First Week in Room 202

Dear Parents,

We've survived the first week, heat wave and all. Thank you for being patient as we continue to work through the kinks of our new schedule. If you have any concerns, please do contact me so we can work to resolve issues together.

With 30 little bodies in our room, getting outside is very important. We use our yard in a variety of ways to facilitate our play based learning and we'll be outside in most weather. This week already, we've brought a water table for sensory play, bean bags and balls for building gross motor skills, and earth movers outside for imaginative play. Making sure your little one is dressed for playing outside is helpful to their learning.

(On that front, please do send back your forms, a spare set of clothes, and a pair of indoor shoes as soon as possible. Indoor shoes are good for rainy weather and for gym. They also help keep the classroom clean. )

I'm hoping to show you what play based learning looks like in our classroom as the year progresses. Kindergarten is all about following the mood and seizing the learning where it happens. For instance, this week, I started with magnetic letters and numbers as one of our centres, but it wasn't very popular. Some sorting was happening though.

L is sorting the letters by colour.

So we expanded on that and have really been using our counting bears. First, we sorted them by colour.

Next, we compared the sizes and counted how many of each colour we had. 

Then, individual students decided to see how many would fit on a couch or along a ledge, suggesting that we might use them to measure. 

Teddy bears have also shown up in our songs, in our stories, in building, and at the sensory centres (They float, but play dough tends to stick to them). As kids use their imaginations, I'm interested to see where else they might head. 

Sincerely,

Ms. Goegan

September Newsletter

Dear Parents,

Lots of hard work has gone into preparing our classroom for the new school year. Here's a tentative copy of our September Newsletter. Those of you with students in SK may find some of the content familiar, but there are some important changes with the shift to a full day program as well.

Again, best laid plans are those soonest shifted, so there may be a bit of flux once school starts, but we'll do our best to keep in contact and let you know as changes occur.

Regards,

Lisa Goegan

See you in September....

Dear Parents,

Welcome to a new year in Room 202. I'm heading into school tomorrow to begin setting up our classroom and get things organized. Things will look a little different and we hope you'll be patient while we find our groove with the full day program.

If you're new, feel free to look through the archives to get a better sense of what Kindergarten looked and felt like in our classroom last year. There are posts about each of the curriculum areas and lots of pictures to give you a sense of how play-based learning works.

If you sign up in the side bar, a notification will be sent to you when new posts happen.  (Last year, that was about once a week.)

During the school year, I do my best to check my email at least once daily and respond as promptly as possible to questions or concerns. You can reach me at lisa.goegan @ tdsb. on. ca

I look forward to sharing with you about your child's learning.

Sincerely,

Lisa Goegan

Raz Kids News

Dear Parents,

First off, I'm posting an online link to the March newsletter. You should expect to see this home tomorrow.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sid4213ofu8b5y5/March%20newsletter%20lisa.pdf

I hope that the Show and Share theme (Math is Everywhere!) is fun and an opportunity for creative play. However, if you get stuck for ideas, or can't find a printer, send me an email before the date so I can help out.

Along with the school newsletter and mail-outs, I sent home passwords to the Raz-Kids website today. The school has subscribed to this service, where students can work on reading levelled books. The program will also read to students and record their reading of a story. It's great because I can keep tabs on the program centrally and the subscription is good through the summer, allowing students to continue to practice their reading.

Parents had some questions as to why there were no library books sent home last week and I thought it would be good to clarify generally that this was due to the Book Fair. New book selections should have gone home yesterday, so please contact me if there's a problem moving forward, so we can sort it out.

Expect a more picture filled post by the end of the week to talk about Author Studies and classroom learning in more depth.

Cheers,

Lisa

Organic Language Play

Dear Parents,

This is around the time of the year when the magic really begins to happen, all the other Kinder teachers tell me, and I'm starting to see some really interesting things bubbling up, literacy wise.

The afternoon class has decided that the house centre should become a bakery, so while this may look messy, it's actually really interesting. These are the signs for the items they've decided to sell. You can see some pricing, which we've been talking about a lot in class: How much would you pay for a doughnut? A cup of coffee? Is there anything you would pay $100 for at a bakery? What's the difference between $1.00 and $100 dollars? These are good discussion points to bring up in your daily routine as well.

You can also see some of the experimental lettering from the JK students. They understand letters mean things, but some are still at a point where they don't quite get the correspondence between letters and sounds. 

 This student decided to create a movie poster for her favourite film.

You can see Rapunzel and the horse are well represented, but there's also a snail, who is there because we were discussing snails in general. 

One parent used the photo theme for the Show and Share in February as an opportunity to create a book with her child. We've used that book to create our own books for other favourite people.

Sometimes we learn by copying and then adding on. 

This student added illustrations

Using a familiar  phrase as a sentence starter can help spur writing

We've also had a fair bit of interest in turning the house centre into a restaurant from the morning class. Together, we voted for a restaurant name and brainstormed things to put on the menu. 

This student's menu folds out

Pop Up Restaurant has both chicken and noodles.

 There's also been a fair bit of discussion about hearts given Valentine's Day and today's Jump Rope for Heart event.

This student insisted on drawing both kinds of hearts in her journal. 

 Some students did worksheets showing what they learned through our extensive discussion about hearts:

It pumps blood

Your heart can get sick if you don't skip or exercise

Finally, just some housekeeping: if you still have daycare forms (JK parents only) or Jump Rope Envelopes you'd like to return, please send them in as soon as possible. Tuesday is our library day. Due to the book fair, students did not receive books this week, but things should return to normal on Tuesday.

Also, I will be away Monday afternoon only, so I will read with the afternoon SK's on Tuesday. Please ensure that the pattern books are in their zippies.

Thanks, as always,

Ms. Goegan

Photo Post

Dear Parents,

Yesterday was Hundredth Day, the hundredth day of school. It was also the day reports went home for Jk students.

 And Library.

 And the day we switch weekly poems and books.

So given all that, it's probably understandable that so many library and poetry folders were missing from Zippies this week. Hopefully, if there are complications, like a lost book or folder, you'll connect with me so we can remedy the situation. Reading pattern books with the SK's is particularly helpful to me, in terms of keeping track of their reading progress.

But back to Math, which has been our focus leading up to Hundredth Day.

We've been practicing counting to ten, then counting by tens as well. Most students  in my classes do well when they're reciting a sequence, but get stuck when they have to think about what 20 +  10 = or even 9 +1.  We've been trying to think of all the different ways we can get to 10 (e.g.: 3+3+2+2= 4+4+2). Students have also been doing series of 10 exercises (10 jumping jacks, then 10 stretches, for example). It's a good way to keep focus while doing math.

It was lovely to see how parents are reinforcing these concepts at home. I saw lots of groups of 10, and some groups of 5 as well. Objects were arranged in grids, or rows to help visualize ten in a number of ways. Different kinds of objects were used as well: cut outs from magazines, shapes, coins, stickers, drawings of favourite things and lists are just some examples.

I've tried to include photos of every child below, but I clearly got better at this by the afternoon. (In the morning, I tried to take action shots which is a rookie mistake.) I'm keeping the vests for a little while and am going to put them up in our hallway as a display, along with some of these pictures. Thanks for helping us make 100th day work!

As part of our school tour, we visit the principal. 

Important Valentine's Day Information

A parent emailed to ask me for the class list and I thought it might be a good general service to provide. First Names (AM): Ijaz Imaan Gabrielle Jahlisa Adelaide Milena Cy Caroline Blake Margaret Emmett James Alissa Alix Julia Johnny Isla Ania First Names (PM): Nico Izaiah Theodore Courtney Everett Iris Abby-Lyn Hunter Jesse Gryphon Lily Kai Elias Ivy Abbey Ella Check back later for a more colourful post with Hundredth Day photos.