April 22-26

Happy Earth Day!  We kicked off our week learning all about Earth Day, why we celebrate it, and why it is important to stop and think about how our actions impact our Earth.  We discovered and discussed different little ways we can all work together, to make a BIG impact- things like recycling, planting trees and flowers, making sure not to litter, turning off lights when we leave the room and not wasting paper- are all ways we can help our Earth.  

Our word of the week was "Wonder". We learned that "wonder means something incredible, or amazing, or something we are curious and want to know more about".  We spent time "wondering" and being curious about our chicks.  Some of us also watched in "wonder" as a baby duckling hatched before our eyes.  This week was very eventful as we had 4 ducklings and 1 goose hatch in our classroom.  These critters joined our chicks and our classrooms were hopping with all kinds of excitement, smells and sounds!  

We were able to compare our ducklings and our chickens and noticed many similarities and differences.  We looked at the differences their feet, their wings, their faces.  We also noticed differences in how they move, how they run, and how they eat.  We have continued to track our chicken's growth- making sure to measure them to see how much taller they get each day.  We are noticing our chickens are getting wings, and are trying to fly.  They are definitely more difficult to catch and hold- as they are always wanting to explore and run!  Our chickens have outgrown their classroom coop, and will be going to Mrs. Rupert's friend's farm.  She will go visit them and bring updates and pictures as they continue to grow.  As much as we love having them, we love them enough to say goodbye and let them go be on a farm where they can be the chickens they were born to be! :)

This week the morning class welcomed another "Mystery Reader!"  We were sooooo excited to have Ms. H come and read to us.  We loved listening to her silly Robert Munsch story!  We also loved being able to ask her questions and share our ducks and chicks with her.  Mystery Readers are very exciting- please reach out to Mrs. Rupert if you'd be willing to come in and read to the Kindergarteners.  They are a fabulous and encouraging audience.

Our letter of the week was "W" this week, and we did lots of letter practice printing, labelling and identifying words that have the W sound in them.  We also did some writing about Earth Day, listened to lots of rhyming stories, and shared non-fiction text about Ducks, Chickens and Geese.

We continued to learn about the concept of Length this week and completed a couple of measurement challenges.  We can identify that are longer and shorter, we can order items and pictures by length and we can use non-standard units of measurement to measure items and record information.  

Here are a few pictures from our very busy, and feather-filled week:

 

April 15-19

 Hello Families!

You have probably heard all about our egg-citing news in Kindergarten this week- we have chicks!  On Monday one chick had hatched when the children arrived.  Throughout the day the students watched closely as the rest of the chicks worked hard to peck their way out of their eggs.  Some were close, but we did not see them finally hatch- although Mrs. Fell popped in and recorded a hatching in the evening that we were able to watch.  We now have 6 little chicks in our classroom and have been learning all about chickens.  We know about their life cycles, how they grow and change, what they eat and how to hold them carefully.  Our word of the week was "Responsible" and we have had lots of opportunities to practice being responisble in how we take care of our chicks, keep our room tidy and safe and follow directions while having "chickie time".  We still have 4 more medium sized eggs and 2 giant eggs in our incubator.  We continue to make predictions about what is inside, and even had the opportunity to see Mrs. Rupert candle the eggs to watch the movement and development that was happening inside of the eggs.  Our second batch of eggs should be hatching at the beginning of next week!

We have been learning about measurement this week and how we can use non-standard units to measure different things.  We have been measuring our chicks daily and tracking how they are growing.  We also used cubes and gems to measure different objects in the classroom.  We learning how to measure and how to record our findings as mathematicians.  

Our letter of the week was the letter K and we learned about it's sound and how it can sound a lot like the letter C.  We also noticed that "ck" are often together at the end of words - like "chick" and "kick" and "duck".  During our phonics time we learned about the digraph "ch" and could identify lots of words that start with the "ch" sound- like chick, cheese, choose, check and chance.

Here are some highlights of our week!

April 8-12

 Hello Families!

This week started off with a very special event- an eclipse!
We learned about what an eclipse is- and although we did not view it at school, we were able to see some footage of the eclipse online- as well as create our own solar eclipses. 

This week continued to be an eventful one as we welcomed our first "Mystery Readers!"  A HUGE thank-you to the wonderful parents who visited our class to read a favourite story.  The Kindergarten students LOVED hearing the clues, trying to make guesses and then seeing who the "Mystery Reader" was!  It was wildly entertaining to listen to stories read by someone new.  We also loved the opportunity to ask our Mystery Readers a few questions to get to know them better.  We are so good at asking questions to get information- and we are continuing to learn the difference between asking a question- and telling a story, and practicing this skill is the best way to learn it!  If you would like to be a "Mystery Reader" in the class- please let Mrs. Rupert know and we can coordinate a time that works.  It's lots of fun.

To top off our exciting week, we came to school one day to discover that have a new and important responsibility.  We have EGGS!  Mrs. Rupert brought in an incubator with 6 eggs this week- and we don't know what is inside the eggs yet.  We learned about what creatures come out of eggs, and made some guesses or predictions about what is inside.  Our word of the week this week was "COMPARE".  We needed to carefully compare the eggs to one another and the eggs of other creatures to make a good guess.  We had a chance to learn how the incubator works, we were able to touch the eggs and we even had a chance to take a peek inside with a flashlight as Mrs. Rupert candled the eggs.  Some of us could hear little sounds coming from the eggs, we could see them rolling in the incubator and some of us were even able to see a heartbeat and shadows of movement through the egg with the flashlight.   Our eggs should hatch next week- and you will get to hear all about it.

Our letter of the week was "V", and we practiced writing the letter Vv and listening for it's sound in words.  We also practiced our phonics skills by listening for initial sounds in words and substituting initial sounds in words (say sip, take away the s, what is left?  Now add a d- what do you hear? Dip!). We continued to practice rhyming words, sounding out new words to do labelling and putting 2 words together to make a compound word. 

We began our Measurement unit this week, learning about the word "Length".  We know that length is "how long or high something is!" We referenced our word of the week "Compare" while looking at different things in our world that are Big, Medium and Small.  We created a class poster to show our understanding of different sizes.  We practiced finding and comparing lengths by measuring our shoes this week- to see who has the longest shoes and who has the shortest shoes.  We will continue to explore measurement in different ways over the next few weeks.

Lastly, we spent time with our Big Buddies, played in our Grocery Store, created signs for our store, took care of our pumpkin, went on a scavenger hunt outside for tiny things,  built ramps, created a lightbox, read stories to each other, painted, made creations with legos and enjoyed the sunshine.  

Next week should be a very interesting and exciting week!  We can't wait to tell you all about it.

Here are some pictures from our week!