November Newsletter

Dear Parents,

Here is the November newsletter. Dates for each student's special day are on the calendar attached as is information about October's learning and November's themes.

Here you go:

November Newsletter

*In assigning "special students" I try to take into account both who got 2 special days in previous months, but I apparently forgot to look at our birthday list. I'll do my best to remember in December, but for this month, we'll have two special students on those birthdays. :)

Mathematics in Kindergarten

I'm getting a bit of a late start on this week's blogpost, but I wanted to be sure to remind you all that tomorrow is Library. Please make sure that you've returned any books you have out in order to get a new one. I've put notices in bags today to remind those who may have missed last week's library as well.

Dear Parents,

There are five basic areas of Mathematics study in the Ontario curriculum. In the first term, we've really been focused on building basic numeracy, which means number reognition and counting ability through various counting activities and using our calendar to build number sense.  Still, for each strand, we've already seen evidence of student thinking.

1. Number Sense and Numeration

This student is recreating her phone number in playdoh

This student is counting pumpkin seeds and sorting them into rows of 5.

2. Measurement

These students are using a balance scale to measure how many small balls equal the weight of one large one.

3. Data Management and Probability

Using their name tags, students create a basic graph showing that more students think the pumpkins will float than sink.

4. Geometry and Spatial Sense

Students create a jack-o'-lantern face using foam geometric shapes.

5. Patterning and Algebra

Students create patterns using a variety of manmade ...

....and found materials.

As you can see, when children play and explore, mathematics is naturally a part of that exploration.

This week, we've been focusing on our class pumpkins as part of the lead up to Halloween and I hope to let you see some of that in my post next week.

 Regards,

 Lisa Goegan

Just a quick post...

Dear Parents,

First, two reminders:

1. Library (Day 5) is tomorrow. Please make sure students bring back their books. I know there have been a few kinks with the system, but please bear with us and let me know if there's an issue as soon as possible so I can help resolve it.

2. Photo money is due tomorrow as well. I've been removing photo packages from Mr. Zippy and sending them down to the office as they come in. Regardless of whether or not you have purchased a package,  all students should receive a class photo in the weeks ahead.

Today I asked students to think what I could possibly have inside a paper bag that I let them examine from the outside. I gave them the clue that it was something that started small but would get bigger.

Some of the guesses included:
--a pumpkin (our book was about pumpkins, so many students guessed this)
--pumpkin seeds
--leaves
--a toy train
--a pickle
--some beans
--a baby hippopotamus (I'm pretty sure they meant a stuffed animal, and they were being quite serious about it)

It's interesting how students use some of the information around them to build predictions, but not necessarily all of it. For instance, the bag was much too flat to contain a pumpkin (...and much too dry to contain a pickle.)

The pumpkin seeds have hopefully sparked off an investigation of our two class pumpkins. J brought in a Jack-O'-Lantern for her show and share last week, so perhaps the ending is predictable, but I'm looking forward to seeing what happens anyways.

Next week, I hope to post in more detail about mathematics in our classroom. It will also be Ms. Fish's last week in our classroom. 

Literacy in the Classroom

Dear Parents,

As we move into October, our focus has turned to letter shapes and sounds. I've shown you some of the science activities we've been working on at the school. Many of these include literacy, but learning to read and write is a key focus of our program, so I wanted to give you a little window into all the ways we're working on that in Kindergarten:

First, is the vision of literacy you're probably most familiar with. Today, Ms. Fish, my student teacher, read aloud "The Missing Piece" by Shel Silverstein. You can also see the daily schedule, our calendar and birthday wall, as well as the message of the day, written on the white board. Students read the message of the day along with the teacher. Below, you can see some examples of students taking learning into their own hands.

In these photos, students are playing at the "Teacher Centre", writing their own message of the day and using a pointer to remember the days of the week.

Play Based Learning Opportunities:

These pictures show our recent art project using foam letters. As each child came to the painting centre, an adult asked them to find the letters in their name and sound them out. Some students made patterns with these letters. Some students spelled their name or other names that were important to them. Interestingly, many students spelled backwards, so working on text direction will be important as we move forward with reading. 

We also have letters in our playdough centre right now. This student decided to spell a word he knew without prompting, but mostly students are making cookies  or pasta with the letters in their names. I've heard many students reciting the Patty Cake rhyme. 

In this picture, students are playing with an alphabet fishing game, where they match letters to their upper case or lower case equivalents. We've also been playing memory games with pictures and letter sound matching.

Here are some other examples of student writing, from their journals. Each student will write an entry at least once each week. 

In the left hand journal, the JK student has recounted a story about his picture. In the right hand journal, an SK student has sounded out a word that reflects her picture.

In the left hand journal, the JK student has written a word based on sounding out the word snake. In the right hand journal, the SK student has sounded out a sentence to say: "Rabbit is drinking tea".

: 

Sometimes, writing also happens spontaneously:

Here, students have found clipboards and brought the writing to the carpet. They are drawing and writing about their carpet creations. 

Literacy in kindergarten can look a bit different than it might in other grades because so much of the learning is based on student interest and engagement. I hope that you can see the learning and engagement happening in these pictures too.

Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan

P.S. Tomorrow is library! Please remember to bring your books. :)

Weekly Update

Dear Parents,

First off, I want to remind you that tomorrow is Day 5, which is Library for everyone. Please remember to send in last week's book, so your child can select a new one. Several students brought in books on Friday, which I've done my best to keep track of by putting them under their snack bins in the classroom. We'll see how well the system works tomorrow.

Secondly, I have some sad news for our afternoon class: Shivani's family is moving to India and Wednesday will be her last day. Happily, Tuesday is Picture Day, so we'll make sure to send on the class photo. We'll have a small celebration in class on Wednesday afternoon to make sure she knows she'll be missed.

Science continues apace in the classroom, as I continue to work with students individually or in small groups. This student's work struck my funny bone:

Because Mommy is not an insect

Another interesting thing about this image is that several students were very hesitant about drawing insects, so we looked for the shapes they had in their different body parts and used those shapes to help draw the insect they had in mind. This student's bee is a circle and two diamonds. 

We may be done with insects very soon, as students are noticing the season changing and this is hopefully leading us into explorations of different leaves. On Friday, several afternoon students uncovered my pH testing strips so that's another direction we may be off and following as well.

Before I move on, in preparing for Parents' Night last week, we created posters that listed all the learning happening at each centre to help make the learning more visible. I thought I would post the links to those here, so you could review them at your leisure:

Art Centre
Construction Centre
Drama Centre
Reading Centre
Science Centre
Sensory Centre
Snack Centre

We've also been asking students what learning they're seeing at each centre, so if you visit the classroom, you may see stickies quoting students' comments about their own learning around each poster as well.

Regards,

Ms. Goegan