Mother Nature Did You Sneeze?

Kindergarten students participated in the Terry Fox Run on Monday. We learned about how brave Terry Fox was and how he is a hero. This was also a very exciting week for all students as we started centres. The goal of centres is to encourage students to play, socialize, be imaginative, be creative, practice their drawing, colouring, cutting, other fine motor skills, etc. From the kitchen centre, to dinosaurs, to trains, wooden blocks, lego, etc. students have enjoyed getting lots of hands-on experience with various resources. We have been reading many books on "Give Me 5 Listening" or "Whole Body Listening" and talking about what it looks like, feels like, and sounds like in our classroom. We practiced our tracing and cutting skills by drawing our hand and adding 5 important pictures on each finger to show how we should sit on the carpet. Kindergarten students were excited to learn a new fall poem as well called, "Mother Nature Did You Sneeze?" With the new season change, students read many books about leaves changing colours and the fall/ autumn season and described their favourite activity to do in the fall time in their Personal Journals. We had beautiful ideas including, "jumping in the leaves", "riding my bike in the fall time", "looking at leaves falling down", "going for walks with my dog", and many more! We learned that we are all writers in Kindergarten and used a variety of swirls, letters, and letter sounds as well to express our thoughts. AM Kindergarten students worked with pastels for the first time in their Visual Journals when drawing swirly fall trees and colouring in leaves with different fall colours! We are excited to see what we will work on, play with, and learn about this week.

1) Ask your child what activities they enjoy doing at centres.
2) Encourage your child to share our new fall poem, "Mother Nature Did You Sneeze?" with you and guess of what famous tune it is to.
3) Ask your child to share what colour fall leaves have.
4) Have your child show you and explain what "Whole Body" or "Give Me 5" listening looks like in our Kindergarten classroom.

"Red leaves, yellow leaves, orange leaves, brown,
Big leaves, little Leaves, on the ground,
Everywhere are falling leaves,
Mother nature did you sneeze?
A- A- Chooo!"

Important Reminders:

- Please note, this Friday, October 4th is a PM Kindergarten. Staggered entry starts at 7:55-8:10 AM. K students are dismissed 11:07 PM. There is no school for PM students. 

- Please remember to check your child's backpack daily and send the folder back every day!

- Because snack time is around 5 minutes, please send one nutritious and healthy snack and a water bottle with your child every day (granola bar, cheese string, fruit, etc.)

- We will be sending home a note on Thursday for all students asking to bring one apple (red, yellow, or green) to kindergarten for Monday, October 7th, 2019 for our apple investigation. 

Outdoor Learning, Cutting, and More!

Thank you to all parents for coming to meet the Kindergarten team at conferences.

This week we got to know our new color groups (red or green)/ Each child now has a communication folder and we ask that it is returned daily so that the students can take it out of their backpacks and put it in the folder bin each morning.

We continued practicing fine motor activities like drawing shapes, holding scissors 'thumbs up' while using their helper hand to hold and turn the paper, and gluing. We also worked on some mathematics by representing numbers visually using chalk outside. We have been trying to take advantage of the last of summer before it starts getting chilly again. To document our drawing in September, we also drew our own self portraits, a picture of a tree, our names, and our houses and colored them in. We are excited to see how our drawings change over time. We also built houses using different shapes found around the classroom. Please see our pictures to learn more about how we have kept busy this week.

Important Dates and Reminders:
Sept. 23 - Terry Fox run in the afternoon from 1:00-2:00.  Morning classes will do their walk in the morning during class.

Kindergarten Adventures

The past two weeks of Kindergarten have been adventurous, to say the least! We have enjoyed getting to know each and every child and are looking forward to a great year. We have no doubt that our little Kindergarten community will be kind, peaceful, busy, creative, and fun each and every day while we continue LOOKING CLOSELY at the world around us. 

The focus during the first few weeks of Kindergarten is to get to know one another and to work on routine. We have started working on our visual journals and practiced our name recognition, writing, colouring, and gluing skills. We have been outdoors where we worked with sidewalk chalk, we have become colour detectives when going on colour walks and have drawn and created our own trees using a variety of tools and techniques. We have also discussed what makes us unique and different after being inspired by author and illustrator Todd Parr's books "Be Who You Are" and "It's Okay To Be Different" and worked on our self portraits. Our days have also been busy with gym, music, reading many books, and green tubs. The green tubs in our classrooms are filled with various resources, such as blocks, magnets, puzzles, and more, that engage our brain daily and help us work together to collaborate and create. 

We look forward to documenting our learning and sharing it with you every week. Please read our blog every Friday to see what we were busy with each week. 

Important Updates and Reminders:
Parent-teacher conferences can now be booked online. Please check your emails to see how to book with your child's responsibility teacher. 

Here are some pictures from this week that share what we have been busy with: