Dramatic Play Centre

 

Next week the dramatic play centre will be changing from the beauty salon to a post office. I have purchased fancy paper, different sized envelopes. I am hoping to download a post card template to photocopy. We will continue to have the money in the centre and the telephone. Last week the children painted a box red and I downloaded and printed off the Canada Post Logo to glue onto the box. If I am ambitious enough I may attempt to make one or two mail bags for the mail.

 

I am looking for stickers that would be about the size of stamps, address labels, and any stamps that may say paid or some kind of office type stamp. Any donations to the post office would be greatly appreciated. If you have something we can borrow and then I will return it to you when the centre is changed again.

 

 

I never know how long the centre will be a post office. I usually follow the children's lead and when I see they are becoming bored or silly, then it usually means it is time to change it. 

Kindergarten Open House

 

If you have any friends that leave in the area who have a child or children that will be four years old before December 31st be sure to let them know about Kindergarten Open House. This will be held Thursday, February 7, 2013 from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. I am very excited since this will be my very first Kindergarten Open House. I hope we have lots of new JK children coming to register for the program at Meadowvale. Just so parents are aware, the program will continue to be a half day next year. Meadowvale is not planned to be full time until September 2014.

Science

Now that the children have had several opportunities to experiment with sink and float they will be offered an opportunity to build something using various materials. The criteria for what they build is the following:

1. It must float for at least 10 seconds.
2. It must hold a load of at least 15 pennies.
3. It must hold one cookie, without the cookie getting wet.
4. It must be build with at least two different materials.

I am sure this will be a fun experience for the children and for me.

Last week the children used pine cones, wow peanut butter (there are no peanuts in it at all) and bird seed to make bird feeders for the birds. They are hanging at the front just outside Mrs. Haddock's office window. She can hardly wait for the birds to come and visit her.  

Math

 

This week we will be finishing up with three-dimensional figures. They will be revisiting numbers to 10 more experiences with subitizing and showing how they know a number is more or less. They will be building specific numbers to ten using linking cubes and then putting them side by side to show that one number is more and one number is less. In order to assist the children, especially SK children with subitizing, I recommend playing board games the use two dice. This offers the children an opportunity to look at the first die and know the number and put that number in their head and count on. Playing games are a good introduction to addition. 

Reading

 

 

There are many reading strategies that adults use when reading. Most of the time we are not really aware that we are using strategies to assist us in our decoding of words and to understand what we are reading. Beginner readers need to be taught these strategies. These are taught in baby steps and the children are offered many opportunities to practise these strategies, since they are just beginning to read. Two of the strategies that are being reinforced are: looking at the beginning sound (to make sure what they say makes sense) and look at the picture. Looking at the picture cues, the pictures are in many of the books for young children in order to assist them with their decoding and their understanding of what is happening in the story.

This week we will be working with the book "The Mitten". We will be reading a variety of different variations of the story by different authors. We will be talking about what is the same in the stories and what is different. Also, this book leads itself nicely into drama experiences for the children. Where they will be able to act out the story using various props.

 

The "By Heart Words" for this week are: he and she. Practising these words is very beneficial to the children's reading and writing. Many of these word must be memorized because sounding them out does not always work. Also, these are the most frequent words the children come across in their reading and their writing.

 

The Jolly Phonics sound for this week is "v". I want the children to realize that there are some words where the "v" is at the beginning and some where it is at the end.  Some of the words are:  van, vest, visit, vet, very, drive, vine, glove, love.



The Building Continues

Yesterday the afternoon boys challenged themselves to build a structure that five boys could fit inside. The criteria for the building was they had to work as a team. First we discussed what team work looked like and sounded like. These were some of their ideas (the girls assisted with the ideas).

 

• took turns and shared.
• spoke nicely to each other.
• make sure everyone has a turn to add blocks to the structure.
• there are no bosses or bossy people.
• tell each other what a good job they are doing.
• keep trying different things to make the structure better and better.

Well five of the boys worked very hard on their structure and they showed fabulous team work and made a super structure. All 5 boys successfully fit into the structure. The girls were very kind and complimented the boys on the structure they made and how well they worked as a team.

Well today the girls wanted to have a turn. They wanted to have the same team work but they decided to build a city. What a fabulous city it was. Only three girls chose to work there and they worked on it all afternoon. They made labels for the city so people would know where the pet shop was and other things. The girls even included a play pool in their city.

The boys were a little disappointed they could not have the blocks today. However, it will be interesting to see how they challenge themselves tomorrow and what they will make. The boys did compliment the girls and told them they liked the way they added the writing to their city.

I have found it fascinating to see the maturity and growth that has taken place in such a short time. Blocks, building, and construction is far more than just "play". For I have witnessed first hand, cooperation, problem solving, team work, fairness, and lots of sharing.


Science

 

After several experiments with sinking and floating last week the children are now ready for the big experiment. They will be offered a variety of materials and their job will be to create something that will float and will also be able to hold a specific number of objects. They will be able to select and use the various materials to carry out their explorations and communicate their intentions.This will offer the children more opportunities to pose questions, make predictions and observations during the investigation. This investigation may lead into next week so each children will have an opportunity to participate in the investigation.

Math

 

 

We will continue with three-dimensional figures. The children are challenged by knowing the words cylinder, cube, sphere and cone. Reinforcing these words and showing examples with various things at home would be beneficial. Some of the math stations for this week are where the children will be investigating which of these figures can stack, roll and slide. They will continue to have opportunities to use the figures to create various structures and discuss the structures they created and the figures they used. There is a matching game that I have created where the children turn over a card that has a specific figure on it and then they find the figure that is on their recording sheet.

 

 

In order to continue to reinforce the mathematical skill of subitizing I have created a snowman game where the snowmen contain numbers two to twelve. The children roll two dice and will be encouraged to subitize the number on the first dice and then count on the second dice. This is a huge challenge for Kindergarten children, but they will require this skill for adding later on. Playing board games at home with two dice would be beneficial, especially to the SK children. 

Outdoor Play

 

Even though there is no snow it is very cold outside. If the temperature becomes too cold we will not be going out to play some days next week. However, I suggest all the children come to school each day with snowpants, boots, hats, neck warmers or scarves and warm mittens. The children look forward to playing outside and even if I can take them out for 10 minutes daily the fresh crisp air is good for them and they have lots of fun running around.

 

 

Language

 

We will continue listening to a variety of stories that lead themselves to retelling the important events and in the correct order they occurred. The children mainly will do this orally and through some drama activites. One of the stories we will read next week is called "Snowballs". This is a beautiful book that demonstrates all the various materials children used to create their own special snowman. In order to reinforce some of the elements from the story the children will be bringing home a letter and a snowman which they can create with you at home. This little family project will be in lieu of working on a poem this week. We will be working on a poem on our own during class time this week.

 

The jolly phonic sounds for this week the "w" sound. This is a wonderful opportunity for the SK children to chunck sounds together in order to make words that begin with the "w" sound. Some of these words are: we, was, went, way, wag, wig, wind, wash, waz, web, will, well, wet, whip, wish, win, wish, won.

 

The word family for this week is the: ug family.  We mainly focus on simple 3 letter words:  bug, dug, hug, lug, mug, pug, rug, jug, tug.

 

 

Finally the "by heart word" is do. Please try to review these words with your child on a regular basis. These words are the words that occur most frequently in their reading and writing.



Great Learning about how to ask a question

The other day I found a bug crawling on the counter around the sink. Luckily I am not afraid of any kind of bugs, insects or spiders. Now snakes that is a different story. I decided to collect the bug and place it into my bug jar, which happens to magnify things on the bottom. I offered both the morning and the afternoon children an opportunity to carefully examine the bug, investigating all its characteristics and to think of an "I wonder" question. The children's questions were amazing so I thought I would share them with the parents.

I wonder if it can fly?          I wonder if he can do a bug walk?   

I wonder if it has a family?       I wonder if it is a baby or an adult?

I wonder where it came from?    

I wonder if it has eyes because I don't see them.

I wonder if it lives in a tree because some bugs live in trees.

I wonder how it got all it's colours.

I wonder what it is thinking or does it have a brain.

I wonder what it eats?

I wonder if the spots get bigger when the bug gets bigger.

I wonder what it does with those things on it's head?   (antenna)

Then the children started to wonder how the beetle got into the classroom. Some of their ideas where:

I noticed there are cracks along the outside of the school so maybe it went through the cracks into our classroom. Maybe it crawled over the top of the door that leads to that outside part of the school ( the peace garden area).

Maybe it crawled under that same door.

We may never know where the beetle came from or how it came into the school. But I do know that one little beetle did create a lot of rich communication, questioning and learning in the Kindergarten classroom!

I took some of the children's questions and went to the Internet to find some of the answers.   

The beetle I found is known as a box elder beetle. It was an adult beetle because as the beetle becomes older the orange markings become more visible and larger.

Science

 

 

The children have had several opportunities to demonstrate an awareness of natural occurrences using their observations. These opportunities were offered when the leaves were changing colour, in the examination of various rocks, and when they examined water which included a variety of different liquids. 

For this week the children will have opportunities to examine how water affects various materials in the area of sinking and floating. The children will have opportunities to examine what happens with various materials when they interact with water and to think about why some materials float and some sink.



Math

 

This week the children will be introduced to 3D figures. The expectation is for the children to build three-dimensional structures using a variety of materials, and begin to recognize the three-dimensional figures that the structure contains. The plan is to have the three-dimensional figures in the construction area to see what the children do with them and examine how they incorporate these materials into the structures they build. I will be making notes of exactly what they have made and ask them to orally tell me about the structures and the figures they used. The next challenge will be to investigate if the children can tell me why they used those particular figures.

Language

 

 

This week the By Heart Words will be:  up and come. Every day we practise printing the words on white boards and we orally spell the words. Orally spelling the word assists the JK children to identify the letters of the alphabet and assists the SK's to memorize the spelling of these important words. I also attempt to use the words in the morning/afternoon message and have one child take the word from the "By Heart Wall" and print the word into the message.

 

The Jolly Phonic sound for this week is  the "j" sound. This is a difficult sound for the children because at this young age they often confuse the "g" and the "j" letter and sound. Some of the simple words we will be working on are the following: jam, jaw, jet, job, jazz, jelly, jello, jot, jog, jump, junk, jug, just.

 

 

The word family for this week is the "ap" family. Some of the words are the following: cap, clap, gap, lap, map, nap, tap, sap, tap, trap, flap. If the children can say the "ap" sound this assists them to chunk these two sounds together and then they just have to place the first sound in front of the chunk. For example if the word is cap- c-ap, rather than stating all three sounds. 

Language

 

 

The "By Heart Words" for this week are:  purple and said. In Jolly Phonics we will be working on the "b" sound. Every day in the morning message we practise some of the words with the sound and stretching out the sounds and chunking the sounds are practised as a large group on a daily basis.

 

We will be working on the "ot" family this week. There are many words that assist in reading if one can chunk the "ot" sound, such as  cot, dot, got, hot, jot, lot, not, pot, rot, tot, spot, shot, slot, trot. I try to focus mainly on the short vowel sounds. The long vowel sounds are very difficult because there are so many different variations for these vowels.

 

 

The reading strategy will continue to be Retelling. There are many, many winter books that lead themselves very nicely to the retelling strategy.

 

 

There are many children who are becoming ready and eager to read or are already reading. I will be meeting with these children individually and see where they are comfortable reading. This is dependent upon how fluently they read, how they use the punctuation when reading and their knowledge of the "By Heart Words". Once I have a clear indication of the comfort level of each child's reading I will send home little books for them to read on a weekly basis. At this time this will apply mainly to the SK children. I want the children to be able to read and to use some of the strategies they have been taught during teaching time. Some of these strategies include: it is a by heart word, look at the beginning sound, use the picture to help you figure out the word. 

Math

 

This week the children will be completing a review of patterning and also numerations activities. I want to ease the children back into the program and most of the children are very comfortable with patterning and can name a pattern. I want to observe the children who can successfully and independently create and name a variety of patterns, especially the SK children. Hopefully they will be able to create and name many of the following patterns: ABAB, AABB, ABCABC, AAB, AABBCC.

 

 

In the area of numerations a few of the expectations are: demonstrate an understanding of number relationships for numbers from 0 to 10 ( I know there are 7 counters because all of the ten frame is full except for 3 spaces), begin to make use of one-to-one correspondence in counting objects and matching groups of objects (I counted 5 children so I need 5 napkins), identify which number quantities are more or less (I have 5 marbles and Karen has 3, that means I have more than Karen).

Welcome Back Everyone

 

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, spending quality time with family and friends. I want to thank everyone for their thoughtful gifts and cards. I truly appreciate your kindness.

 

The beauty salon is all ready to go with lots of activities to entice the children to use their prior knowledge of what happens in the salon. Before the break the children offered 4 names for the salon and they were voted on. The names were: One of a Kind Salon,  Kindergarten Salon,  Princess Salon, Pretty Girl Salon. The winning name of the salon is "Kindergarten Salon". The children will be creating the sign this coming week. I have created little sheets for them to complete which entails a little writing, which meets one of the Kindergarten expectations in the area of writing. They will also fill their names on a calendar when it has been their turn in the centre.