New Learning Centres

 Welcome back Kindergarten Families. I hope you had a wonderful break with your families. When the kiddoes arrived back this week, they were met with a whole host of new centers to help in their learning journey.

1) Ice Fishing Shack

The introduction of the "Ice Fishing Shack" has been a great success. The Kiddoes are having a blast learning how to ice fish, learning how read a fishing poster for information, playing with indoor snowballs, exploring snow with animals, and dressing up. However, in order to play in this centre, one has to obtain an ice fishing permit first!!

KA

KB

This centre allows us to work on:
- fine motor skills
- reading/writing skills
- socialization skills

2) The sensory table challenges the Kiddoes to subatize (recognize a set of dots at an instance).

This centre allows us to work on some of our numeracy outcomes.

3) Typing Centre

I hooked up the bluetooth keyboards to the iPads. Using the notes app, I challenged to the kiddos to practice finding/typing their names, friends' names and winter words. I introduced an alphabet chart to help them determine upper/lowercase letters as keyboards only have upper case on them. This was a hit!

This centre allows us to work on:

• letter recognition (upper/lower)
• word recognition
• fine motor skills

4) STEM Challenge - Snowflake Table

Utilizing a collection of loose parts, the Kiddos are challenged to create symmetry while designing unique snowflakes.

This centre allows us to work on:

• mathematical concepts of symmetry
• fine motor abilities
• creativity

5) Art Centre

Students are challenged to create snowflakes and decorate them in unique ways. 

 

This center allows us to work on:

• Scissor skills
• creativity
  

6) Table Games

These centers allow us to work on:

• Alphabet matching skills
• Rhyming skills
• Word identification
• Fine motor skills

Lots of fun and learning taking place!

Snowmen Project

 Over the past two weeks, we have been working on an amazing art project! It started with a directed drawing of a snowman. I love how they can all turn our so different from the exact same instructions. The kiddoes are always amazed how well they can actually draw when they take their time and breakdown a final image into smaller steps. Our initial drawing was completed with black sharpie on watercolour paper. Once this step was finished, we spent some time discussing and looking at different pictures of horizons. We all agreed we loved the Saskatchewan sky and thought the slogan 'Land of the Living Skies' was accurate. I gave the kiddoes a brief lesson on watercolour blending and left them to create their own horizon behind their snowmen. It was so interesting to watch the dedication and concentration they had during this step. Our final step was to colour in parts of the snowman and then decide if we wanted to add snow or not to the sky. All in all, this project turned out wonderfully. I honestly think all of these pictures are frame worthy!!!

Note: The border was also kiddoe created. It was a centre set up during explore time to visit if they chose to do so. 

KA

KB

A Little Spot Of......

 For the past few months, Ms. M. our school counsellor has been coming into our K classroom and teaching all about scribble spot. Scribble spot is part of a program that helps children to not only recognize feelings in themselves, but in others as well. The kiddos are learning to be emotion detectives to learn about emotions and how to recognize facial expressions so they can name how they and others are feeling. Once the kiddos are able to identify feelings, learning strategies to cope becomes much easier. 

The kiddos have been working on puppets for all the different emotions we are learning about and they are now coming home. Take a minute to chat with your child and see if they can tell you all about the different spots of emotion!

Band-aid Letters

 The latest 'chunk' we learned in Kindergarten this week was the 'bandaid' letters. The Kiddoes learned the vowel pairing of 'ow' often makes the sound we make when we hurt ourselves, owwwwwww (hence bandaid). Our poem for the week had them searching for these chunks and they have been having fun searching during book look to see if they can hunt any down. When you are reading at home, if you find any, mark them down on a piece of paper and send your checkmarks to school. We will add them to the list we started here! 

Happy Reading!

Dozens of Dachshunds

 This week we had fun reading the best number and rhyming book called 'Dozens of Dachshunds' written by Stephanie Calmenson. While reading, we took some time to practice figuring out what comes before/after the numbers to 12, decomposing numbers (show me 3, show me in a different way 2/1) and figuring out rhyming words. When we finished the book, we sat down to do a directed draw lesson of a dachshund. We watched a real artist teach us how to draw this funny dog step by step. At first, the Kiddos were a bit apprehensive as they didn't think they could draw one, but it was amazing watching their faces turn into looks of astonishment when they realized drawing is just a step by step process. My main goal in this activity was to help them learn how to process 1 step directions quickly. Once we finished drawing, I went over their pencil art in black sharpie and then they chose which colour of dachshund they liked best to colour their own. The Kiddos even decorated the banner for the hall in dachshund colouring. We numbered the dachshunds on the bulletin board, and commented how it was interesting that we could all listen to the same directions, yet have such different drawings. I think they all turned out pretty great!

KA

KB

Treaty Education

Last week, I began discussing the concept of promises with the Kiddos. When questioned about the meaning, lots of the Kiddos could give examples of promises, but to actually define what a promise is, they found to be quite difficult. We learned that promises have three distinct qualities. First, they need to be between at least two or more people, second, they need to have a definitive time outlined and finally, they must be about what one will do.

To illustrate the concept of a promise, we read the story by Robert Munsch entitled, "A Promise Is A Promise".

The story perfectly complemented our discussion as it talked what a promise is, why promises are important and what can happen if promises are not kept. Upon finishing the story, it was our turn to make some promises. We decided to make promises to the classroom and each other. Our promises reflected our commitment to making our room the best place it can be. We held a talking circle where each Kiddo promised (to the room and each other) that this year (time line) they would .........Once the circle was completed, I asked the Kiddos if they were going to be able to remember all the promises! It was decided that perhaps, just like Ms. S., our memories were not one of our "gifts". Thus, we figured we should write them down.

Once our promises were completed, I challenged the Kiddos thinking and asked, "What happens if you don't keep your promise?" There were quite a few funny and interesting suggestions made, but in the end, I introduced the word "Treaty". A treaty is a super special promise which can never be broken.

Using a map of the world, I reviewed with the Kiddos were many of our ancestors may have lived before coming to Canada. We discussed how newcomers came to what we now call Canada, and how the First Nations People who were the original inhabitants of our land, helped the settlers to survive in the new world. I explained that treaties (super special promises that included two entities, had a time frame, were written down and signed) were created between the First Nations People and the settlers enabling all people to reside on the same land. The treaty signed in our area was treaty #4, so this made us treaty people. The Kiddos learned that treaties were promises which could never be broken as long as the sun shines, the grass grows and the rivers flow.

After learning this new information, our class decided to turn our promises into treaties so they could never be broken. We had an elaborate signing ceremony where each Kiddoe came up and signed his/her promise and turned it into a treaty to our room.

This lesson was for many Kiddos in the room, their first introduction to the term, “treaty”. We will be revisiting this topic over the course of the year.

The Kindy Cafe

I noticed recently the interest in our dramatic play centre had started to wane. It was time to change it up a bit. When chatting to the Kiddoes about a previous weekend's adventures, I mentioned I stopped in at Whippletree Cafe when it was snowing and picked up a warm drink. I told them how peaceful it was sitting in a cozy chair, with a warm treat and watching the snow fall. We decided as a group it would be fun to bring that experience into our room. However, I mentioned to the kiddoes that we didn't know anything about running a cafe. We decided we needed to ask an expert! What better expert than the owner of Whippletree, Samantha. I called her up and she was more than happy to welcome both K classes into her cafe!

We bundled up warm and made the trek to her cafe. 

Once there, she greeted us all by giving us a coffee bean to hold on to. She promised we could trade it in at the end of the trip for a special treat.

She started to talk to us all about running a cafe and what she did each and every day. Sam even let us help her make some muffins and much to our surprise, let us take them home to eat. She showed us how coffee beans were ground and how to make an espresso. We all thought the steamer was pretty cool and how she was able to make designs on top of the coffee! Sam answered all our questions and even agreed to be an expert on call in case we had any more. 

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At the end of the trip, Sam traded our coffee beans for a fresh Whippletree cookie. It sure was yummy. Sam also sent us home with cups, stir sticks and bags to use in our cafe. 

When we got back to school, the Kiddoes had a great time opening our cafe and letting me know what we still needed to add. They took it upon themselves to start making signs for the cafe and using the 'specials' board. I was super excited to watch as a few kiddoes started to use some of their knowledge of phonics to try and write words. This is a huge step requiring them to take a risk. This is a very scary thing for most of them to do. 

KA

KB

I am looking forward to seeing how our cafe grows over the next few weeks!