Dear families,
I hope you have had a lovely weekend and enjoyed this amazing autumn weather! I found a white fuzzy caterpillar up north this weekend as well as 12 crayfish claws that a local seagull left behind. Perfect for our little Science Centre and nature inquiries!
Last week was busy in room 166! We continued our Mo Willems Author Study last week; after watching a little video about real pigeons and then Mo Willems' "Pigeon Needs a Bath!" the children helped me create a Venn diagram comparing real pigeons and Mo Willems' fictional pigeon. We also read Willems' book "Should I Share My Ice Cream" and talked about the TDSB Character Trait of Integrity, in other words, doing what you should do even when no one is looking! We made a "favourite ice cream" graph and tally marks, the JKs used bingo dabbers to find and trace the letter P for Pigeon, and the SKs "Read the Room" by finding pigeon sight words and writing 7 of them down. The SKs also competed a sheet by writing 5 more things the pigeon shouldn't drive, and are practising a booklet of pigeon popcorn words! Good work! The kids had a great time doing cookie math (after reading "Pigeon Wants a Cookie!") and ate an Oreo after solving a simple addition or subtraction problem involving cookies in jars! Thanks to Ethan for the extra Oreos!
Psssst! This month's Scholastic flyers have Mo Willems books! October's Scholastic order is due on the 10th.
In Numeracy, we started our inquiry on Patterns. The JKs are learning simple ABAB patterns and the SKs are learning to create and recognize more complex patterns such as ABCABC, AABAAB, ABBABB. The Juniors are creating a Numbers Poems Booklet, which includes all the little poems we say to help the children remember how to write the numbers 1-10. For example, "A straight line down is lots of fun, that's how you make the Number One!" We JKs also counted the corresponding stickers I gave them (who doesn't like stickers!!). One-to-One Correspondence is an important Kindergarten skill. As well, Zero the Zebra came out twice this week! It was September 20, and it was also the 10th day of school this week! We are also learning (JKs) and reviewing (SKs) how to make tally marks.
The SKs have been doing a terrific job with their journals! I am very happy that they are skipping lines and drawing lovely pictures to accompany their writing. Keep up the great work!
Kindly review with your children which is his/her snack and which is lunch. We discussed it in class but some of the little ones still aren't sure. Please also don't send fruit cups as snacks. Most of our class is carpeted and the children can't manage opening them, so spilled sweet juice attracts wasps this time of year as well as ants. Fresh fruit is easiest (and healthiest!).
The painting centre is officially open and already the children are making some beautiful art. I've put out rainbow colours (in the ROYGBV order), plus black and white, and some of the kids were quick to paint rainbows as well as lovely flowers.
Thank you so much to Alexander's dad who was our Mystery Reader this week! He read the classic stories, "Ferdinand the Bull" and "Library Lion."
With their Reading Buddies, the children answered questions about themselves and read books.
We are also learning a poem called "I Like School" and the children are learning how to write the word TO.
On Friday had a little cookie party for the children moving to the smaller class. Boy were they excited when they saw their new classroom!
That's the news for this week! I hope you have a lovely week. This hot weather is supposed to break by Wednesday. Whew!
