How is it November already?!? It's hard to believe we've all been together for 2 months now. The kiddos are really in their groove and are becoming more independent with each passing day. I'm feeling very proud of our little kindergarten family.
This week's letter focus was T. We had some very eager builders on our hands who couldn't wait to have a turn at our new TOWER centre this week. The children were introduced to measurement and had a lot of fun figuring out just how tall they had made their tower. Our class record this week was 74 cm! Wowza! Many of the children figured out (after a great deal of trial and error) that a strong tower needs a stable base. SO many magical discoveries are made through our play!
T is for TREES! We're becoming experts at using both oil and chalk pastels and learning the different ways to use each one. Our observational drawing skills are becoming more impressive as each week passes! This centre also prompted some great conversation about trees and a discussion around the beautiful trees in our very own school yard.
T is for TREASURE! This centre inspired some wonderful imaginative storytelling. There is so much rich oral language development happening here each day. This will lead to rich written stories later on.
I put out an offering of random crafty supplies at our art table this week and the creativity that came out of this centre blew my mind! When you give children the opportunity to freely create, it's remarkable to see what they come up with.
With Halloween behind us and bellies full of sweets, I thought it was a good time to introduce the concept of healthy and unhealthy foods. We learned that unhealthy foods can also be called "sometimes foods" because it's ok to treat ourselves once in a while. This drawing and writing activity was also a great check-in to see how children's drawing, colouring and writing skills are coming along. Take a look at the diversity amongst our group of learners. ALLL of these examples are within the appropriate range of kindergarten development and each and every child is working towards a next step that is personalized to them.
We were patterning detectives this week and discovered that patterns are truly EVERYWHERE!
We talked about many different kinds of patterns (AB, AABB, ABB) and decided to focus on ABC patterns in our journals. This was easy-peasy for some and still a bit challenging for others. We’re also learning to identify the core of each pattern. Ask your child to tell you the little song we came up with about the pattern core. It starts like this, “The core of the pattern…”
We learned a new patterning game that had the kiddos quickly learning how to strategize. Have them teach you how to play this weekend! We played with ABC patterns but the game would work with any pattern at all. All you need is paper and some markers. You can easily make your own or click HERE to print off a copy.
Mrs. Planden will be in on Monday next week. I'll see you all on Tuesday!
Lots of love,
Miss Roberts
💖
Classroom Info and Reminders
The weather has changed as it always does at this time of year. This change always brings an opportunity for us to reach out into the wider community with our generous donations of gently used winter clothing of all sizes. These donations go to Jacket Racket, which is a volunteer organization which aims to ensure that all school aged children have a warm winter coat to wear to school. Briar Hill School will again be collecting winter coats, snow pants, mittens and hats for kids and families across the city. There will be a collection bin by the main doors and students are also welcome to hand donations to their teachers. We will collect from November 1st to the 19th. Together we can help make it an easier winter for families in need.
I'll leave you with a few more photos from our week that I just had to share :)
Have a wonderful weekend!
