Researching Animals

We started our week by sharing with one another what we did over the long weekend. We drew pictures about our weekend and used them to talk about our weekends with our peers. We read "Not A Box" by Antoinette Portis and used our imaginations to think about common classroom objects such as markers and rulers to think about what else they could be. For example, "It is not a marker., it is a..." fishing rod, walking stick, magic wand. "It is not a book... It is a..." computer, bird, steering wheel, etc. Students applied their creativity and imagination and used whiteboards to transform different shapes such as squares, circles, and triangles into other objects as well. Encourage your child to try this at home with you. This can be done by drawing or simply through conversations with everyday items at home.

To start our research, we brainstormed ideas on what is important to learn about when looking at different animals. Together, we brainstormed that the diet, appearance, habitat, and interesting facts are what we need to look closely at to learn more about each animal. We then explored different artifacts about each animal such as photographs, books, puppets, etc to learn more about them. We also began to learn how to journal our findings in our thinking journals and tried drawing pictures and writing words as well.

We also practiced drawing the animals from the mittens using white boards as well.

We played Math Yahtzee as well to continue to practice counting and subitizing.

With a strong focus on Kindness this week, we wore bright colors, wore red and pink, wore our superhero shirts, and our PHS Spirit Wear as well. We thought about what it means to be kind in our classroom and tried to be kind KINDergarten students.

Heart Maps

Kindergarten has continuously focussed on "Kindness" in the classroom this year. With Valentine's Day around the corner, we read many books this week to inspire students think of different ways of being kind. We were inspired to think about kindness and show how we can be kind in our classroom, our school, and our homes when we read Todd Parr's The Kindness Book. We created our own personal heart maps to show how each student can be kind in their own ways. We painted our beautiful heart maps as well using water colors and tempera paint pucks. 

Students in the AM group worked with grade 3 students who helped us explore coding and robotics. We learned by using iPads and the robots Dash and Dot. We learned how to make them move, change colors, dance, blink, and make difference sounds. We look forward to exploring it more. 

We had math game centers with partners where we played various dice and card games independently and with a partners to continue working on our number sense, subitizing, and problem solving. 

We were excited to put out our Valentine's Day bags and hand out valentines day cards to our classmates. This helped us be kinder to each other as we thanked each other for being thoughtful, caring, and KIND. 

Next week is Kindness Week. Please see below for more information!

Tuesday, February 18	Wednesday, February 19	Thursday, February 20	Friday, February 21
PHS Students and Staff have   bright smiles! Wear bright colours to shine! Kindness Act: Greet everyone you see with a hello and a smile!	PHS Students and Staff have Big Hearts! Wear red or pink today! Kindness Act: Invite someone new to play with you at green tubs or centres today.	PHS Students and Staff are Everyday Heroes and Help Others! Wear your favourite super hero shirt! Kindness Act: Go out of your way to be helpful to anyone today.	Kindergarten PM Students and Staff are a great team! Wear your PHS Spirit wear or blue today! Kindness Act: Work cooperatively with others to show great teamwork today.

The Mitten Graph

After rereading Jan Brett's The Mitten, students made connections to their personal life and to what they have learned about the animal. In their personal journals, students responded to "This animal makes me think of..."

In our Visual Journals, we did our four squares drawings to show our progress with our drawings. Students wrote their names 5 times, did a self portrait, drew a house and also drew a cat through guided drawing. Students were encouraged to add more details to their drawings. We painted tree branches using stamps made out of cardboard and spaghetti to give our evergreen trees a realistic effect.

We revisited adaptation/migration/adaptation again and looked closely at all the animals in Jan Brett's The Mitten. We continued adding to our KWL (Know, Want to Know, Learned) chart as well and were able to answer a few questions we have learned about already. For example, one of our wonders was "what is the difference between hares, rabbits, and bunnies?" We learned that hares change colors, are larger, and have longer ears. Rabbits do not change colors and bunnies are smaller rabbits.

We also made a graph together using the animals and our pictures to think about and document what animal we are most interested in learning about. Finally, we learned another new math game called, "Number Yahtzee." In this game, we roll 2 dice, count the number of dots, and crossed out the numbers on our boards. We kept rolling and crossing until all numbers were covered.

With our wonderful grade 3 buddies, we decorated Valentine's Day bags to hold all our Valentine's Day cards. We also enjoyed music, gym, and centers, where we explored different valentines day centers.