Dear families,
Our focus this week was on the number 100, leading up to Friday, the 100th Day of School. We counted to 100 in various ways (by 1s, 5s and 10s), using sticks in play-doh, using small cubes, with bingo dabbers, beads, Cheerios and other snacks, and small cups. Thank you to the parent volunteers who helped out with the centres on Friday and also provided snacks: Martel's mom, Megan's dad, Olivia's dad, Theo's mom, Jack's mom, and Luca's mom. The kids had a great time and said it was "the best day ever!." On top of that, we were celebrating Christopher's birthday so the children had cupcakes! Wow.
It was interesting to observe how the children made their structures of ten cubes: some made patterns, some spelled a letter with them, some made a design/structure. If your child is still learning how to count small objects, it helps if they touch each object and say the number at the same time, so that they're making a concrete association.
Monday was all about Groundhogs - what they looked like, habitat, etc., and we did a maze, sequencing activity, made a hat and made a word book.
On February 18th at 12:30 we are having a visit from the Brentwood Librarian. If you haven't been to the newly renovated Brentwood Library, it is beautiful. Much improved since when I went there as a child!
This week will be all about Valentines - writing, reading, making them for friends and family. Please remember to send in your child's Valentines by Wednesday so that they have time to put them into each child's collection bag.
I'm looking forward to speaking with you about your child's progress at next week's Parent-Teacher interviews.
I hope you have a terrific weekend!
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Week of February 2-6
It's going to be an exciting week in Room 166! On Monday we will do lots of fun Groundhog Day-themed literacy and numeracy activities. The rest of the week will be focused on our countdown to Friday, which is the 100th Day of School! Thank you in advance to the parent volunteers who are helping out with the activities on Thursday. Look for lots of fun work in this Friday's mail bag! Next week will be all about Valentine's Day. Thank you in advance as well to the parent volunteers helping out with that craft day on Thursday.
The children have already almost finished some Groundhog day art and drawing: They cut out a glued together a groundhog face and drew pictures to match the words "6 more weeks of winter" and "spring is here."
Last week we were busy graphing, tallying and sequencing. We graphed and tallied our favourite pets and favourite colour. The children also finished the sentence with the popcorn words, "I can _____________" and drew an accompanying picture. They are terrific! Look for them on our class bulletin board.
The children also read and drew matching pictures to a little book called "I Made a Frosty Snowman."
Our Word Wall popcorn (sight) words this week were for, and went. Next week we'll do "the" and "do." After the children have made their little mini sight word books I ask them to spell the sight word for me.
Please note that the children will not be taking books out of the Library on Wednesday or Thursday since the Library computer system will be down.
Several children have brought in their 100 items in the water bottle, and wrote what they brought. These are posted in the school hall outside my door.
Subway Sub forms are due on Monday, and Subs will be served each Monday (as requested). The next Scholastic order is due February 27.
The homework for the SKs this weekend is to put the "One Little Alien" poem sentences in order. If they haven't done so in class, they are also to finish writing words from the "Aliens Love Underpants" lesson.
Your child received the names of his/her classmates to help them write their Valentines. It may be too much for the Juniors to write everyone's name, and they might want to write their own name on each Valentine. The Seniors should write both TO and FROM on their cards with the names. If you are sending in Valentine treat please ensure they are nut-free.
Our Mystery Reader this week was Theo's grandmother who read "The Runaway Bunny, Dear Zoo and Harry McLary from Donaldson's Dairy.
With our Reading Buddies this week we made a 100th Day of School Bookmark.
Have a wonderful week!
The children have already almost finished some Groundhog day art and drawing: They cut out a glued together a groundhog face and drew pictures to match the words "6 more weeks of winter" and "spring is here."
Last week we were busy graphing, tallying and sequencing. We graphed and tallied our favourite pets and favourite colour. The children also finished the sentence with the popcorn words, "I can _____________" and drew an accompanying picture. They are terrific! Look for them on our class bulletin board.
The children also read and drew matching pictures to a little book called "I Made a Frosty Snowman."
Our Word Wall popcorn (sight) words this week were for, and went. Next week we'll do "the" and "do." After the children have made their little mini sight word books I ask them to spell the sight word for me.
Please note that the children will not be taking books out of the Library on Wednesday or Thursday since the Library computer system will be down.
Several children have brought in their 100 items in the water bottle, and wrote what they brought. These are posted in the school hall outside my door.
Subway Sub forms are due on Monday, and Subs will be served each Monday (as requested). The next Scholastic order is due February 27.
The homework for the SKs this weekend is to put the "One Little Alien" poem sentences in order. If they haven't done so in class, they are also to finish writing words from the "Aliens Love Underpants" lesson.
Your child received the names of his/her classmates to help them write their Valentines. It may be too much for the Juniors to write everyone's name, and they might want to write their own name on each Valentine. The Seniors should write both TO and FROM on their cards with the names. If you are sending in Valentine treat please ensure they are nut-free.
Our Mystery Reader this week was Theo's grandmother who read "The Runaway Bunny, Dear Zoo and Harry McLary from Donaldson's Dairy.
With our Reading Buddies this week we made a 100th Day of School Bookmark.
Have a wonderful week!
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Week of January 26-30
Dear families,
We are busy doing lots of things in our classroom: we're counting down to the 100th day of school (February 6), we are continuing our inquiry about measurement, tallying and graphing (which we do all year but focus on in second term), and we finished our book studies on The Snowy Day and Thomas' Snowsuit. We completed text-to-self writing (comparing the character Peter's feelings to their own) and text-to-text work. The kids did a great job!
In this week's white bag I sent home a copy of Oh Canada with sight words ("popcorn words") in bold. I'm really pleased how the children are pointing out the words they know when they are reading. I also sent home a list of common sight words, which is also known as a Dolch list, for your reference.
The JK homework for this weekend is to trace their name in upper and lower case letters. The SKs' work is to unscramble the sentences on the "There's 'snow' fooling me" page.
If you have a tape measure (the soft kind for sewing, or a paper one like IKEA has), encourage your child to measure things around the house, and to compare what they measure.
Last week's two sight words for our word wall were IN, and SEE. Please practice them and keep them in the Popcorn Word folder at home. The children are also completing mini sight word books that correspond to the two new words we put on our word wall. Look for those in their white bags too.
The next Scholastic order is due February 27. Thank you so much as always to Megan and her family for collating, date stamping and stapling all those order forms! There are some Valentines items in some of the order forms, so if you would like those earlier let me know. There is a good set of books in the Elf Order called "Guided Science Readers Set A-D" that I would recommend, and the kids might also enjoy the Disney or Superman phonics sets. I have several phonics sets that we rotate through (last week it was the Bob Books, next week it will be the Biscuit books) and the children enjoy reading them to each other.
We are also finishing our fun mini unit on Aliens! The children squished and pulled and squished yellow and blue Model Magic together until green started to appear, then rolled it into a ball to resemble Earth. Then they made a little alien out of white Model Magic, let it dry, and painted it. They look great on our classroom bulletin board. The seniors also created drew and wrote about a pattern block spaceship they designed, then counted, graphed and tallied the blocks they used to make it. They did a terrific job. Congratulations to the SKs too for coming up with over 30 words from the Aliens Wear Underpants story - making 30 words from the letters in "underpants." Silly, but fun and the kids were so thrilled to show me the words they had made with their letters. They are now working on writing out those words. You can do this with any long word. Try it at home! Games like Scrabble are terrific for this kind of exercise.
Thank you so much to our volunteers last week: Claire's dad was the ever-popular Mystery Reader, and Matthew H.'s mom helped out in the Computer Lab. Thank you so much for your time and energy.
February is always a very busy month in Kindergarten with lots of extra opportunities for learning: Groundhog Day is on the 2nd, the 100th Day of School of on the 6th, our Valentine's Craft Party is on the 12th, and Chinese New Year is on the 19th this year.
Next week we'll finish our little unit on Aliens and focus our inquiry on measurement as well as the numbers 1-100: counting by 5s and 10s, recognizing numbers in random order, correct writing of numbers and so on. We are also learning a new song/poem called The Mitten Song. Wednesday is the next Sharing Assembly and Ms. McGee and Ms. Ede-Smith will be directing the children (I will be on a field trip to the Daily Food Bank with the LKS Seeds of Hope students).
I hope you have a wonderful week!
We are busy doing lots of things in our classroom: we're counting down to the 100th day of school (February 6), we are continuing our inquiry about measurement, tallying and graphing (which we do all year but focus on in second term), and we finished our book studies on The Snowy Day and Thomas' Snowsuit. We completed text-to-self writing (comparing the character Peter's feelings to their own) and text-to-text work. The kids did a great job!
In this week's white bag I sent home a copy of Oh Canada with sight words ("popcorn words") in bold. I'm really pleased how the children are pointing out the words they know when they are reading. I also sent home a list of common sight words, which is also known as a Dolch list, for your reference.
The JK homework for this weekend is to trace their name in upper and lower case letters. The SKs' work is to unscramble the sentences on the "There's 'snow' fooling me" page.
If you have a tape measure (the soft kind for sewing, or a paper one like IKEA has), encourage your child to measure things around the house, and to compare what they measure.
Last week's two sight words for our word wall were IN, and SEE. Please practice them and keep them in the Popcorn Word folder at home. The children are also completing mini sight word books that correspond to the two new words we put on our word wall. Look for those in their white bags too.
The next Scholastic order is due February 27. Thank you so much as always to Megan and her family for collating, date stamping and stapling all those order forms! There are some Valentines items in some of the order forms, so if you would like those earlier let me know. There is a good set of books in the Elf Order called "Guided Science Readers Set A-D" that I would recommend, and the kids might also enjoy the Disney or Superman phonics sets. I have several phonics sets that we rotate through (last week it was the Bob Books, next week it will be the Biscuit books) and the children enjoy reading them to each other.
We are also finishing our fun mini unit on Aliens! The children squished and pulled and squished yellow and blue Model Magic together until green started to appear, then rolled it into a ball to resemble Earth. Then they made a little alien out of white Model Magic, let it dry, and painted it. They look great on our classroom bulletin board. The seniors also created drew and wrote about a pattern block spaceship they designed, then counted, graphed and tallied the blocks they used to make it. They did a terrific job. Congratulations to the SKs too for coming up with over 30 words from the Aliens Wear Underpants story - making 30 words from the letters in "underpants." Silly, but fun and the kids were so thrilled to show me the words they had made with their letters. They are now working on writing out those words. You can do this with any long word. Try it at home! Games like Scrabble are terrific for this kind of exercise.
Thank you so much to our volunteers last week: Claire's dad was the ever-popular Mystery Reader, and Matthew H.'s mom helped out in the Computer Lab. Thank you so much for your time and energy.
February is always a very busy month in Kindergarten with lots of extra opportunities for learning: Groundhog Day is on the 2nd, the 100th Day of School of on the 6th, our Valentine's Craft Party is on the 12th, and Chinese New Year is on the 19th this year.
Next week we'll finish our little unit on Aliens and focus our inquiry on measurement as well as the numbers 1-100: counting by 5s and 10s, recognizing numbers in random order, correct writing of numbers and so on. We are also learning a new song/poem called The Mitten Song. Wednesday is the next Sharing Assembly and Ms. McGee and Ms. Ede-Smith will be directing the children (I will be on a field trip to the Daily Food Bank with the LKS Seeds of Hope students).
I hope you have a wonderful week!
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Week of January 19 - 23
Dear families,
This week we completed and wrote about our science experiment, worked more on our unit on The Snowy Day, and focused on our sight words on our word wall: I, is, can, and, am, like, me, my. Next week's Popcorn Words will be CAN and SEE.
We also did a lot of practice with tally marks, graphing and counting. We talked about text-to-self connections when we read books, and how stories can relate to our own lives. "The Snowy Day" was a perfect book for this. We also talked about how stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and the children sequenced The Snowy Day. They also coloured and sequenced a little copy of The Snowy Day to take home so that they can read it to you, as well as key pictures from the story to help them with the skill of retelling the story in the correct order. The children also listened to the story with their eyes closed so that they could visualize what was happening. We also talked about making predictions and about their opinions of the story. All important literacy skills moving forward. The children will bring their folders home on Friday. Next week we'll read Munsch's funny classic "Thomas' Snowsuit" and we'll make text-to-text connections together.
We also had fun re-reading "Aliens Love Underpants" then "Aliens in Underpants Save the World." The children helped me write as many words as they could make from the word U-N-D-E-R-P-A-N-T-S which was 45! They also did that activity with letter cards at their centres.
Our "first-thing-in-the-morning" books are now Bob Books. Bob books (Scholastic) are such an excellent series to teach children to read. The kids really like them and feel so accomplished when they can read them and read them to their friends.
On the Smartboard, we focused on beginning sounds, ending sounds, and double consonant sounds. It's terrific how things are really clicking for the children!
The children played at the snowflake centres for the last few days before I changed it to a numeracy centre with small blocks.
The homework for the Juniors is to complete the counting exercise "Frosty Friends" and "It's Winter Weather." The Senior homework is to write the compound words with 'snow.'
Since the weather has been a bit mucky please have an extra pair of mitts or gloves in your child's backpack. When their mittens get wet they don't want to put them on!
Thank you very much to Anderson's mom who helped out in the Computer Lab, and to Olivia's dad who was our Mystery Reader this week.
It's not too early to start counting your child's 100 items for the 100th Day of School which is Friday, February 6. Please have your child put the items in a small water bottle. It's also not too early for your child to start writing Valentine Cards with their name "from" on each one.
On February 9 the Juniors will receive their first report card. Both Juniors and Seniors will receive another report in June. Please read the LKS Bulletin regarding online interview booking.
I hope you have a terrific week!
This week we completed and wrote about our science experiment, worked more on our unit on The Snowy Day, and focused on our sight words on our word wall: I, is, can, and, am, like, me, my. Next week's Popcorn Words will be CAN and SEE.
We also did a lot of practice with tally marks, graphing and counting. We talked about text-to-self connections when we read books, and how stories can relate to our own lives. "The Snowy Day" was a perfect book for this. We also talked about how stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and the children sequenced The Snowy Day. They also coloured and sequenced a little copy of The Snowy Day to take home so that they can read it to you, as well as key pictures from the story to help them with the skill of retelling the story in the correct order. The children also listened to the story with their eyes closed so that they could visualize what was happening. We also talked about making predictions and about their opinions of the story. All important literacy skills moving forward. The children will bring their folders home on Friday. Next week we'll read Munsch's funny classic "Thomas' Snowsuit" and we'll make text-to-text connections together.
We also had fun re-reading "Aliens Love Underpants" then "Aliens in Underpants Save the World." The children helped me write as many words as they could make from the word U-N-D-E-R-P-A-N-T-S which was 45! They also did that activity with letter cards at their centres.
Our "first-thing-in-the-morning" books are now Bob Books. Bob books (Scholastic) are such an excellent series to teach children to read. The kids really like them and feel so accomplished when they can read them and read them to their friends.
On the Smartboard, we focused on beginning sounds, ending sounds, and double consonant sounds. It's terrific how things are really clicking for the children!
The children played at the snowflake centres for the last few days before I changed it to a numeracy centre with small blocks.
The homework for the Juniors is to complete the counting exercise "Frosty Friends" and "It's Winter Weather." The Senior homework is to write the compound words with 'snow.'
Since the weather has been a bit mucky please have an extra pair of mitts or gloves in your child's backpack. When their mittens get wet they don't want to put them on!
Thank you very much to Anderson's mom who helped out in the Computer Lab, and to Olivia's dad who was our Mystery Reader this week.
It's not too early to start counting your child's 100 items for the 100th Day of School which is Friday, February 6. Please have your child put the items in a small water bottle. It's also not too early for your child to start writing Valentine Cards with their name "from" on each one.
On February 9 the Juniors will receive their first report card. Both Juniors and Seniors will receive another report in June. Please read the LKS Bulletin regarding online interview booking.
I hope you have a terrific week!
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Week of January 12-16
Dear families,
I hope you had a wonderful holiday! The children had lots of stories to tell about their adventures and outings.
Last week we got right back into the swing of things with our unit on Winter and our science exploration of water freezing. The weather has cooperated with our inquiry! We guessed/thought ("hypothesized") about which water in which of 4 cups would freeze first (most children guessed correctly that the smallest amount would freeze first), watched ("observed") the water freeze, then discussed/learned ("concluded") that smaller amounts of liquid freeze fastest. We also observed that the water froze first on the top because of the air around it. Good job! Then we did the same experiment in reverse: predicting and observing which would melt first, etc.
This week we are changing the experiment a bit: we put the same amount of water into 4 different sized containers. The children's predictions were interesting. about half thought the widest and lowest container would freeze first (correct), and about half thought the tallest and thinnest container would freeze first (since it looks like more). The rest predicted the two in-between sizes. After our second experiment is done they'll write and draw what they liked/learned and we'll send that home. These experiments are also a nice introduction to our unit on Measurement.
We continued our inquiry/centres on snowflakes: how to draw them, what they look like, how to make them our of paper and playdoh. The children are also completing a booklet on weather and weather words.
We also did our December calendars and "This is me in December" work, which is on display in our classroom.
We are learning three new poems about snow: Snowmen, I slip and I slide, and 5 little snowmen. I changed 5 to 6 to reinforce our number 6 which we focused on in centres last week (since each snowflake has six sides/points).
Our Popcorn Words for last week were can and me. We talk about these words a lot in class and they are on our fabric word wall. If the children can't remember how to spell them, they can take the (velcro-backed) word from the wall and bring it to their table, then put it back under the correct letter space. Each week your child will bring home two new popcorn words (this Friday they brought home CAN and ME). They should go in their yellow Popcorn Word folder. I also sent home a copy of the Popcorn Word Song (tune is "Mary Had a Little Lamb").
Like in to no am a that
Can me yes,
I of the,
Said we he is was go see
And it big my went.
We have "buttered" (i.e. put on our word wall and in our Popcorn folders) the following words: I, am, is, and, can, me. We put yellow marker/highlighter on top of the words. This week we are buttering "like" and "my."
The kids are really enjoying our fun unit on Aliens. They are practising literacy and numeracy skills while heaving fun and reading the funny book "Aliens Love Underpants." For example, we talked about and wrote as many words as we could with the word "underpants" and made it into 6 centres. The kids loved it and were learning a lot of skills without even realizing it. :) They also had fun cutting and gluing parts of aliens together and completing the sentence/writing "If an aliens came to visit I would..."
We also started a Book Look of the lovely Caldicott award-winning book "The Snowy Day," by Ezra Jack Keats. This book is excellent for teaching/learning about Sequence (the order things happen in a story - beginning, middle, end), making text-to-self connections, predicting what will happen next, and retelling the story. The children are making a folder for this little unit and it will go home when they are finished their in-class work.
Thank you so much to Lauren's dad who was Mystery Reader, and to Megan's family who collated this month's Scholastic Book order forms. The Scholastic orders are due by January 31.
The following children will be receiving certificates for Teamwork at our next Sharing Assembly on January 28th (gym - 9:00 a.m.): Dima, Matthew H., and Dylan. Good work! I will not be at school on the 28th because I will be supervising the LKS students in Me to We/Free the Children on a trip to the Daily Bread Food Bank. Mrs. Ede-Smith and Mrs. Paldon will direct the children that day.
Finally, on February 6 it is the 100th Day of School! Please bring in 100 items that fit into a clear water bottle. That way the children learn that 100 grains of rice, for example, look very different from 100 cotton balls in the same container. Please be sure to put the lid back on your water bottle and label it with your child's name.
Your can count and bring in his/her 100 items any day before February 6th. Counting by tens is easiest for the children. Thank you in advance to the parents who are assisting me with our 100th Day of School Celebration from 9:00-10:15 a.m. I will prepare the 6 centres. It will be a fun day!
I hope you have a wonderful week!
I hope you had a wonderful holiday! The children had lots of stories to tell about their adventures and outings.
Last week we got right back into the swing of things with our unit on Winter and our science exploration of water freezing. The weather has cooperated with our inquiry! We guessed/thought ("hypothesized") about which water in which of 4 cups would freeze first (most children guessed correctly that the smallest amount would freeze first), watched ("observed") the water freeze, then discussed/learned ("concluded") that smaller amounts of liquid freeze fastest. We also observed that the water froze first on the top because of the air around it. Good job! Then we did the same experiment in reverse: predicting and observing which would melt first, etc.
This week we are changing the experiment a bit: we put the same amount of water into 4 different sized containers. The children's predictions were interesting. about half thought the widest and lowest container would freeze first (correct), and about half thought the tallest and thinnest container would freeze first (since it looks like more). The rest predicted the two in-between sizes. After our second experiment is done they'll write and draw what they liked/learned and we'll send that home. These experiments are also a nice introduction to our unit on Measurement.
We continued our inquiry/centres on snowflakes: how to draw them, what they look like, how to make them our of paper and playdoh. The children are also completing a booklet on weather and weather words.
We also did our December calendars and "This is me in December" work, which is on display in our classroom.
We are learning three new poems about snow: Snowmen, I slip and I slide, and 5 little snowmen. I changed 5 to 6 to reinforce our number 6 which we focused on in centres last week (since each snowflake has six sides/points).
Our Popcorn Words for last week were can and me. We talk about these words a lot in class and they are on our fabric word wall. If the children can't remember how to spell them, they can take the (velcro-backed) word from the wall and bring it to their table, then put it back under the correct letter space. Each week your child will bring home two new popcorn words (this Friday they brought home CAN and ME). They should go in their yellow Popcorn Word folder. I also sent home a copy of the Popcorn Word Song (tune is "Mary Had a Little Lamb").
Like in to no am a that
Can me yes,
I of the,
Said we he is was go see
And it big my went.
We have "buttered" (i.e. put on our word wall and in our Popcorn folders) the following words: I, am, is, and, can, me. We put yellow marker/highlighter on top of the words. This week we are buttering "like" and "my."
The kids are really enjoying our fun unit on Aliens. They are practising literacy and numeracy skills while heaving fun and reading the funny book "Aliens Love Underpants." For example, we talked about and wrote as many words as we could with the word "underpants" and made it into 6 centres. The kids loved it and were learning a lot of skills without even realizing it. :) They also had fun cutting and gluing parts of aliens together and completing the sentence/writing "If an aliens came to visit I would..."
We also started a Book Look of the lovely Caldicott award-winning book "The Snowy Day," by Ezra Jack Keats. This book is excellent for teaching/learning about Sequence (the order things happen in a story - beginning, middle, end), making text-to-self connections, predicting what will happen next, and retelling the story. The children are making a folder for this little unit and it will go home when they are finished their in-class work.
Thank you so much to Lauren's dad who was Mystery Reader, and to Megan's family who collated this month's Scholastic Book order forms. The Scholastic orders are due by January 31.
The following children will be receiving certificates for Teamwork at our next Sharing Assembly on January 28th (gym - 9:00 a.m.): Dima, Matthew H., and Dylan. Good work! I will not be at school on the 28th because I will be supervising the LKS students in Me to We/Free the Children on a trip to the Daily Bread Food Bank. Mrs. Ede-Smith and Mrs. Paldon will direct the children that day.
Finally, on February 6 it is the 100th Day of School! Please bring in 100 items that fit into a clear water bottle. That way the children learn that 100 grains of rice, for example, look very different from 100 cotton balls in the same container. Please be sure to put the lid back on your water bottle and label it with your child's name.
Your can count and bring in his/her 100 items any day before February 6th. Counting by tens is easiest for the children. Thank you in advance to the parents who are assisting me with our 100th Day of School Celebration from 9:00-10:15 a.m. I will prepare the 6 centres. It will be a fun day!
I hope you have a wonderful week!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)