Hello friends and families,
Did you know that September 15th is known as International Dot Day?! It's a day to encourage us all to embrace our creativity and see where it takes us! We had so much fun celebrating this fun occasion together. We started our day by reading Peter Reynold's book, The Dot, learned about an incredible artist named Yayoi Kusama (who happens to reeeeally love dots) and created some collaborative dot art of our own! We even added dots to our ever-evolving house!
This project gave me a great opportunity to check-in and see how our new friends are doing with their scissor skills. Some of us are experts and some of us are beginners. Kindergarten is a great place to practice! Try out some scissor activities at home this weekend.
Drawing is an important way we communicate our ideas in kindergarten. This week we learned that artists use shapes as a starting point when they draw. The children collaborated to turn each of these simple shapes into a picture by adding details to it. We even worked as a team to add some beginning letter sounds to the pictures we had drawn.
Inspired by the fantastic picture book, Perfectly Norman, we began talking about what it is that makes each of us unique. Norman had a magnificent set of wings that he felt he needed to hide because he feared he would be judged. We're learning that the things that make us unique are often the things that are most special about us. Our differences should be celebrated! In honour of Norman and his incredible superpower, we each painted ourselves with magnificent wings. I asked each child, "What is YOUR superpower?" and they had no trouble coming up with a multitude of answers.
"My superpowers are playing soccer when everyone is watching me and doing big girl monkey bars close to my house."
"I'm super because I have super strength AND super cheetah speed on my bike."
We also spent time this week exploring letters through play and enjoyed some new classroom centres.
Have a wonderful weekend! I'll see you all on Monday. Mrs. Planden will be working Tuesday next week.
Love,
Miss Roberts
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Please see the following note from Mrs. Planden…
In math this week, students were introduced to their Math Journals. Their math journals will be a dynamic place to store everything related to their studies of numbers! They will use their math journals to explore and express their mathematical thinking in written form using pictures, numbers and sometimes even words! It will also be a place for the kids to develop their problem solving skills.
Our first math journal entry was a whole group activity that involved drawing a set of objects (we chose ladybugs!) that corresponded with a numeral. We worked with the numbers 1-5 and the kids had the chance to practice their number formations, drawing and counting skills as well as 1-to-1 correspondence (counting items only once). We also added the remaining 5 beads to our 'pipe cleaner abacus' that we made last week in order to form the number 10. We will continue to use these manipulatives to assist our counting skills (forward and backward), developing the concepts of using 10 as an important marker and for separating numbers into different sets.
Next week, we will work on numeracy centres, different counting strategies and counting on and back from a given number. (....6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
Thank you for all of your support reinforcing these important numeracy skills at home!
Mrs. Planden
Classroom Info and Reminders
1. We're still collecting tin cans (that don't have sharp edges) and clear egg cartons.
2. There will be no school for morning or afternoon kindergarten next Friday, September 25th due to parent teacher interviews.
3. Take a look at this very special kindergarten library card opportunity:
