January 8-12

 Happy New Year!

Our Kindergarten Family was excited to be reunited this week and although it was in the words of one of our classmate's " minus a bazillion degrees" outside, it was cozy and warm inside.  We were very happy to see "Little Greeny" our pumpkin survived the holiday and is continuing to grow and grow!

Our word of the week this week was "Manners" and we took the time to review our classroom expectations and routines as well as noting that manners make everyone feel welcomed and cared for.  We took it upon ourselves to use our best manners greeting our Librarian, taking care of our classroom, interacting with our buddies and journeying around the school on our scavenger hunts.  Our letter of the week was "M" and we can identify all kinds of words that start with the /M/ sound.  You can ask your Kindergartener to make the Mm sound for you- they are soooo magnificent at it!  We read lots of stories by the author Robert Munsch.  Stories with M sounds like "Murmel, Murmel, Murmel" and "Mortimer" (a boy who definitely needs to practice using his manners).

The Kindergarten students became so interested in words that began with M- and decided that we needed to make "masks" during centre time- so you may have seen some of these creations coming home this week.  

In Math, we started to learn about 2D shapes and some students were able to go on a scavenger hunt with our class, or thier big buddies to look for different shapes in our school.  We could find so many- they were everywhere.  We also continued to work on our number fluency- playing subitizing games with ten-frame cards and making numbers on our own ten frames.  We were very excited about getting turns to come up and make different numbers on the whiteboard using the ten-frame magnets.  We are becoming number experts and can show numbers in lots of different ways.

We were able to get outside for at least one day, but when the temperature is -20 or below, we definitely stay indoors.  During these times we played group games, had extra buddy time, and had extra story times inside.  The AM students were able to do a special science experiment on Friday making their own snow crystals.  They are waiting to see if the experiment worked on Tuesday when they return to school.   The PM class will be able to try this experiment next Friday. 

I have noticed lots of left over winter items in the classroom this week.  Please check the photo to see if anything has not made it home to you so I can help to make sure it goes back home with your child- you can send me a quick email.  Labelling winter gear is super helpful so I can help to make sure things do not get left behind for long.

Thanks for all of your continued support!

Stay Warm and enjoy some highlights from our week!