends what shape our mouth was in (closed lips or open) to help us decide where the picture should go.  N and M sound and look a little bit similar- so it was helpful to practice and notice the difference with our mouth shape.  We have continued to practice listening for rhyming words, counting syllables and blending sounds to make words during our phonics times. 

 

We read the story Sneezy the Snowman to practice our sequencing skills this week. We cut out and glued the different pictures of the ways the children in the story helped warm up Sneezy the Snowman. Ask me to tell you all about the story.  

 

We finished the week by practicing the number 8 and representing it in different ways in our math journals. We read a story about an Octopus Escape and discovered new facts about Octopuses.  We know octopuses have 3 hearts, 8 legs and blue blood.  They can also camouflage and shoot ink to protect themselves.  We love learning animal facts together.

Our PM class were excited to have Big Buddies this week- especially since it was too cold to go outside and play on our Fun Friday. We played a few of our favourite math games together- practicing turn taking, subtilizing, writing numbers, and one to one correspondence.  We always love to see our Big Buddies!  Our PM classes worked on creating their Art cards as well.

 

During centre times we built with new building toys, made playdoh cupcakes, explored magnets in the rice bin, created structures with big blocks, painted and coloured.  

 Next week Provincial Assessments continue. I will be in the building working with individual students to complete these assessments on several days, but there will be a guest teacher in the classroom during these times.   

Important Dates to Remember:

We are collecting toilet paper rolls for a project we are going to do in February. Please bring in any clean toilet paper rolls to school. Thank-you!

 

Valentines Day will be here before we know it. The Kindergarten team will be sending out information regarding this next week. 

 

Tuesdays (PM) and Thursdays  (AM) are our library days. Please remember to send back library books each week. Thank-you!

THURSDAY, JANUARY 29:  NO SCHOOL FOR KINDERGARTEN ONLY

FRIDAY, JANUARY 30: PD Day - No School 

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6: AM Class ONLY

 

Here are some pictures from our week:

 

January 12-16

 Hello Families,

We had a wonderful week together as we had a burst of warm-ish weather, some windy days and lots of sunshine! Our "weatherperson of the day" had quite the job this week reporting all of the weather changes happening outside of our window. Being the Leader and Weatherperson of the day is a very big event in Kindergarten.

This week we learned all about the Letter M.  We can print the letter M, identify words that have an M sound at the beginning and the end and we noticed lots of letter M's in printed text.  We drew a Mouse together, and spent lots of time reading, retelling and acting out the story "The Mitten" by Jan Brett.  Children created their own animal headband and participated in a dramatic retelling "Kinder Theatre" class play together at carpet time this week. We also used animal pictures to sequence the story and retell the events that happen in the correct order.  If you haven't had a chance yet, ask your Kindergartener to tell you the story "The Mitten".  They can show their story strip too!

In Math, we learned about the number 7 and practiced representing it in different ways.  We read a story called "Mouse count" with 10 mice and a hungry snake.  We created patterned mittens and extended and created patterns using bingo dabbers.  We also continued to develop our number sense and subtilizing skills by learning and playing a new partner math game called "Ka-boom" (sort of like the card game "War), but with ten frame cards.  We are practicing identifying numbers on a ten frame and also comparing which number is bigger and which number is smaller.  We are practicing counting forwards and backwards and identifying which number comes before and which number comes after different numbers.  These are great skills to practice at home, in the car, waiting in lines, etc.  These Kindergarten students are so smart.

Throughout the rest of the week we played on the light table in our fort, played house, created obstacle courses, played in a parachute in gym class, built giant floor puzzles, made prints on the bottom of plates, wrote mini-stories and made cards, spent time with our big buddies at the park and doing a scavenger hunt and visiting the Library.   As always, it was a very eventful week.

Just a reminder- please do not send toys to school with your child,  If they bring toys to school they will need to keep them in their backpack- as many toys are being taken out to play and then lost or left behind.  We have lots of toys at school, and I have had a conversation with the class about how school toys need to stay at school and home toys need to stay at home or in a safe spot in your backpack.

Also- in the next few weeks we are going to be making a special Olympic craft- and we will need empty toilet paper rolls or paper towel rolls (tubes?)- please save some up or send some in if you don't mind.

Lastly, if there are any families that are willing or able to help make a batch or two of playdoh- please let me know- we would be so grateful! Thank you thank you thank you!

Here are some other pictures from our week together:

January 5-9

 

Hello Families!

Happy New Years!  It was so exciting to return to school and all be together again.  The Kindergarten students were all so happy to see one another and catch up- sharing all about their Winter Breaks, giving hugs and returning to play and learning together.  Thankfully, we had some sunshine and (slightly) warmer weather so we could go outside and play too.

This week we jumped right back into our learning by reviewing letters, letter sounds, rhyming and blending compound words during our phonics times.  We also learned all about the letter W. We know what sound a W makes, how to write a W and we can identify so many "W" words.  We painted "Whales with Polka Dot Tails", made our own "watches" and we read stories about Winter and worms.  The PM class learned about Walrus's and even had a chance to do some taste testing- trying juicy watermelon and snacking on "warm waffles".   Our AM class will have another taste test Friday soon- don't worry!

During our math times, we continued to work in our number journals.  We practiced recording numbers in different ways, practiced our subitizing skills and even played a math game with Ms. Rupert's giant dice. We read the story "Six Sticks" and created our own "Math Masterpiece" using 6 popsicle sticks.  We used our imaginations and we all had so many different ideas.   I will share them next week on the blog as we are still finishing them up.

We did some journaling this week, shared lots of stories, visited the Library, exercised in the gym and we explored lots of new centres.  We made a fort for our light table and made cool, glowing towers, we played so many board games and practiced drawing triangles in our fine motor books. It was a good week full of lots of joy.  I was so happy to have the Kindergarten family back together.

Here are some pictures from our week: