We're back!

Dear Parents,

Even though nothing quite lives up to the excitement that surrounded George, our beloved caterpillar (whom we believe to be currently wintering in Mexico), students in 202 have shown a strong interest in animals and nature this fall.

We've been lucky enough to have two birds' nests at our science centre which come from different types of birds--one of which we're pretty sure is a robin's.

When we looked at different birds though, it was owls that fascinated students. Many of the SKs remembered the barn owl from the Earth Rangers presentation last spring. Henry remembered that they fly silently to swoop down on their prey and Milo talked about their keen sense of sight. We read both fiction and non-fiction books with owls. Students got involved in drawing pictures of owls, writing out facts for a classroom display, and there was some playground swooping as well (though not as silent).

We also have a number of students fascinated by construction and machines. When we went to Baird Park last week, these guys spent all their time in the sandbox, eventually building a tunnel under one side.

We originally went on a shape walk, so Ms. Moniz is asking about the different shapes they notice on the machines. 

We see students building with many different materials and students often add teddy bears to help them tell stories about the structures they create.

A rocketship with its crew

This tower is a circus. You can see a sailboat in the background.

We've also added Lincoln Logs to our sandtable to help feed the construction interest. 

Another key area we've seen construction happening is at the water table. Students built waterfalls and cascades using different levels of cups and experimented to see what happened when you sped it up or slowed it down. When new materials were added, experiments continued.  For instance, when we checked to see whether pumpkins floated or sank, students were fascinated by displacement.

"What happens if we blow through the tube?"

 When students pushed the pumpkin down in the water, they were fascinated to see that water came out of holes higher up in the tub.

When interest in waterfalls waned, we placed some aquatic animals in our water table and this has sparked further interest. So, at student request, our drama centre is becoming a submarine/ocean.  I'll write more about this development next week as I'm able to take pictures. 

Other current classroom obsessions include mapping:

This is a neighbourhood map puzzle. Students are decoding some of the labels on buildings. 

This student is pointing to The Netherlands, which he found on his own 

 Mapping has led to students labelling different areas of our classroom and using our big map book to add to their general store of information. For example, students are very interested in the specific varieties of animals living in different areas. I'm seeing them put together this information in really cool ways, like looking up Brazil after reading about the rainforest and telling me about the animals you can find that map. Or telling me about animals that come from places they have family backgrounds. I definitely need to pick up a new copy of this book as it has been all but destroyed through several months of daily love.

 Surveys are also huge right now. Students have been using them as opportunities to write and count.

As it's continued, students are beginning to write out different types of questions and answers. They often talk about the results in our daily circle at the end of the day. It turns out most students like pizza and ice cream. They are more divided on vampires and owls. 

Many students are also really engaged in our book centre this year and when I read a book they really like, I know I'll see them reenacting it somewhere. For instance: 

Sam and Dave Dig a Hole by Jon Klassen was a huge hit. His books have a sly sense of humour and play with narrative tension by showing things in the pictures that the characters don't yet know. Students got really excited about the poor decisions Sam and Dave made (They nearly hit the diamonds so many times! It was crazy)

This book lends itself to open-ended discussion. What really happened at the end? Check out the link for a cute video and some fun theories to discuss with your child: http://100scopenotes.com/2014/10/02/6-theories-on-the-ending-of-sam-dave-dig-a-hole/

Creepy Carrots was also a big hit. Students built the moat and fence to contain the carrots in the sandtable and used orange bears as carrots. At the playdough station, many built their own creepy carrots out of playdough as well.

She loved rolling the dough in a cone

Showing me the creepy eyes.

These students tried to make their characters as accurate to the book as possible. 

In general, I'm seeing a lot more storytelling in students' play this year and students seem keen to explain their machines or stories to me when asked. This is a great trend in our classroom because I can see the sequencing and problem solving skills developing.

Even though this must feel like an exhaustive post to you, it's shown me that I need to be more diligent in taking photos to document all the steps of an interest. I look forward to giving you more insights into the classroom.

Looking forward there are a couple of things we could use parent help with:

1. Baking helpers the first week in December
2. People who would be willing to make a batch of play dough to send in every month or couple of weeks (Thank you to William's mom, who's been doing this since the beginning of the year!)
3. Details are being finalized for the Kindergarten Winter Concert right now. I was away Friday, but should know definitive dates very soon. Watch this space.

Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan

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: