May 27-31

Hello Families!

We wrapped up the month of May with the PM's visiting the Farm Yard.  Our word of the week was "Capacity"- which we know means "how much something can hold!"  We sure filled our last week up to "Full Capacity!" with lots of learning, play and exploration!

Our PM Farm Yard trip went smoothly- and the weather cooperated.  Students had lots of fun exploring the farm yard with their classmates.  Another HUGE thank you goes out to our Parent-Volunteers for joining us.  We couldn't do it without you!

We spent time journaling this week, continuing to add details to our illustrations and using letters to label and build our own sentences.  We continued to practice our sight words and have even begun to use them in our writing.  We can read "I, it, in, look, see, up, go, and at".  We continue to learn and use new sight words every week along with practicing our phonics.

In math,  we reviewed concepts of length and weight and completed a measurement challenge.  Students needed to find items that were bigger than, smaller than and equal to the size of the pencil they chose.  Student moved around the classroom using their pencil to compare sizes and record their findings.  We also began to learn about the concept of capacity.  We played a capacity game called  "Fill the Cup" to see who could fill their cup the most, without the cubes falling out.  We had to practice subitizing with dice, counting the cubes into our cups, take turns with our partner and balance our cubes carefully so they wouldn't fall out.  So many skills are practiced when we play math games.  We are also working on being ok with not winning a game.  Sometimes we may be disappointed, but we can't win every time- and playing and learning with our friends is fun. 

We had 2 Mystery Readers this week! We loved listening to new stories shared by our parent readers.  We have time for a few more Mystery Readers before we wrap up the year.  Please reach out if you'd like to pop in and read- as well as be asked amazing questions like "What is your third favourite letter?" or "Which dinosaur is your favourite out of all of the dinosaurs!"

In centres this week we have been building 3D shapes, make creations with clay, painting murals, experimenting with capacity in our water centre, camping in our tent and building with materials like magnatiles, 3D shapes, lincoln logs, big blocks and legos.  We also went outside in all kinds of weather to play together.  We even spent time playing hopscotch- counting up to 10 and back down to 1, hopping on one and two feet, taking turns and skip counting by twos.  Rain or shine, warm or chilly- it's wonderful to be outside watching the clouds, noticing the birds and how they fly different ways in different weather, tracking the puddles and how they drain down into the street.  There is so much to learn from the land everyday- and Kindergarteners are excellent observers. 

Some quick updates:

- There will be no more book exchanges in the Library this year.  Please have your child return their books by the end of next week so we can get them all back to Ms. McLean in preparation for her organization for next year.

 Next week we will be doing an experiment with the AM class on Friday.  We will be making something with food ingredients (dairy and wheat).  Please let me know if there are allergies towards these items so I can be prepared with a different plan.

Graduation is coming up on June 26. 
Families who have students in the AM class can arrive through the front doors anytime after 9:00 am.  The ceremony will begin at 9:30 am.

Familes with students in the PM class, can arrive through the front doors at 1:15pm.  The ceremony will start at 1:45pm.  

Grandparents and siblings are welcome.

Here are a few pictures of our week:

May 21-24

Our word of the week was "event" and it was quite an "eventful" week!  We visited the Book Fair,  went to watch the amazing Grade 2&3 Spring Concert in the gym and our AM class went on a field trip to the Calgary Farm Yard.  Both classes have been eagerly counting down and the anticipation was great this week!

In phonics we focused on rhyming words and learned a funny rhyming poem about a "Big Red Barn".  We also continued to learn new sight words and began using our sight words to build beginning sentences. 

In Literacy, we listened to and acted out the story "Little Red Riding Hood".  We can identify what makes a story a "Fairytale" and we can identify the characters, setting and the events that happen in a story.  We also practiced sequencing the events in the story "Little Red Hen".  

In math, we learned how to take a survey and show our data on a graph.  We asked our classmates which farm animal was their favourite, and then we counted our collected information and shared our results.

We have continued to play using our imaginations in our camping centre, and even went on a animal track word hunt.  We created marshmallows out of clay to roast on our fire, and we used coloured clay to sculpt animals and nature things in our art centre.  We have continued to explore building with various materials and even had a day to play parachute when it was storming outside.  Even on the darkest, rainiest days the Kindergarten students brighten up our classroom.  

I'd like to send out a huge thank you to the parents who volunteered to join us on our field trip to the Farm Yard.  The kids had a fabulous time, the weather was pretty good.  We returned covered in mud and dirt, with wild hair and HUGE smiles.   Thank you to all AM families for sending children with boots, lots of layers and backpacks with snacks.  

 The PM class will be heading to the Farm Yard on the 30th of May.  I will send out information to volunteers in the next few days and we will continue to countdown.

Here are some photos of our week and from the AM Field Trip:

May 13-16

 Hello Families,

The word of the week was "anticipate"- which means "you just can't wait!" We are anticipating our trip to the Farm Yard, eagerly counting down the days on our class calendar and getting more and more excited.

In our classroom this week we worked on journalling.  We wrote in our very own journals and were excited to choose our own topic to share something with the class.  We are working on counting how many words are in our sentences to help us plan our writing.  We are also practicing leaving finger spaces between words, adding punctuation and creating detailed illustrations.  We are becoming very confident writers by applying our understanding of letters and their sounds to sound out the words we want to write.

We have continued to learn all about Fairy tales this week.  We learned all about characters, settings and problems in stories.  We read and acted out the story "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" and then worked on our story retelling skills by creating our own  bridges, goats and troll (characters and setting).  We loved retelling the story to our friends and were eager to bring home our bridge and puppets to share the story with our families.  If your Kindergartener has not shared their story yet, you should ask- they are fantastic- especially when they do the voices!

We were so lucky to have another Mystery Reader this week.  Mr. White, our Assistant Principal visited to share a silly story called "The Princess and the Pony".  He made us laugh so hard with all of his funny voices.  We also liked being able to ask him some questions about himself. 

In math, we have continued to explore concepts of length and weight.  We experimented with heavy and light, and ordered items and pictures based off of their size and weight. Next week we will be learning all about capacity.

During centres times, the students embraced 'The Great Outdoors"- indoors! We have a camping centre.  Students have been "fishing", having picnics, and cooking food on their "fire".  Our Kindergarten artists painted beautiful backgrounds of nature to surround our classroom tent.  Students have enjoyed building ramps, playing in the sand box, making things out of clay, playing dominos and candy land, building giant train tracks and going outside to play soccer and do the monkey bars.

Next week we the school is hosting a Buy One/Get One Book Sale on May 23.  I will send home a flier with more information on Tuesday.  This week we will not be going to Library for a Book Exchange.  Students can keep their books for an extra week.

Here are some pictures of our week: 

May 6-10

 Hello Families!

The sun is finally shining again and we are flying through the month of May!

Our field trip to the Farmyard will be happening in just a few weeks.  Thank you to families for returning the field trip forms so quickly!  We spent some time looking at the Calgary Farm Yard website this week, and began to plan out our day of fun and the students are counting down the days on our classroom calendar.  

This week we had some last fun with our ducklings and baby gosling Nibbles, before they returned to the farm.  We noticed how quickly ducks and geese change and grow.  It was very clear that they were needing way more space than the Kindergarten room could offer.  We did enjoy our last days together.  This week we were able to let our feathered friends go swimming.  It was very funny to see a swimming pool in the classroom.  We even made them a waterslide.  This week we also made special oatmeal with peas for our ducklings to try.  As they get older, they start to eat more and more things.  Our goose Nibbles was quite the "Silly Goose" this week as he joined us for walks in the hallway and to the Library.  It was especially funny when he would start running.  We'd call him a "Goose on the Loose."  We have learned so much about animals, how they grow and move and change.  We were all able to write our own Duck or Chicken Fact this week to add to our picture wall.  All students were able to share their ideas with their peers and worked hard on getting their fact down on paper

We have shown great care, kindness and responsibility in taking care of our classroom animals.  I have been so proud of the Kindergarten students and how they have shown such compassion and awareness over the last few weeks.  We are hopeful that we may get a visit from our ducks/chickens or goose in the future- and we will definitely be updated with pictures and stories as they continue to grow at Mrs. Rupert's friend's farm.

Our word of the week was "Imagination"- using our minds to make-believe, come up with new ideas, and use magic to make our ideas and stories extra exciting.  We have been reading different Fairytales this week and we see how you need "imagination" to see the stories in your mind, and to play along with the stories too.  We have learned some elements of fairytales- like characters, settings and problems.  We loved retelling the story of "The Three Little Pigs".  We did drawings of the characters and some of us were able to participate in a Big Bad Wolf "Will it Blow" science experiment- to see if items are heavy/light and whether they could be easily blown by the Big Bad Wolf.

We also worked hard on creating special cards for our mothers for Mothers Day.  Students were eager to write a special message for their special person and we shared lots of wonderful things about our Moms during carpet time this week.

Lastly, as the end of the year approaches I did want to share some Graduation Information.

There will be a Kindergarten Graduation taking place on June 26th. 

• Families who have students in the morning classes, can arrive through the front doors any time after 9:00am. Ceremony will start at 9:30am.

• Families who have students in the afternoon classes, can arrive through the front doors any time after 1:15pm. Ceremony will start at 1:45pm.

Grandparents and siblings are welcome.
If you are unable to attend, students will be dismissed at their regular time.
We hope to see everyone there!