Every Child Matters

The Rock Stars of the Day have officially begun!

We started our morning off with Blaire being our Rock Star

Blaire shared her stuffed animal Wilma. Her mom gave her Wilma as a special treat one day! How special are you, Blaire!

In the afternoon, Jackson was our Rock Star!

Jackson shared his knowledge of Muay Thai with us! He even demonstrated the punches and kicks that he knows.

Students shared in Orange Shirt Day today. We watched a story called When We Were Alone and talked about how it would feel if we couldn't dress the way we wanted or wear our hair a certain way to school. We talk about how we are all different and how that is what makes us unique. What a boring world it would be if we were all the same! We talked about the different ways that we can learn about people in our class that are different than us - we can ask to learn more about what they are doing or something that they have that we do not, we can ask them to teach us what they are doing, we can ask to play with them and we can ask them their name if we forgot it.

Learning Tables

Students began their new learning tables for the week and will rotate through all of them by the end of the week. We are working on recognizing the numbers 1-5 and representing them by drawing the correct amount of dots and writing the corresponding numeral, we are sorting objects into groups, creating as many different patterns as we can and journaling our favourite thing to do or what we did the night or day before. At the journal table we are working on adding any letters that we know to tell the story of what we drew.

Winter Weather ... in Fall

On the days that we do not have gym we will be going outside for fresh air breaks. It is important that the students learn to independently dress themselves - snow pants, jacket, hats, boots then mitts. giving your child extra practise with zippers at home is very helpful.

The AM Kinders had a chance to visit the library today - how exciting! They can keep their books and return them in 1 week.

If your child still has their library books at home they can bring them back to return them. We will be going to the library once a week.

Have a great night!

Happy Friday!

We started our day off with some "noisy reading." Students are encouraged to "look closely" when reading and sometimes find that using our magnifying glasses or our special reading glasses. They were also reminded that "we are all readers" and that by reading the pictures of the story we are still "reading." Students chose to read alone or with a friend.

Kindergarten Tree Art : Fall

Students looked closely at a picture of our Kindergarten Tree. Students discussed the colors and shapes that they could see. Next, we learned to sketch the tree using straight lines and a letter Y to create the branches of the tree.

Orange Shirt Day

On Monday September 30th we will be honouring children of residential schools by wearing an orange shirt. In Kindergarten will be making sure that all children feel welcome, knows that they belong in our classroom and that we treat one another with kindness.

Stay warm this weekend!

- Mrs. Taylor

What a lovely day today was! Students learned all about the letter L. We sang a jolly phonics song about licking lollipops to help us with the sound that L makes. Ask your child to sing it for you!
Here is the link to the song. You will have to fast forward to 3:29 for Ll.

We then took out our magic pens and practised writing both the uppercase and lowercase L in the air before putting our fine motor skills to use. The students wrote both the upper and lower case Ll in their notebooks and then brainstormed items that start with the letter L. We brainstormed items inside and outside of our classroom that make the /l/ sound before drawing and labeling 2-3 of them. Ask your child what they drew and labeled.

Right now the students are copying the labels, which is also part of our curriculum, but eventually we will move into "kid spelling" where they will be writing the dominant sounds that they hear. For example, if they wanted to spell "lime" they might label their drawing by writing "lim" or the word "run" might just have the first and last sounds,  "rn"

We finished up with this weeks learning tables. Ask your child which one they chose to do today. This week we were working on subitizing (recognizing numbers at a glance) with dice games, matching upper and lower case letters to our name and drawing people. Next week we will have a new jobs at our learning tables.

We practiced our poem of the week. Ask your child to sing the poem to you and show you the actions.

Rock Star of the Day!
Next week we start our Rock Star of the day! 
We are all SO excited! 
Please make sure to mark down the special date for your child.

Happy Birthday Almira!!

We hope that you have a wonderful and warm day celebrating!

Reminder that tomorrow is AM Kinders.

Stay warm tonight!

Terry Fox Run

Today the students participated in our school's Terry Fox Run. They did so well! They all kept on going and they "didn't give up - just like Terry didn't give up!"

To learn about Terry's legacy we watched a couple videos/interviews and Mrs. Taylor shared some stories about Terry and why he wanted to run. Can I tell you what I learned about Terry Fox?

We watched this video and it sparked many questions from the students - they might have some to ask you at home as well!

We ended our day with centers. Some centers that we have right now are...

Blocks

Lemonade Stand

Math Games

Writing Center

Loose Parts Story Telling

Reminder that Friday is AM Kinders only (8:10am - 11:45am)

Have a wonderful night!

See, Think, Wonder

Today we went for our first "Wonder Walk" and visited our Kindergarten tree!
On our walk to our tree we spent some time stopping and using our new thinking routine - See, Think, Wonder.

Some of the things that we noticed and wondered were:

• "I see that tree does not have leaves. I wonder why? I think it was from the wind!"
• "I see that tree is purple and that tree is yellow. I think that trees can have leaves that are every color. I saw white leaves before!"
• "I see squares on the school. I wonder how many there are?"
• "I see a tree that looks like a christmas tree!"
• "I can see the flags. I wonder how they get so high?"

We then spent some time at our tree feeling it and describing what we felt.

• "It feels bumpy"
• "I think it feels so smooth here. But then it is bumpy, weird."
• "I think this hole is for an animal and it feels hard."
• "Why does it feel rough?"

We will be visiting our Kindergarten tree throughout the year to see how it changes with each season. We learned that an easy way to remember the season of Fall is that "the leaves FALL from the tree" - Mr. Murphy told our AM class this little trick!

We started our morning working at our learning tables. We are working on subitizing (recognizing the number number right away) and printing the numbers 1-5 and 1-12 with some fun math games, learning to draw a person using shapes and matching both upper and lower case letters to our name.

Ask me what the job was at my table today.

Both AM and PM students had gym today and the PM students had music. 

Terry Fox Run

Tomorrow the AM students will be running in the Terry Fox run with the whole school and the PM students will be running/speed walking the same route in the afternoon.

Have a wonderful night!

Names : How many letters are in your name

Happy Monday! Thank you parents for taking the time to meet with me last week!

Names
We are continuing to investigate our name. It is really important that we can recognize our name and print our name. Whenever your child draws a picture at home, a helpful way to help them practise printing their name is by having them simply print their name on their picture -  this also makes it fun for them! Pointing out the letters in the name when reading a book is also helpful. They can rainbow print their name - they write each letter in a different color. Or, using playdou to form the letters of their name. Whatever is fun and helpful for them!
We are working really hard to be able to independently write our name at school - could you ask your child to write their name for you at home? Or can they recognize and be able to point out their name if you write it for them?

Name Towers
Today we wondered how many letters each person has in their name and how many people have the same amount of letters in their name. We guessed that most people have 5 or 6 letters in their name. 
To see if our guesses were correct, we first wrote out our name on a strip of paper with each letter of our name in a box. 
Next, we matched each letter of our name with a block. 
Last, we made our tower using the same number of blocks as letters in our name.

Here is what we learned:

AM

PM

Ask your child where they placed their name tower? How many letters are in their name? What are the letters in their name? 


Terry Fox Run
A message was sent out this evening to all parents regarding the Terry Fox run - due to rain and snow, the Terry Fox run will be rescheduled to this Wednesday morning.
AM students will run with the whole school in the morning.
PM students will run together in the afternoon with Mrs. Dennis, Miss. Nanavaty and myself. 

To support Terry's Run, our school will be collecting toonies for Terry. If you wish to donate you can send a toonie to school with your child and we will being them to the office. If you wish to donate more than $20.00there is a pledge form on Miss. Nanavaty's blog:   https://nbsphysicaleducation.blogspot.com/ that you can fill out for a tax receipt.

Blue Demographic/Consent Forms
This is the last week to hand these in. Please return them asap! Thank you!

Happy Birthday Avianna! 

We hope you had a wonderful weekend celebrating with your friends and family! 

(If we missed your child's birthday, or if your birthday is in the summer, we will do a big birthday in June)

Have a wonderful night!!

- Mrs. Taylor

Library

Today both the AM and PM students visited the library and took out 2 books! Our library is a shared space with a grade 1 class so we had to be extra quiet when looking for the perfect books to take out. The Kinders nailed it! Their books can be brought back to school in a week.

The students were all SO excited to bring their books home to read with their parents.

Here are some home reading tips for you to try when reading with your child:

• Read the title and talk about the book cover
• Tun the pages of the story and ask your child "What do you think the story will be about?"
• Praise your child's predictions. "Great idea! You used the pictures to help you predict what might happen next!"
• Be enthusiastic about reading the story together. "Lets read the story to see if any of our predictions were right!"
• Throughout the story, read with your finger pointing under the words to draw their eyes to the words as well as the pictures.
• Point our familiar words or letters.
• Read only the pictures one time and then read it again, but read the words - do the pictures match what the words say? You can read a story by just reading the pictures! We are all readers!

Just a reminder that there is NO school for both AM and PM tomorrow and Friday.

Conferences: these conferences are a chance for you to tell us about your child. The students also have work in the hallway to show and explain to you - we have been discussing and investigating what a problem is and what we can do with a problem. 

I am looking so forward to meeting everyone tomorrow and Friday!

Have a great evening!

- Mrs. Taylor 

Color, Cut, Glue! Today we practiced our cutting skills by cutting our various shapes and glueing them into our workbook. If you have scrap paper at home it would be helpful for them to pracitice cutting - they can draw lines (we know all about those) and then follow the lines, or draw shapes and cut those out. 

Both AM and PM had gym today and the PM Kinder's also had music.

Reminder that there is NO school for both AM and PM Thursday and Friday as there are conferences on those days.

Have a great evening everyone!

Mrs. Taylor

Happy Monday! By the sounds of it, it seems like all families had a great weekend!

We started our day by printing and tracing our names, and naming the letters in our name (in order and out of order). It is helpful to continue practicing this at home if you can.

Both the AM and PM classes had gym today and played "Magic Rock"

Oops! Mrs. Taylor made a mistake when photocopying paper for us to do our art on - what did we end up doing? Was it a problem? Or did we come up with a solution? Ask me what I turned my three blobs into! (you will see our art work when you come on Thursday/Friday)

We read the book "Beautiful Oops" and talked about different ways to solve "oops" problems.

If you have not signed up for conferences there are still time slots available. If you are having troubles booking please let me know if there is anything that I can help with!

Enjoy the rest of your night!

- Mrs. Taylor

Happy Friday!

Today the PM Kinder's had their first Friday morning at school! We started our morning off with some mindfulness. Mrs. Taylor introduced the students to a new book that we will be using throughout the year called "Breathe like a bear." It is full of different mindful moments for us to do prior to starting our day and just before we go home.

Our art today was creating "rainbow names" - ask your child how they did this to their name. What 4 colors did they choose?

Fire Drill - this morning we had our first fire drill and the Kinders nailed it! Woo hoo!!
They quietly lined up and walked silently in a line following the teacher out to the school muster point. We will have more drills throughout the year and we are all confident that we know exactly what to do now for the next one!

Parent Conferences: Please remember to book your conference - they are this coming Thursday and Friday. If you are having troubles booking it please let me know and I will do my best to help!

You can book using this link: https://sis.cbe.ab.ca/public/home.html

Have a great weekend!

Good Afternoon!

What a busy day today was! Both the AM and PM Kinders started their day off doing their last learning tub job. Ask your child what their job was today - was it tracing their name, cutting, following lines or just loose parts?

Our family helps us when we have a problem. 

We started a discussion looking at a variety of pictures and personally deciding how they made us feel. Once we decided, we either gave a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Some of the pictures were of: a wasp, the Dr, a splash park, a big dog, the playground. We talked about how they made us feel and recognized that some of us may feel "thumbs up" and some may feel "thumbs down" and that it was okay!
We then talked about the different people that we can go to in the classroom or the school if we need help or support with something.

All students agreed that if they were not at school they would go to someone in their family if they needed help.

We then drew a picture of ourselves with our family who makes us feel safe. Ask your child who they drew.

AM Kinder Families

PM Kinder Families

We are all excited about our new Lemonade Stand and I want to let everyone know that they will all have a turn at the Lemonade stand this coming week!


Important Information

Tomorrow the PM Kinders have school from 8:10am - 11:45am
No school for the AM Kinders

The Kinders alternate Fridays that they attend school. You can find the calendar on our school website or use the link below to access it and save it for future use.

Use this link to access the school calendar  --> 2019 - 2020 School Calendar

I hope everyone has a wonderful evening!

- Mrs. Taylor

Today both the AM and PM Kinder's had P.E with Miss. Nanavaty and the PM Kinder's had their first music class with Ms. Lysak - ask your child what they learned in both P.E and Music (PM Kinders).

We rotated through our learning tub job today so each student had a new job to do. One of the other jobs that we are working on during our learning tub time is using scissors correctly. If you wanted to practise cutting at home you can remind your child to keep their "chicken wing" tucked in and their thumbs to the sky. It also helps to hold and move the paper with your non cutting hand rather than moving your scissor.

Tomorrow we will be doing a learning task about what we love the most about Kindergarten.

Thank you to all the parents that return the demographic forms. Please return these as soon as possible.

Have a wonderful (rainy!) evening!

Learning Tubs

Happy Monday! Today was the first "full" day of school for both the Morning and Afternoon Kinder's!

All the Kinder's had their first P.E (physical education) class today in the gym - ask them what game they learned! (hint: it has to do with a magic rock)

Learning Tubs:

Today we learned about and started our 4 new Learning Tubs. Right now we are investigating lines and how lines are used in our everyday life, in drawing, reading and writing!
We also learned a new poem about our name that we will continue to practise this week.

During our learning tub time we are practicing tracing the letters in our name, tracing over the lines and also using loose parts to cover the 4 different kinds of lines (zigzag, curly, straight and wavy).

At home, if you wanted to help your child with this weeks learning tubs you can practise writing your child's name and naming the letter in their name.
Other ways to learn the letters in the name: creating the letters out of play-dough/rocks/jewels, write and cut of the letters of their name - mix the letters up and have them put them in order and say the name of the letter, point out letters when reading aloud with them, rainbow name - they can write each letter of their name in a different color or using a fun writing utensil like a special pen or marker.

We ended our day with centers! Ask your child what center(s) they chose today.

Demographic Forms: today your child was sent home their demographic forms. There are TWO places to sign on these forms. Please read through, sign and return all forms as soon as possible.

Indoor Shoes: Please ensure that your child has a separate pair of indoor shoes for school. This is especially important now that fall and winter are approaching.
Please make sure that they are runners without tie up laces and that your child knows how to put them on/off. It is also helpful to label them and all of their belongings that they bring to school.

It was so lovely to meet all of you this morning and afternoon! 

I look forward to working with you throughout the year!
- Mrs. Taylor