March 18-22

 Hello Families!

It was wonderful seeing so many families at our Parent-Teacher Conferences.  I know the Kindergarten students were very excited about being able to share their Non-Fiction Animal Fact Books and their Family Pictures.  Thank you families for supporting your child's learning- I loved sharing their progress with you and all of the amazing things they have been up to at school.
I wanted to send a huge THANK YOU to the families and students who gifted our classroom with new books from the Book Fair.  I look forward to sharing them with the children after Spring Break.  

Since we had only 3 days at school together, I chose a nice 3 letter word for our word of the week.  Our word was "JOY".  We talked about how Joy is a feeling deep within your heart.  It's like love spilling over and it can come and sweep you off your feet.  We know that we can look for moments of Joy in our day- times we can notice Joy in our own hearts- and also times we can bring those "Joyful" moments to others.

Our AM Kindergarten class was able to experience sharing Joy with others with our "Cart of Joy".  We decorated and loaded up a cart of coffee and snacks to surprise the Teachers and Special Workers in our school- to tell them we appreciate all the hard work they do- and to make them smile.  The PM class will also have a "Secret Kindness Mission" like this, later in the year.  We loved watching faces light up with joy- it made us feel so good too.  

During the week we continued to work on our family pictures, carefully colouring and labelling them- doing our best work.  We also read some stories and journaled about our families.  We did letter review, practiced phonics- like compound words and counting syllables and we practiced labelling pictures using our understandings of letters and their corresponding sounds.

In Math, we continued to practice problem solving.  We learned how we can use a ten-frame as a strategy to help us solve math questions.  We tried solving math problems that have more than one answer- and many of the students were eager to challenge themselves to find as many ways as they could.  

This week we LOVED going to the gym to participate in Mission Impossible- a super cool obstacle course.  Thank you to our Phys. Ed Teacher Mr. Van Sluys for making a super challenging and amazingly fun course.  

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Spring Break, and that the sunshine and mild weather returns soon!  I look forward to seeing all of the Kindergarten students after the break!   Thank you for continuing to support your child's learning:)

March 11-15

 

Our word of the week was "Brave" and we showed courage and bravery throughout the week as week become more and more independent in our learning- taking risks "guess spelling" all on our own in our journals and tackling new word problems in math.  Sometimes we may feel uncomfortable or nervous when we are trying new things on our own, or doing hard things.  We know that we can take a deep breath, think about what we need to do- and then give it our best try.   When we try- and do our best- we are brave.  

The Kindergarten students were able to share their family photos this week and ask each other questions about their families.  We spent time working on our detailed illustration skills as we drew and labeled our families.  We worked very hard on these this week and can't wait to share them at Parent Teacher Conferences next week.

During our Literacy time we read stories about families, and about our letter of the week "Jj".  We played a game called "Hey, hey, does it start with J?" and practiced making the letter J.  We sang songs about J and even made some jiggly jellyfish. During our phonics times we have been working on rhyming and medial sounds (the vowel sound in the middle of words).  We like to practice our medial sounds using what we call "Rollercoaster Arms".

During our math times we played a tally game called "Roll, Tally- Get the Gold!" to practice subitizing and tallying.  We also did some math problem solving and found that there are sooooo many ways to solve a problem.  We worked together to solve problems, shared how we solved them and explained our thinking to our classmates with pictures and our words.

We made sure to go outside and enjoy the sunshine and had way too much fun in the puddles.  My apologies for the wet clothes and muddy boots this week as we explored the changes happening outside as the snow melted into ginormous puddles that were just too hard to resist.  We loved splashing, jumping, running and playing in the mud, puddles and broken ice.  We are noticing how the sun is coming up and lighting up the sky, how the grass is starting to show, how the geese are flying back and how the rabbits hopping around are beginning to have different patched of brown fur growing in.  We have become very aware and observant of our environment and how it is transforming before our eyes.

In Center times we continued to play "school", had fun building and planning our builds for our cups and giant lego pieces.  We played board games, created a 4 leaf clover craft with our Buddies, went to the gym to participate in Gymnastics and visited the Library.  

One last thing!

We finally filled our Cutting Jar to the very top!  We brainstormed the perfect reward for our teamwork and decided on having a "Show and Tell" day on Monday.  Students are invited to bring something (1 thing) to share with the class at our Monday Meeting.  It will also go home with them on Monday.  It has to be able to fit in a bag, and not be the most important/expensive thing- as we don't want anything tooooo important to ever be misplaced or forgotten.  The Kindergarteners were very excited for this- so thank you for helping them to remember:)

Please remember to also book a Parent Teacher Conference for next Thursday or Friday (March 21/22).  I look forward to seeing you then.  

Thank you for continuing to support your child's learning.  Here are some pictures from our week!

March 4-8

Our Kindergarten class has been busy at "School" in our school centre this week.  Our little classroom has been opened and students have been LOVING the opportunity to play "Teacher" and "Assistant Teacher" and "students" all week.  They have been teaching each other carpet time, the routines, practicing numbers and letters, talking to each other and encouraging each other in their learning, and even having each other practice walking in lines through the classroom to the "imaginary library" (the carpet), "the park" (our coatroom) and "to play parachute" (around a table).  Once again- imagination is hard at work, and so many skills are being developed through our cooperative play:)

Our word of the week this week was "Problem-Solving".  We learned all about different types of problems- like "Big Problems", "Medium Problems" and "Small Problems".  We read stories, did role playing and found solutions to some problems all on our own.  You can ask your child all about the types of problems and as small problems arise at home- see if they can notice what type of problem it is- and if they can problem solve it.  For example: If our pencil needs sharpening, we can sharpen it.  If we spill, we can clean it up.  If we forget our library book- we can tell Ms. McLeod we'll bring it next time.  If we are frustrated with our zipper- we can try again or ask a friend for help.  We are learning how to be independent- and find solutions to those small problems in life!  We have done so well practicing this at school this week.

We also explored the concept of "Problem Solving" during our math times.  We began doing some math problem solving- exploring different strategies we can use to help us solve new questions.  We are also sharing our problem solving steps through math talks, and realizing that there sometimes are more than one way to solve a problem.  Asking your child questions like "If there are 4 people at the table- how many eyes are at the table?" is a good way to practice this at home-ways for students to stop, think, plan how they will solve it- and then sharing their understanding is an awesome way to boost confidence in problem-solving abilities.  We also played some subitizing dice games and completed another survey with tally marks.

Our letter of the week was "Dd" and we learned how Dd and Bb are different- although they may look similar.  We were able to identify lots of words that start and end with the letter D and practiced our letter formation and labeling skills in our Letter journals.  This week we also practiced syllables, blending sounds and rhyming.  We played a rhyming game that was lots of fun where the students needed to tell us what they would bring on a picnic- except they had to rhyme their word and the group would guess (ex: I will bring mananas (bananas) or rookies (cookies)).

We finished the last page of our Animal Fact books and are proud to be Authors of our own Non-Fiction Book! We are just finishing up our covers and then we will be able to share them with our classmates and families.  

Lastly, we have been sharing all about our Families in Social Studies.  Students have been very excited to share their family picture.  If you have not yet sent one, please do as we are going to be doing some writing and art about our families in the next weeks.  You can always email a copy and I am happy to print it out.

Here are some pictures from our last week!

You'll also have to note that "Lil Greeny- our October Pumpkin has been moved into his new house, was given lots of TLC and is FINALLY thriving under the care of our Kindergarteners- and the amazing sunlight!