Monday, April 27, 2020


It's official, spring has arrived! Our kindergarteners did such an amazing job of investigating this for me last week. Thank you for your help my friends! 

 




Thank you for continuing to support your child's learning at home each week. You're doing an amazing job! Find a summary of this week's activities HERE.


TUESDAY


Our new letter is K! It's one of my favourite letters because KIDS and KINDERGARTEN start with that letter :) We only have 2 more letters to go and we will have completed the entire alphabet. Yipppeee!!
Here are the links to our K videos: 





After watching the videos, draw a few things that begin with K and write a sentence that has a K word in it. Writing tip of the week: Did you know that letters are lazy? They always like to sit on the lines. It’s hard work floating in the air all day long! Can you make sure that the letters in your sentence today are sitting on the lines and not floating above them? 



BONUS ACTIVITIES:

No need to complete any of these activities! Pick and choose what your child is most interested in. When in class, some children completed their letter work in about 10 minutes every Tuesday and some took 45 minutes. So for our quick little bunnies, I always want to offer additional ideas.

Cool animal fact of the week:



The kangaroo moves forward a distance of 2 meters (6'6'') with each jump. However, when fleeing from a predator on flat ground without any obstacles, a single jump is able to cover a distance of 9 meters (almost 30 feet)! (https://www.animalwised.com/how-far-can-a-kangaroo-jump-383.html)

Measure the distance of a kangaroo jump on your floor or on the sidewalk outside of your house. How far can you jump? 


Interested in learning some facts about koala bears? Check out THIS video.



It's Art hub CHOICE day! You can draw a kangaroo OR a koala…OR BOTH!




Get your body moving with these 2 hilarious dudes:

Koo Koo Kangaroo 


Take a look at these Art Hub drawings from last week. Are you kidding me right now?! These are INCREDIBLE! Nice work my little artists!





WEDNESDAY

This week’s sight words:

CAN  AM  WE  SEE  THE 

Today’s activity combines art and literacy! As I sit here staring out my window, it got me thinking…what do YOU see when you look out YOUR window? 


Sit in front of your window with a piece of paper and a pen. I like using permanent pens so I can paint my picture afterwards, but you can use whatever drawing tool you like. Start by drawing the shape of your window and make sure it takes up almost all of your paper. Set a timer for 10 minutes and start drawing what you see! 10 minutes might feel like a long time and THAT’s OK! When you think you’ve drawn everything, start looking more closely. Challenge yourself to see more detail. This is when your picture starts to come alive. Trust me. And if you truly can’t think of anything more to add, then simply sit and enjoy a few quiet minutes of quiet contemplation. 


Once you have finished your drawing, please take a picture of your sketch before you add any colour to it. I often prefer a detailed sketch to a coloured work of art, so please take a moment to capture it for me. If you choose to add colour, take your time with this. Don't ruin your masterpiece by rushing to colour it! I chose to add watercolour paint to my picture. 


Many famous artists in history have tackled this same task! Check out what these artists saw when they looked out their window:





(Each of these amazing images are part of the Tate museum collection)

After your masterpiece is complete, write a couple sentences (using some of this week’s Popcorn Words) to tell me what you see when you look out your window. See if you can squeeze in a descriptive word or two.

I can see fluffy rabbits hopping by.
I can see fresh buds on trees.
I can see friendly faces walking by.
I can see trees blowing in the wind.
I can see prickly bushes.

(Only the sight words need to be spelled correctly. Have your child use their phonetic spelling for the rest.)

Another fun sight word practice idea for the week…make your own board game! Find some blank game boards HERE or make your own! I made this one in about 5 minutes. Have your child write the words in each space for extra spelling practice!! Once you've created the game board, write each word on a small piece of paper and turn it over. When it is your turn, choose a word and move to the next space where that word appears (like Candyland). 

Or try playing tic-tac-toe, but instead of playing with Xs and Os, each player chooses a sight word.

I love seeing what you guys came up with at home for sight word practice last week! 







THURSDAY

Sink or Float?

(Thank you FunLittles for the photo! 
https://www.funlittles.com/science-experiments-for-kids-floating-stone-experiment/)

Today you’re going to conduct an experiment to determine what sinks and what floats. Find a variety of items around your house to drop in water. BEFORE you start throwing things in the water, make a prediction whether each item will sink or float. Ask your children why they made the predictions they did. Then try each item, one at a time. Create a T chart to record your findings. What conclusions or guesses can you make about things that sink and things that float? 


AFTER you conduct your experiment, watch this video, which gives a brief explanation about why certain objects sink and certain objects float.


For extended observation, try setting out 2 jars with labels on them and have the kids sort the materials into the jars. (Thank you for this great idea Fun Littles!)



PASSION PROJECT FRIDAY

Check out what our little researchers were up to last week...






Thank you for keeping me posted on these amazing projects. It makes my heart so happy to see our kiddos learning about things that they are passionate about. Our topics range from mermaids and rainbows to deep sea dragons and the golden gate bridge. How cool is that?! 


Feel free to create some play experiences around your child's passion project topic. Giving children opportunities to play with the concepts they are learning will help to solidify them.

I consider myself to be a very child-centered teacher. My ideas come from the kids. Many of our classroom activities are inspired by a question or comment from one of the children…which makes teaching from a distance particularly challenging! I love to observe them as they play and work to determine how long to stay with a particular topic or activity. When things are going well, I go with it! We dive deeper. When it starts to fizzle, I add a new element to the play or change directions completely. Because I am not with you to see the reactions, hear the squeals and experience the excitement, can you please let me know if your children are enjoying their free choice Fridays? Do you enjoy the openendedness of this day? Or would you prefer I give you a more structured idea to end each week? 
  
Don’t forget to check out Ms. Lecocq’s music activities for the week. Click HERE for her latest choice board. 

 Enjoy your time together this week! I can't wait to see what you create together.

 Sending Love,
Miss Roberts 💖
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Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Hello Kindergarten Families!

Thank you for sharing the incredible small-world set-ups and stories that filled your homes last week. I am so proud of you for taking on this important kindergarten work! Check out these amazing creations:



 


I really loved seeing the diversity in how children chose to represent their stories with pictures and words.






Here's our schedule of suggested activities for this week. Enjoy the activities in whatever way works best for you and your family. 
TUESDAY


Our new letter this week is Q. Are you getting the hang of this yet? You know the routine by now. Only a few more letters to go! Head to Starfall and then YouTube for our weekly Storybots and Squiggles letter videos. Please help your child to understand this tricky sound that is similar to a k and a w stuck together /kw/ and teach them that a u always follows a Q :)
One of the most interesting things I can think of that begins with Q is a Queen Bee. 

Did you know…

A bee becomes a queen bee thanks to the efforts of the existing worker bees in the hive. A young larva (newly hatched baby insect) is fed special food called "royal jelly" by the worker bees. Royal jelly is richer than the food given to worker larvae, and is necessary for the larva to develop into a fertile queen bee. (Taken from https://sciencing.com/bee-become-queen-bee-5200755.html)

Watch the following videos to learn some interesting facts about bees! Bonus points if you can figure out what the Queen Bee’s job is!




If you're up for it, head on over to Art Hub to learn how to draw a realistic-looking bee.




WEDNESDAY

Our new sight words for this week are…

IT   TO   IN   AT   ON

Here are some fun new ways to practice your Popcorn Words this week:

Can you create the words out of playdough or other loose parts around your house? 
(This is great for learning to read AND write these words. Win-win!)



 


Play sight-word BINGO! Feel free to print off the game board HERE or create your own at home.


Make a match! Print 2 copies of the sight word cards and play a memory game. Each player takes turns flipping 2 cards to try and get a match. 


Write the words outside with sidewalk chalk. Hop over each word and say it as you jump on it.

 Bring some water outside and paint the words on the sidewalk or on a rock.


Make a salt (or sugar or sand) tray and use a brush or your finger to write the words.
I absolutely love seeing these ideas come to life in your homes! Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful photos with me.




In addition to practicing your sight words this week, I have a 
READING CHALLENGE 
for you!

One of the amazing features of Raz-Kids is the ability to record your child reading a book. This recording is then sent to me and I get to hear a snapshot of the amazing reading happening at your home. 

Today we are going to practice our fluency skills! Children need to experience what it feels like to read a book with ease and expression, without having to pause as they figure out each word. They do this by re-reading the same text, numerous times over the course of a few days/weeks. With each reading, they become more confident, expressive and fluent. This is a big more complicated with online texts (and doesn’t earn you extra stars), but is still a very important skill. 

So over the course of this week, I would like your child to choose a favourite text they have enjoyed reading on Raz-Kids and have them practice reading it numerous times. When they feel confident they are able to read it fluently (and maybe even with a bit of expression), have them record themselves reading it. 


When you are in the Level Up section and reading a book, you will see the red audio recording symbol above the book. If you can't see it, click the white triangle and it will pop up. Simply click record when you start reading and make sure you click all the way through the book. If the recording is more than 30 seconds, it will automatically be sent to me so I can hear it. I look forward to hearing all of my little readers! 

Be sure to check the messages section at the bottom of the main screen from time to time to see if you have any messages from me! There will be a red dot on the messages symbol if there is a new message. 


THURSDAY


I need your help to investigate an important question I’ve been wondering about… 

Is it spring yet?

The calendar says so, but I’m not so sure. Read the stories below and create a checklist of all the signs of spring you can think of. Then head outside to see what you can see! 


Click the link to watch the stories about spring:

If you are prompted to log-in, you will need to access the stories by going through LearnAlberta. Click on the link below (username: LA06  Password: 4105). Click on BookFlix and then search for SPRING.




 


Can you guess what this is??

FRIDAY

It’s passion project day, aka choice day! This is the time for your child to learn about what THEY would like to learn about. If they are loving their current topic, keep it going! Research! Record your findings! Ask new questions! Make a book! Create some art! Film an instructional video to teach others about what you’ve learned! These are all simply ideas of course. Ask your child how they would like to share their knowledge. If your child has lost interest in their initial topic, start a new one!

Our little researchers, hard at work!

 Planting Seeds


Digging Up Dinosaur Bones

Monet! 


 


My goal is for children to become ACTIVE participants in their learning and to develop a deep sense of wonder about the world. There is so much magic out there to explore!


As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions about your child’s learning or if there are any additional resources or activities I can provide for you. Please know I am working through your emails and updates as fast as I possibly can. If you haven’t heard back from me yet, I promise my response is on its way shortly.

I’ve added a couple bonus goodies to our Google Drive folder. There is an Upper and Lower Case letter matching ice cream activity and some fun scavenger hunts you might want to check out :) I've also added a CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) reading activity that might be fun. If you choose to try this activity, I would print the words and pictures, hide the words around the house and then have your child search for them, run back and then find the matching picture. Or play it BINGO style.

 Missing you all so very much!

 Love,
Miss Roberts 💖
 We can finally do some outdoor water play! Yaay!
(Literally throw any favourite toys into some coloured water. This is an underwater Minecraft world 😆)



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