Bringing the inside out

Dear Parents,

As the year winds to a close and the weather is beginning to feel more like summer, it's hard to say in the classroom. Getting outside is always important to our program and allows us opportunities for exploration that wouldn't happen in a classroom, but it's important to make sure that students still have choices. I wanted to show you some of the ways we brought classroom activities to the outdoors last week.

Playdough map of imaginary park: "But not a playground, it's more like Algonquin"

Add caption

There's books to read in the shade

Using bingo dabbers and markers to paint

The watertable has been very popular. There's a track around the edge that diverts water back into the main reservoir that students are interested in damming.

You've also got kickball 

Students created a tunnel with their legs for the cars to go through

Ms. Moniz hitches a ride on the taxi. 

I also wanted to talk about the recent drum performance we had, which was easily one of the top ten performances I've attended as a teacher. This eco-drum collective made drums and percussion instruments out of recycled materials and talked about the importance of reducing waste. Students were dancing and clapping along to music. The older brothers of 3 students were chosen as volunteers, so our class felt like we had a stake in the proceedings as well. I had thought I'd gotten more pictures of their dancing in spot than I did, and it's hard to see just how into it they were from the pictures I did get, but I'm sure you've already heard at least a little about this.

 

 Finally, students have been very excited about using pegboards to create geometric shapes and pictures. I love this photo series simply because it shows you the diverse ways students feel about having their picture taken, even when they ask to have their picture taken.

This will likely be one of my last blog posts for this year. I've enjoyed learning and growing with your kids so much and I look forward to seeing them continue to explore next year, whether they're with me or in the broader school community. 

Sincerely, 

Ms. Goegan

Notes and addendums

Dear Parents, 

I'd like to remind you that the Volunteer Appreciation potluck is on Monday at 3:00 pm

For our Teddy Bear Picnic on June 23rd, we've already received many offers of sweet baked goods so I think we're good on that front. If anyone would like to make sandwiches instead, it might be good to have more savoury options to share as well.

And the library is closing up the circulation computer for the end of they year, so please ensure library books are returned. I will also close our levelled reading program this Monday. Do not expect a new levelled book, but do continue to read at home with your child. It's so helpful to their love of learning. 

A more student centred post will follow over the weekend, with lots of pictures. We had a great drum performance yesterday  (I thought I had their url, but I'll link them in my follow up post). We also had a great day outside and I wanted to show you how we're bringing our activities and learning outside the classroom. 

Have a great weekend, 

Ms. Goegan

Airplanes

Dear Parents,

We're hard at work planning the Teddy Bear Picnic for June 23rd (Rain Date: June 24th). We hope you'll join us and that the afternoon will be an opportunity to spend time together as a cohort, eating and playing and celebrating the hard work that both you and the students have put into this year. Expect to see a potluck request and a little more detail on what this will look like very soon (this week!), as we nail down final details.

On that front, if you've been involved in the classroom this year, please be aware of the volunteer potluck in the gym on Monday June 15th, from 3:00 pm  to 4:00 pm. And do come! I plan to bake something special for it in order to help honour all the amazing support you've given our classroom this year.

We're also looking forward to next year, with the new JK parent welcome evening on Tuesday. This is also the final parent council meeting of the year and a good opportunity to set yourself up for being involved in the school community.

At the same time,  learning continues in the classroom. We've taken down the tent and have revived our drama centre area. Students decided to turn it into an airplane. We decorated an outline of the airplane for the outside:

 Made dials and controls for the pilot:

 Then set up the chairs like an airplane. Students have been taking turns being pilots, passengers, and serving each other food like flight attendants.

We've also set up a "security gate" to pass through and have been working hard on making passports and tickets. These are allowing us many opportunities to write authentically and to talk about different purposes for reading and writing.

 In other areas of the classroom, we've also been looking at airplane design. What types of materials and shapes will help a plane fly farther?

Students have been measuring and testing their creations.

We've also seen a resurgence of interest in mapping as a result of this drama centre. Students are looking at the world map and deciding where to go on "vacation" and what countries they have to pass through to get there. 

A lot can grow out of a simple interest. As we move towards the end of the school year, I hope you've seen how play based curriculum can be responsive to students' needs. 

As a final note, I'm really enjoying the free for all Show and Share theme. So far, we've had students teach us about rocks and minerals, learned songs, read books, and enjoyed being surprised (by a jack-in-the-box).  I look forward to more surprises!

Sincerely, 

Ms. Goegan

P.S. The circulation computer was down last week, so students did not get new books. Library will be winding down soon, but we have a week or two left. 

June Newsletter

Here is your June Newsletter. A hard copy will go home tomorrow, fingers crossed. As usual, feel free to let me know about any challenges with students' special days in case I've missed anyone. Our theme for Show and Share is free choice.

 (Just like Halloween though, we'd encourage you to review what's appropriate for our school in terms of guns, knives, or other violent imagery.)

On June 23 (Raindate June 24th), we'll be hosting a Teddy Bear Picnic, where we'll welcome families to join us in a year end celebration. More information regarding what that will look like will be forthcoming as the date approaches, so check your mail outs and keep your eyes peeled on this site.

Learning about Bees

Last Friday, the class learned about bees from Felix's mom, whose family farm has some hives. Highlights were looking at honeycombs, examining a smoker that they use to calm the bees, trying on beekeeping clothes and learning that bees dance to communicate. Students were also happy to sample some homemade honey on fresh bread.

Answering questions

Felix and the smoker

Ijaz is wearing the hat

Touching the honeycomb

Bees dancing on the field

Waggling in a line

Nothing is a waste of time, if you use it wisely.

Dear Parents,

Finding the time to sit down and write has been challenging but when I look through my photos, I have almost too much to talk about in a single post. I'll try to do it justice here.

First up, last week we had our second Math-stravaganza (as I like to call them), where students rotate through all the classes to learn about a topic from all our kindergarten teachers. Both teachers and students seem to enjoy these afternoons. This time, the topic was measurement.

Ms. Vandermeer had an interactive lesson about measuring and comparing length, where students compared different coloured lengths of yarn. First they had to look for people with the same colour and then compare whose was longest and shortest. Extensions include using the strings with a clipboard as a centre and having students find objects with that length in the classroom. This is a great open ended activity because students who are ready to use standard measures, like centimetres, can use them but students also gain contexts for the concept by using non-standard measures, like cubes or links.


Ms. Filan had students connecting times to clocks and using the whiteboard for a host of other time related activities and Ms. K had a poem and a variety of centres around the concept of time.


I decided to have students make analog clocks out of hula hoops. I bridged this by marking the hoops beforehand with tape so the divisions were easier to map out, but the cooperative aspect of this activity was where I saw the most learning happening, because they really needed to work together to make it work.

 Here are some of the ways students continued to work on time in the class this week:

These sheets are from Ms. K's activities and the hoop is being used for a "What time is it Mr. Dinosaur?" game with teddy bears in the background.

Making clocks at the playdough centre.

These guys are wearing the hours and minutes as badges of honour. I'm not sure why tape mustachios were in order.

But here's what's going on in the background:

Wheels in the sandtable

Stinky potato slowly grows roots

Reading with students

Dance Party continued: Waltzing to Vivaldi's Spring

Conga to some salsa music.

Working on apostrophes with some of the higher readers

Today was all about being outside and lots of learning can happen outside too. Here's what happened with the pattern blocks today:

Making patterns. "It's a shape store. You can buy shapes, but they're all free."

Making a sandwich

Two "meat" make up one "bread"

What about lettuce? Some problem solving happened.

Eventually they figured it out,  and went sideways

Now it is an ice cream sandwich

And this is: "Pizza sandwich. Eat it now!"

Some beginning fraction concepts are happening there amidst the dramatic play, as well as shape and colour recognition, counting, and patterning.

I'm sure you'll agree that this post is a little too long, but there's so much happening this time of year, it's almost impossible to show you everything that's happening.

Hope you're enjoying all the sunshine,

Ms. Goegan