Interviews by Request

Just a reminder we are having interviews by request this Thursday, April 21. There was a mistake on the notice that went home which had the wrong date. These interviews are for those who have concerns about their child. Please contact me if you wish to come in Thursday (4-7:30) or I will contact you if I have concerns about your child. Thank you!

April

Hope everyone had a great break! As you may or may not know I am heading to the Dominican tonight! Mrs MacAskill, my momma bear, will be subbing for me all week. I'll be back April 10.

Here's what the month of April has in store for us!

Early Literacy:

• Continuing with our letters Pp-Tt
• Working on writing - students are practicing sounding out! We encourage them to listen for the sounds in the words and write the letters that they hear. It is important that your child is recognizing most of their letters (capital and lowercase) and can identify their sounds. 
• Working on reading - we will be continuing to "read the pictures" and will be starting on comprehension

Early Numeracy :

• #6-10 and counting backwards. Students should be able to recognize all numbers from 1-10 and be able to recognize the 10 frames from 1 to 10 without having to count. They should be able to count starting at any number up to 10 and be able to count backwards from 10-1. We will be reinforcing these skills in the centre time format of Daily 3.

Citizenship and Identify

• I Belong - We will be working on group skills such as cooperation, respect, feelings and identifying the needs of others. I'm looking forward to large group project where all classmates will have to participate in order to accomplish a goal!

Environment and Community Awareness

• Exploring our 5 Senses
• Earth Day is April 22! We will be learning about how to take care of our planet and keep things green!

Personal and Social Responsibility

• Continuing our 5 Senses goal sheet
• We have 2 new students in our class! We will be talking about friendship and what it means to be a good friend, to be welcoming and to be helpful. So far I am so impressed with how our kids have been treating the new student! The second one comes on Tuesday and I'm sure they will be just as welcoming!

Physical Skills

• We will be talking about our health and our body and how we need to take care of ourselves through exercise, eating good foods and practicing good hygiene.

Creative Expression

• We will be continuing practicing different movement and action songs
• Looking at and appreciating art in the environment

Don't forget to check out the Classroom Fun in Photos section to see some cute pictures of our kids!

March

Oh my goodness, how fast the days are passing! I apologize for the late post for this month. Thank you to everyone who attended Portfolio Conferences! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. It's always a pleasure to see parents involved and interested in what we do at school so thanks again! I also appreciate everyone's feedback. This helps me plan, change and improve what we do for next year. Your input is extremely valuable.

This month we will be working on :

Early Literacy:
We are continuing with learning the letters in the alphabet. This month we'll be focusing on letters Ll to Pp. Make sure you're practicing letter formation, letter recognition and letter sounds with your child at home! We're also continuing the Daily 5 with Word (Letter) Work. We use the Daily 5 format to practice our letters and letter sounds through centres and play based activities.

Early Numeracy
We are focusing on numbers 6-10 and writing our numbers 1-10. We have introduced the Daily 3 format which focuses on "Math Writing" and "Math with Someone". The Daily 3 has a similar format as the Daily 5 except the concepts are math based. The Daily 3 structure is also a centre/play based format for learning.

Citizenship and Identify
We are learning about our community. We have looked at community helpers and are now talking about familiar places in our community. We will continue talking about safety in our community as well.

Environment and Community Awareness
Our theme for the next couple of months is The 5 Senses. Students are completing their goal sheets based on this theme. We will also be talking about special days in March such as St Patrick's Day and Easter. And of course we are all looking forward to Spring!

Personal and Social Responsibility
This month we have done Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood... aka Listen First Then Speak. The students and I have talked about the importance of being a good listener and what characteristics make a good listener. We will also be doing Habit 6: Synergize; how we can successfully work together.

Physical Skills
We will be spending our gym time this month playing with the parachute! We will also have our usual crafts to practice fine motor skill such as writing, cutting and coloring.

Creative Expression
As well with special occasion crafts we have started a dance unit. The students are learning how to keep in time with the music. We are experimenting with following dance routines on the SMARTBoard (JustDance Kids) and having fun making up our own dance moves.

Don't forget to check out the Fun in Photos and Song and Dance sections of my blog for some fun things and cute pictures!

February

We're back into the swing of things and looking forward to a busy month! Following are some of the things we will be working on this month.

• We will be continuing to learn our letters and sounds with the Animated Alphabet. We have done Aa to Hh so far and will hopefully get to Ll by the end of the month. 
• We're continuing to work on writing. I've been very impressed with the writing skills our kids are developing already! We encourage the kids to listen for the sound in the words and write down those letter sounds they hear. This is a good way to prep them for eventually sounding out words which will be a big part of Grade 1. 
• Talking about our favorite stories. We talk about our favorite parts and favorite characters. This goes hand in hand with the Daily 5 model. We have introduced Read to Self, Read to Someone and Listen to Reading. Our class has so far been very successful with the Daily 5. The students understand that in Kindergarten we "read the pictures" and they are getting very good at inferring what is happening in the stories by looking at the pictures. 
• Focusing on numbers 6-10 - number recognition and relating numbers to respective quantities. We will be completing our math activities in a play based format through math games and hands on activities. This will take place in small groups during center time. Lately, our Grade 2 buddies have been helping us by playing math games with us!
• Community members and how to stay safe in our communities.
• Music with a focus on beat, rhythm and instruments.
• Continuing with the 7 Habits of Happy Kids. We have just completed Habit 4: Think Win Win.
• We will be continuing with our Winter and Ocean themes. Our celebration this month is Valentine's Day!

Please note: We have implemented some "quick skill checks" for students who are struggling with some of the concepts we're doing at school. These concepts include shapes, colors, numbers 1-5, writing their name and recognizing the letters in their name. In the mornings we will be doing a quick activity for students to complete. These will go home with a note asking parents to help us reinforce these skills at home. If you get any of these notes, I thank you in advance for working with me at home! Your teamwork is appreciated!

We have two important events this month!

1. Bowling and Valentine's Day

We will be going bowling on February 9 in the morning. Thank you to those who have volunteered and thank you to those who have already brought back your permission slips!

We will be having our Valentine's Day celebration on February 11 in the afternoon. I will be asking students to volunteer to bring some snacks for our party. If you would like to bring something, let me know. There are 22 students in our class and the help is always appreciated! I will also be sending a class list home for Valentines. If you child does not want to bring Valentine's that is completely fine, but if they are bringing please make sure they are bringing for everyone!

2. Student Involved Portfolio Conferences

We will be having portfolio conferences during the evening on February 25. Please note this is not a formal parent/teacher interview. This will be an opportunity for you to come with your child and have them show you what they have been learning at school. You will have half an hour to explore the different centers and complete activities with your child. You will then be able to look through your child's portfolio and take it home with you. The sign up sheet will be posted outside our classroom. Further information will be sent home soon. Because the Kindergarten classes are not having formal interviews like the rest of the school, if you have any questions or concerns regarding your child please don't hesitate to contact me and I will do the same for you!

Please note we do not have school February 15-19.

January

Welcome back everyone! I hope everyone had a great break and a good first week back! This month we will be continuing with:

• The alphabet - learning our letters and letter sounds, as well as the characters from the animated alphabet
• Numbers - we're focusing on numbers 6-10 as well as comparing numbers and recognizing quantities
• 7 Habits - focusing on Habit 4: Think Win-Win and Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood
• Seasons - Winter
• Daily 5 - Listen to Reading
• Oceans - our new theme/goal sheet

Tomorrow will be our first day of library so bring your library bags to school!

Please remember we go outside everyday! Bring snow pants, hats, mitts, coats to school!

December Update

Thank you for those of your who returned your library books yesterday! Yesterday was the last library exchange day until the new year.

Our Christmas Concert will take place Thursday December 17th. All the kindergarten classes will be participating in BOTH concerts.  The grades K, 1, 3, 5 concert will take place from 12:15-1:15. The grades K, 2, 4, 6 concert will take place from 1:45-2:45. Feel free to pick whichever concert you would like to attend or both. The kindergarten classes will be performing the same song at each concert.

With the Christmas concert taking up most of the afternoon and rehearsals for the concert taking place that morning, we have decided to have our Christmas party on Tuesday December 15th. This day will consist of a Christmas craft and a short Christmas film accompanied by snacks. I will be asking students to volunteer to bring some snacks to share with the class. If your child volunteers, you will receive a note in their agenda. Thanks in advance for your help!

If you have any questions about either one of these events, please feel free to contact me!                  

December

Hey everyone!

Thanks so much to everyone who came swimming with us! There were a lot of parent volunteers (and even four dads!!) and it really made the afternoon go a lot smoother and I felt like I could relax a bit more. I really appreciated the help!

December is fast approaching already! We will be carrying on with many of the same things we have been working on this month such as Daily 5 (Read to Self), the 7 Habits of Happy Kids, explorations with dinosaurs and the alphabet. In Math we are starting sorting and patterning which will carry on into the new year. We will also have some centres set up that will pertain to the holidays.

A few things to note:

The kindergarten classes will be participating in the Christmas concert this year! We will be singing a song about Pete the Cat. If you would like to practice the song at home you can find the link here.
http://www.thelearninggroove.com/#!pete-the-cat-saves-christmas/c18k4
It will also be posted on the "Songs and Videos" page of my blog (right hand side). The concert will be taking place December 17th. I will be sending home notices about the Christmas concert once we have more details about it.

We will also be having our class Christmas party on Thursday December 17th. More details will follow about that, as well.

Please remember that we do go outside everyday for recess. Students need to be bringing snow pants, hats and mitts to school everyday!

Our last day of library before the break will be Tuesday December 1st. Please don't forget to return books.