October 10-13

 Hello Families!  

The weather sure has changed this week! We've stayed cozy and dry inside most of the week, watching the changing of the seasons from the comfort of our classroom- while we have been learning, playing, and creating together.

Our word of the week was "Friendship".  We read stories about friendship and talked about ways to be a kind friend.  We even made our own "Friendship soup" adding all kinds of ingredients that make up good friendships.  You can ask your Kindergartener what ingredient they added to our soup.  We did writing about friends in our journals this week, using details in our illustrations to share information about who we like to play with and our favourite things to do with our friends.

We read stories with lots of rhymes this week and we have been practicing identifying words that rhyme and words that do not.  We have also been playing the "Listening game" to develop "Phonemic Awareness".  We are listening to all kinds of words to notice the first and last sounds and are very proud of ourselves when we can "hear" the sounds together.

We read the story "Leaf Man" this week and  created our very own Leaf Creatures.  We used nature materials that we have brought in over the last few weeks to plan and make our own work of art.  We spent time explore our nature materials, sorting and describing leaves, talking about how different items felt, and seeing what shapes we could make with them.  We also found 2 lady bugs in our piles of treasures.  They have been named and cared for all week.  It was incredible to see what students came up with for their Leaf Man picture- our classroom is turning into quite the gallery.  

In math, we have been working on our number journals, learning how to write and represent numbers.  We have been learning how to show numbers on a ten frame, and we have been practicing the skill of "subitizing" (using our eyes to recognize dots/numbers quickly and automatically).  We continue to show great perseverance while we practice writing our numbers as digits.  It can be tricky or hard to try new things- especially when they look "funny" at first- but we keep on trying- and we can do it!

In our center times we have been developing our fine motor skills using little lego, playing board games like "Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel" and "Shark Bite" that require lots of hand-eye coordination, and using scissors and glue to make all kinds of open-ended art.  Students have been writing small Halloween and Fall books at the writing centre, painting with pine cones and searching for jewels in the bean bin.  The builders have been exploring with lots of boxes and tubes to create city scapes.  They morning group of students have been building cities for the afternoon kids to explore- and then the afternoon kids have been adding on for the morning kids to see the next day.  There have been many incredible designs that have continued to grow and grow all week long.  The excitement to see what has been built and "left behind" by the "other class" has been lots of fun this week.  

This Friday was also SUPER amazing because the PM class had a chance to meet and spend time with their own Grade 4 Big Buddy.  The AM class will be meeting their Big Buddy this upcoming week.  The Big Buddies (students from Grade 4) will be coming to do activities, play alongside us, and read with us throughout the year. 

Next week, we will be starting "All about Me" and students will be bringing home a little activity to participate in.  It should only take a few minutes to do at home, and then students will be able to share a little bit about themselves at school.  It is called a "Me Bag" and it will be going home in student's backpacks on Monday.  It will have instructions with it, but please reach out if you have any other questions about it.

As always, thank you for all of your support in your child's learning! 

Here are some pictures of our week!