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.

Mathematical Thinking in Kindergarten

This week, we looked closely at numbers. We played different math games with numbers including Splat!, Snap! and War and focussed on representing numbers using different ways. Using our math boards, we worked on different numbers and used manipulatives and ten frames to show what the number looks like. We also used Unifix cubes with different numbers and changed them to show different shapes.

We continued to work on writing and drawing in our thinking journals as well after being inspired by the book "Snowfeather" by Cecile Gagnon. Students brainstormed ideas together about what happened at the end of the book and made predictions by drawing, talking, and writing about it.

We continued playing math games and exploring different ways to make different numbers.

We encourage parents to help their child "read the world"! This means having discussions about letters and words they see in their everyday life. For example, when going for a walk in the community, stop and notice what words you see? A STOP sign? Take a moment and help your child notice each letter and sound it out. What letters do they notice in the playground? Does the slide look like a letter they can think of? Does the tree in your backyard remind them of a letter? Do they recognize environmental prints such as "McDonalds" "Walmart" and "ToysRUs"? What letters are in each of those words? Try sounding them out together! Please feel free to take pictures of your own personal letter experiences and email them to us so we can share our words with each other.

Personal Connections

We read another version of The Mitten By Jan Brett and learned about more animals. After comparing and contrasting Brett's version with Aylesworth's, we talked about how to make personal connections to our own life. Students reflected on their own lives while reading the book and began to make connections. For example, "the grandma in the book reminds me of my grandmother who also knits." and "the bear in the book reminds me of the bear I saw when I went camping with my family in Banff." We encourage parents to also make connections while reading stories at home. Students used their thinking journals to make connections to the story by drawing and writing about, "This book makes me think of..."

We used a deck of cards for the first time in Kindergarten and learned a new math game called "War" which helps us recognize numerals, subitize, and compare quantities with our partners. If you have a deck of cards at home, invite your child to teach you how to play.

We looked closely at the Animals from Jan Brett's The Mitten. There is the mole, a rabbit, hedgehog, owl, badger, fox, a bear, and a mouse. We made a KWL chart.

K stands for "what we think we KNOW"
W stands for "what we WONDER"
L stands for "what we Learned"

Students added to the first two sections and will continue adding to them as we continue to learn more about these animals. We have been talking about migration, hibernation, and adaptation as well especially with these animals. Ask your child to tell you what each of these animals does. Which of these animals hibernate, adapt, or migrate?

We visited the learning commons again. Please don't forget to send the book back as soon as you are done reading it at home. We will visit the Learning commons every Thursday and unfortunately your child is unable to participate if they have not returned their book. Thank you!

We are continuing to look closely at uppercase and lowercase letters and letter sounds! We have also been working on figuring out the mystery morning message and learning more about our unique selves through our "Star Student" sharing.

We encourage parents to help their child "read the world"! This means having discussions about letters and words they see in their everyday life. For example, when going for a walk in the community, stop and notice what words you see? A STOP sign? Take a moment and help your child notice each letter and sound it out. What letters do they notice in the playground? Does the slide look like a letter they can think of? Does the tree in your backyard remind them of a letter? Do they recognize environmental prints such as "McDonalds" "Walmart" and "ToysRUs"? What letters are in each of those words? Try sounding them out together! Please feel free to take pictures of your own personal letter experiences and email them to us so we can share our words with each other.