Program Notes:

Dear Parents,

Is February the busiest month? It might be.

100th Day is February 11th and I'm just coordinating whether the kinder team will celebrate on the day or after the Family Day long weekend. Add Valentine's and interviews into the mix that week and you can see why we might need to juggle things around a little bit.

Your February newsletter is done, except for those details, so expect it very soon.


Two things to give you a heads up on this week though:

1. We'll be sending home vests for you to decorate with 100 items before the big day. Consider grouping items into 10's to make it more manageable for you and your child to work on together.

2. We'll be cooking pancakes on Friday. If you're available to help on Friday afternoon, we'd love to have another volunteer. Just email me and let me know.

Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan

Scientists in Schools today...

 We had a busy morning in the classroom and I ended up taking a lot of photos today, so I'm passing them along to you. As you can see, the drama centre Castle is still going strong.

 We've been playing with pulleys some more.

Ms. Moniz is busy working on alphabet sounds in the background with a couple of students.

We've really been working on rhyming patterns...

 And then a line formed. There were dinosaurs....

 More rhyming patterns...

 Raindrops, that got tranformed into various pictures.

 More rhymes...

 And finally, the Scientist in Schools  event you came to see.

Simple Machines in baking: wheels and axles and wedges

Levers

Inclined planes 

Wheels and gears

Making bubbles

The overview

Playing with Pulleys

When Noah brought in these pulleys, it played perfectly into our discussion of pulleys in drawbridges. For the rest of the week, we took turns playing with them and attaching them in different configurations to see what the results would be. We're not really set up for block and tackle types of pulley arrangements, but students did come up with the idea of using counterweights to hold the rope in place. 

Jackson's favourite part was when the walrus got married.

And I can't quite believe I don't have more pictures, but our other big push has been book reviews.

We've been reading many of the recent Blue Spruce Selections as a class and students have been enthusiastic about responding to the books. The top of the sheet asks for the book title and student name, then they're asked to review with thumbs up or down, write a bit and draw a picture.  So far, my favourite has been Stop, Thief! and Sam's Pet Temper, but If Kids Ruled the World, Super Red Riding Hood and, in particular, Where's Walrus and Penguin? seem to all have their fans. (A big thumbs up for Ms. Greenwood, who created this activity)

In the next instalment, look forward to seeing images of Scientists in Schools, who are coming to our classroom on Wednesday. (I could still use one more volunteer!) And a heads up to the beginning of February, when we hope to make pancakes in the classroom. Please do let us know if you're available to come in.

Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan

P.S. If there's a topic you'd like me to cover that you haven't seen written about here, please let me know.

Castles and Snowmen

Dear Parents,

Back to the classroom. We've switched up our drama centre again and,
with much hard work, we've created a castle, complete with drawbridge. Our next step may be looking at some pulley and gear mechanisms in order to learn more about different types of simple machines and the ways in which they made medieval life more easier.  In the meantime, there's a lot of storytelling and costume drama about dragons, princesses and knights.

 

The school has recently purchased 6 Ipads for classroom use. We get them about once a week for a double period and this week we set them up as a centre with Starfall and other reading  apps on them for the kids to explore. We've also used them in the past to research aquatic animals, but I'm just beginning to explore the possibilities. What's nice is they now come with earphones so students can have themselves read information on Pebblego, even when they can't decode the language themselves. 

We also use old school methods.

We're practicing counting by two's, which this pattern shows. 

These students are playing a word recognition game with Ms. Moniz

Using crayons to get a texture rub from our snake skin

But the most pictures taken this week have been at our art centre. We're making Snowmen!

And more patterns. 

I'm still looking for 3 volunteers for Scientists in the school the afternoon of the 27th (a Wednesday) Please let me know if you're available/interested. It's always a fun time. 

Sincerely, 

Ms. Goegan

Welcome Back!

Here's your January Newsletter. If you look carefully, you'll see some new activities we've introduced just since being back. A paper copy of the January 2016 newsletter will go home tonight.

Here's a bit more detail about those pictures:
I bought some bags of plastic animals over the break. We spent Monday sorting them alphabetically.

We encouraged the JKs in particular

but some SKs took leadership roles. 

And Tuesday sorting them into groups of vertebrates:

Lots of questions to answer. What kind of animal is a turtle?

We brought in the snow and watched it melt. We also used eye droppers to play with colour mixing (a fine motor activity blended into a science one) and salt to change how the melting happened.

I also brought in a snake skin, but the snow has been the real draw.

That's a boa constrictor's skin in the corner

I brought in a bowling set with numbers and we made a game where one person tried to hit a higher number than the other. 

Playdough also has numbers this week. 

Yesterday, when discussing our drama centre, students' brought up changing it to a dentist's office. So I brought out the dental kit and students have also been making purple teeth out of playdough, drilling and pulling them. (As always, I need to remember to take more photos)

Students also brought up the idea of an amusement park, so I brought out a new construction toy and we had many merry-go-rounds and ferris wheels by the end of the day.

They spin!

I'm hoping that students will be encouraged to explore and experiment further in these veins as a big part of my role is facilitating their experiments and interests. Let me know what questions are coming home as well and come back next week to see what we'll actually turn our drama centre into next.

Sincerely, 

Lisa Goegan