George, our caterpillar

Dear Parents,


By now, I'm sure you've heard about George. He came in with Felix earlier this week as a caterpillar and transformed into a chrysalis during our fire drill.

George makes a J.

Newly formed chrysalis

We watched this video together as a class: Caterpillar to Chrysalis to see the pupa dance.

Apparently, there's a way to tell the sex of the butterfly from the chrysalis, so several of our SK's have been really looking carefully at the sac and debating amongst themselves. (Consensus for now is that George may be more properly called Georgina.)

We've had a busy week, exploring the life cycle of butterflies as a result. Felix also brought in some monarch eggs he'd found on milkweed leaves. We've been working hard to make them hatch and learning more about the Monarch as a result.

The letter from Felix's family and an overview of the monarch lifecycle are posted on our science wall.

These milkweed leaves have a couple more caterpillar eggs on them

These students are spending some time investigating those eggs

We cut the eggs out of the old leaves daily and put them on fresh milkweed.

On Friday afternoon, we saw our first new baby caterpillar wriggling about. We're hoping it survives until Monday to grow some more. 

Students have painted these egg cartons with yellow, white, and black, just like monarchs.

 We've been switching the milkweed leaves daily to make sure the eggs have fresh food to eat. Our butterfly garden here at school has some milkweed, so students are learning to identify these plants to help feed our new caterpillars and eggs.

As you learned last week, we've been looking at different parts of plants to learn about how plants grow.

Here a student investigates the roots.

These milkweed seed pods are bringing our plant investigations in line with our seed investigations.

"Look, all the seeds are lined up"

It's hard to keep a single focus in the classroom though, so here are some of the other things going on this week too:

Playing teacher

Exploring materials: students made airplanes, letter shapes, and more conceptual pieces like a "machine for playing music at bad guys, or sometimes good guys too"

Painting on easels while I do journals in the background 

Fishing for the letters in your name

"What letter is this?"

You'll have to read this one upside down.

Fitting together tetris shapes

Cooking in the kitchen

The other big, exciting thing we've started is Reading Buddies. Students in Ms. Oseghale's class are paired with our class for a weekly chance to read together.

I love getting to know families: the reading buddy here is the older brother of a graduated SK

Answering more questions about butterflies

So, that's Week Two in Room 202.  I haven't had a chance to meet with parents formally this year, so, as always, if you have questions (or concerns) about anything in this blog or our classroom, please do contact me via email.

Sincerely, 

Ms. Goegan

P.S. I've been waiting for our schedule to solidify before sending home our newsletter, but you should see that this week as well.

Dear Parents, 

I wanted to give you an early post to give you a sense of the new year's classroom dynamic. One of the first questions I always get is how we manage students in the classroom and the main answer I give is that the space is organized to accommodate them. Here's a photo I took today showing about half our students in situ: From left, 4 are playing in our house centre, 2 are playing at the sand table, 6 are having snacks and 4 are playing at our water table. 

We also have our play dough centre open, where students are beginning to use their imagination and experiences, some in expected ways, others a bit further afield. 

Many snakes

An old fashioned lock

This is a manta ray.

The manta ray interests me in particular, because this student was looking at a map book where a manta ray was pictured. Some of our other students have also been fascinated at looking at the different types of whales, so this may be an avenue for the class to explore. This is how curriculum goes in kindergarten: we build off of student interests and fascinations to learn about the world. 

For my part, I'm trying to foster an interest in plants and seeds in order to get us started on the life cycle of plants. We've started off the year by looking at seeds. Yesterday we took apart some tomatoes and tomatillos. Today, we talked in the morning about what seeds are: many students were unclear about what seeds were for, but we eventually got to a group understanding that seeds go in the ground and become the plants that they come from. Our conversation got more students interested in looking at the seeds and today, we took apart a pepper, pomegranate and an apple. 

Tweezers are also an excellent fine motor tool

 Today, we also had our first investigation of the year. Students started linking chain links together and got very excited about how long it was getting, so we did some measuring to see just how long it really was. 

First, we stetched out the chain as long as it could go.

Then we checked how many kindergarteners long the chain was.

On one side, there were ten students and on the other there were eight (one side definitely had more SKs).  These sorts of investigations are rich learning opportunities because they get students involved in the problem solving process.

So there's a brief introduction to 202. I look forward to keeping you updated through the blog this year because I feel like it's a great way to give you insights into classroom learning. Hope you're having a great first week.

Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan

Welcome (back) to Room 202!

Dear Parents,

I spent all today preparing the classroom for our first day. You wouldn't think there'd be so much to do when I'm in the same room I was last year, but we're always working to fine-tune our process. I'm excited to be working with Maria Moniz again this year and to see many familiar faces on Tuesday. It's also exciting to see what new elements will come into the mix with our new JKs, so welcome to all.

Last year, I updated this blog about once a week with pictures and discussion about the learning in our classroom. Scroll through if you want to see some of that. I hope to do the same this year, but, before we start, wanted to highlight a couple of things.

Firstly, we have two students with anaphylactic reactions in our classroom this year, so we need to be diligent about peanuts and not sharing food. I still hope to cook with students this year and have opportunities to celebrate together, but safety has to be our first concern. Parents often ask me if they can bring in treats for the class to share to celebrate birthdays and a good alternative is sending in something that can go home with students to families can make those decisions for themselves. We need to be aware of allergies, but also religious choices and other food sensitivities. Non food related treats, like stickers, are also a great idea.

Secondly, if you'd like to be involved with volunteering in the classroom, I'd urge you to begin the paperwork process for a police check as soon as possible. Please speak to the main office to start the ball rolling. If you'd like to support our classroom's learning, reading this blog is a great start because it allows you to respond to the interests students are expressing in the classroom. For example, when our students became interested in doctors,  we had material flowing in to add to our dramatic play area and a family member who worked in radiology brought in bones and talked to the class about x-rays. Engaging a community means that we can access these sorts of resources which would otherwise remain obscure (and it's exciting for me too).

Finally, if you've any questions, please don't hesitate to find me in the yard, call the school to leave a message, or email me @ lisa.goegan (@tdsb.on.ca). Getting used to a new routine can be challenging for Kinder students and parents and I strive to be thoughtful in my practice.

Hope you had a great summer!

Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan

P.S. I had the opportunity to go to the Amazon this summer and I hope to share some of my experiences and learning with students. Since I don't have any pictures of students to share yet, here are some of my own: