April 27-May 1

What a beautiful spring week! We have LOVED the sunshine, the early sunrises, and warm days! This was our last week of April and we had lots of Egg-citement in our classroom as there was an arrival of eggs and an incubator that have arrived to be in our classrooms.  

Mrs. Rupert's neighbour lives on a big farm and has graciously shared a bundle of eggs with our classroom so we can observe the hatching process, have our own class pets and learn all about our mystery eggs.  We learned about creatures, birds and animals come from eggs.   We noticed that our eggs were different sizes, shapes and colours.  We made predictions about what could possibly be inside.  We know that waiting for an egg to hatch requires lots and lots of patience!  Hopefully they will hatch soon.  We can't wait to meet them.

This week we learned all about the letter Z.  We created Zebra puppets, practiced making letter Z's and can identify words that begin with the letter Z.  The morning class was able to do the Zipline Challenge on Friday (the PM class will get to do it this week).  They needed to use their scientific creativity to create a "rider" that would travel along a giant Zipline.  It required lots of planning, re-imagining, problem-solving and perseverance.

We continued our science exploration of the 5 Senses this week with a taste test.  We learned about our tongue, taste buds and how they can identify different tastes- like sweet, sour, bitter and salty.  We tried some different foods with strong flavours- like lemon, pretzels, a piece of candy and baking chocolate. We used our vocabulary to describe each food, and recorded whether or not we liked it.  There were lots of candy fans- and less lemon fans!

Our "Friendly Flower Shop" has continued to be very busy- we have added some pretend money now and a place to write cards and letters to go with our flower delivery.  We have also continued to develop our puzzle skills - our puzzle masters are now completing up to 200 piece puzzles throughout the week!  We have been crafting, reading stories, painting, building, playing board games, drawing with sidewalk chalk and running around with our friends at the playground, making up new games and developing our gross motor skills.

I am still looking for a few parent-volunteers for our PM class field trip to the Calgary Farmyard on May 29.  Please let me know if you can join us.

Also- please help your child to return their Library book weekly.  AM class goes to Library on Thursdays and PM class has Library on Tuesdays.  Thank you!

Here are some pictures from our week:

April 20-23

 
This week  in Kindergarten we tried not to blow away with the wild gusts of wind that blew through late in the week.  We were very excited as we had the opportunity to watch a "Spring Concert" dress rehearsal for the Grade 2's and 3's in the gym.  We are hoping that all of the Spring singing will encourage Spring to finally come and stay for a while.

This week we learned all about the letter Y.  We know that Y can make a bunch of sounds and we went on a "Y" hunt in our classroom.  We are such good writers that now when we go on letter and word hunts - we can copy the word and draw our own pictures to go along with it.  We also learned about a mountain dwelling animal- a Yak! What a funny word to say.  We learned a few things about Yaks and even practiced drawing one together.

Along with the letter Y, we made our own Yarn Art.  We engaged in "process art"- which is art for the sole purpose of creating art and bringing enjoyment.  We created our own designs using all different types of yarn and lots and lots of glue and paint.  We have our own Yarn Gallery in the hallway that has been growing.  It looks incredible.  Kindergarteners are fantastically creative artists.

We continued to explore the 5 senses this week by engaging in a "Yummy" and "Yucky" smell experience.  We learned all about how our nose works, how we smell things and why our sense of smell is important. Then we smelled lots and lots of smelly stickers and determined whether our sense of smell liked it or did not.  We noticed that everybody has different preferences when it comes to smell- everyone's brain thinks a little different- and that is cool.

Lastly, we celebrated "Earth Day" this week and learned all about how we can help work together to do small things to help keep the Earth clean and cared for.  We made our own plasticine Earth's to help us to remember to try our best to show love to the Earth.

In centre time "The Friendly Flower Shop" dramatic play centre opened and the Kindergarteners have been having lots of fun ordering, selling and arranging flowers.  We also have been building big block structures, creating art with plasticine and pastels, making butterflies and playing lots of board games. We also worked together to complete our biggest classroom puzzle yet- 200 pieces! Wow!

Upcoming Field Trips:

Kindergarten students will be taking a field trip to the Calgary Farmyard in May. If you are interested in volunteering, you will need to have completed a police clearance prior to the date. Please send Mrs. Rupert an email if you are interested in volunteering at kerupert@cbe.ab.ca. The dates are as below.

TUESDAYS (PM) & THURSDAYS  (AM) are our Library Day.  Continue to check around your house for any missing library books.

FRIDAY, MAY 1                         AM Kindergarten ONLY!

FRIDAY, MAY 8                         PM Kindergarten ONLY!

TUESDAY, MAY 12                   Class Photo Day

FRIDAY, MAY 15                       PD Day - NO SCHOOL

MONDAY, MAY 18                    Victoria Day - NO SCHOOL

FRIDAY, MAY 22                       AM Kinder to Calgary Farmyard 

FRIDAY, MAY 29                       PM Kinder to Calgary Farmyard

April 13-19

 Hello Families!

What a wacky week in Kindergarten as we watched Spring disappear in a giant snowfall! Wow! Our "Weatherperson of the Day" have been giving us all of the updates this week as we continue to shift between seasons! 

We had a great week together learning all about the letter Jj.  We have now covered 21 out of 26 letters of the alphabet- and we are becoming more and more confident using all of our letter and letter-sound knowledge to develop our reading and writing skills.  The Kindergarten students have been fearlessly "guess-spelling" everything and it is incredible to see their amazing skills growing everyday!

Along with the letter J we learned all about Jellyfish!  We know lots of facts about them.  We explored various non-fiction texts and watched a short video about them to learn more.  We discovered that they have no brain, bones, or heart.  And a group of Jellyfish is called a "Bloom".  We also made our own Jellyfish.  We also found out some neat facts about Jaguars and created our own Jaguar puppets at the art centre.

In Math, we revisited "Patterns".  We learned how to accurately "name" or label a pattern.  We explored materials to extend and create more complex patterns and worked to identify and label them using ABCD letters.  We participated in the "Great Jelly Bean Pattern Challenge" and then created and labelled  our own complex pattern using "jewels".  

During Science we continued to explore the 5 Senses.  We learned about our sense of hearing.  We went on a listening walk, learned about how our ears work, and practiced our listening skills playing "Guess the Sound" and "Telephone".  We also made lots of connections between how we use our senses and how other animals and creatures use theirs.  Like Jellyfish, and Jaguars.  So many connections.  The PM group was able to explore all 5 senses on Friday during our delicious experiment.  We made popcorn in an air popper.  We could hear the popcorn, smell it, touch it, see it and taste it. Yum.

The PM class also participated in "Joy Day".  It is a day we learn about what brings us joy, how we can share joy and how it feels inside when we spread joy to others.  They went on a "Secret Joy Mission"- surprising and delivering snacks and cards with joy messages on them to Teachers, Helpers and Staff in the school- it definitely spread LOTS of JOY!  The AM class will have an opportunity to have their own "Secret Joy Mission" another Friday.

In Centres, we have become more creative in our play- crafting all kinds of new things at the open art centre, building our own dollhouses- creating giant train track villages and creating our own restaurant in the House Centre. 

Families, please help your child to remember to return their Library Books.  Our PM class have Book Exchange on Tuesdays and the AM class has Library on Thursdays!  

Also- it will likely be very muddy and wet this week as the snow is melting.  Please send your child with boots as we will be going out to play!  

Here are some pictures from our week: