Looking to Buy

 

 

I am looking to buy a Little Tykes double sided paint easel. I want it to have two trays on either side where the paint pots can be placed, and clips so the paper can be clipped to the easel. I want a Little Tykes because they seem more stable than many of wooden easels. The wooden easels the legs are very long and thin, which I feel makes them less stable. I have looked at Toys R Us and they do not have Little Tykes. I have checked the teachers store, Chapters, Turtle Pond, Book Depot, and Walmart. If any parents find a Little Tykes easel for the classroom please let me know where I can purchase it.

 

 

A friend told me there is one in the Toys R Us flyer but when I called they said it was not little tykes. I think I will go after school to check it out. If anyone has one that they no longer want, let me know before you sell it and I may be interested. Thanks for helping me.

Language

 

The jolly phonic sound for this word is the "t". Please review the letter, sound and action with your child. When working on the message for the day the children will attempt to stretch out the sounds to figure out some of the following words, especially the SK's.

 

tag, tip, tap, ton, tell, ten, tan, tall, tub, top, tug.

 

 

The "By Heart Word" for this week is:  have. Once again this is not one of the Kindergarten By Heart Words, however, I have noticed the children require this word often when they are writing their stories and it does often appear in some of the little books the children are bringing home to read.

 

 

 

Just a reminder to keep reading with your child at home and having them read to you if they can. Then fill in the books that have been read so your child can move from province to province in the Reading Across Canada project.

 

 

The stories the children will be listening to during the Teacher Read Aloud continue to be related to friendship and they will continue to focus on the problem and the solution that occurred in the story. When you are reading at home with your child, it would be very beneficial to reinforce this reading strategy.

 

 

One of the new By Heart Games that I made up is roll a word. Across the top of the page are die from 1 to 6 and across the bottom of the page I print the "by heart word". So if the child rolls a one and the by heart word until the one is we then they print the word we (after they have told me the word). Most of the children are really enjoying this game and it reinforces their printing of lower case letters, subitizing (when stating the number on the die), and reading and writing of the "by heart words". Look for the page when your child brings it home. Be sure to have them read the words to you and then you will know which words they continue to require additional practise with. 

Math

 

Continuation with creating the various combinations for numbers from 8 to 10. This is reinforced by using the game shake and spill. The children have a small container with 8 double sided counters (red on one side, yellow on the other side). They shake the container and carefully spill out the counters. Then they colour how many yellow counters there are and how many red. They continue with this same process until all the combinations have been found. The children love math games because they really don't know that they are learning their numbers and other mathematical understandings. When we were working on the number 6 a few of the Kindergarten children shouted this is fun. When I explained that Math is great fun, they were shocked to learn they were doing math. Now that is fabulous learning on their part!

Reading for the Love of It Conference

 

The first presentation I attended (and sat at the very front row) was with Miriam Trehearne entitled "Learning to Write and Loving It!"

Here are some of Miriam's thoughts that resonated with me:

 

• We want students to love to write!
• It's in the early years that you can really make a difference.
• Writing (including drawing) helps children to make sense of their world. It helps them to think! It also develops letter recognition, phonics, print awareness, phonological awareness, oral language, and comprehension.
• Children are developmentally ready to begin writing as early as three years old.
• Have a morning message for kids to write, rather than teachers.
• Have books everywhere!
• Provide many varied opportunities for students to engage with writing (surveys, brainstorms, letters, books, etc.).
• What's needed to become a writer: fluent letter recognition, phonological awareness, and oral language.
• Celebrate writing successes! 2 Praises and a Prompt.
• Get children to wonder about things and write about them.
• A writing workshop consists of: mini lessons, writing, writing conferences, and author share.
• It's important to allow children to "incubate their ideas" and talk about them before writing them down.
• When you give students real reasons to write, they will want to write, love to write, and write more.
• Writing helps the children believe in themselves as writers...

Of course I bought her book and she even signed it for me. How lucky is that, I feel like I met with a Kindergarten Rock Star!!





Block Construction Centre

 

For the next two weeks I am going to challenge the children who are planning to participate in the construction area. I have downloaded a picture of traffic on 401 for the children to examine. As a large group we will discuss what they notice about the roadway and how they think it would be better. The children's challenge will be to create a roadway with as many lanes as possible that will allow lots of cars to be able to travel on the roadway without too much of a traffic jam.

After snack the children will talk about what worked well and what did not work well and how they plan to fix the problem the next day. It will be interesting to see how the children work together to solve this problem, how well they communicate their ideas with one and another, and to examine the various strategies they use to ensure everyone has a turn to share their ideas with the rest of the group.

 

Friday, February 22nd

 

On Friday there will be a supply teacher with the Kindergarten children both in the morning and the afternoon. I have the pleasure of attending a fabulous conference in Toronto. The conference is known as "Reading for the Love of It". There are always fabulous presenters at the conference and I am very excited because this year they are having Lucy Calkins who is a wonderful presenter with lots of ideas in the area of writing. Her main focus is on Kindergarten, grade 1 and grade 2. I am hoping to get lots of new ideas to implement into the Kindergarten program. I am sure I will purchase some new teacher read alouds, since I am addicted to picture books and perhaps one or two new resources.

This is sure to be a wonderful and fun experience. I attended the conference two years ago and came home with lots of wonderful ideas to implement in the classroom.



Language

 

Our poem and most of the teacher read alouds for the rest of February will be on friendship and the children will be asked to orally discuss the problem and solution for each of the stories. The children will also be asked to tell what they would do if they had a problem like the one that occurred in the story.

 

As a large group we will be discussing and brainstorming things that make a good friend and things they like to do with their friends.

 

The children will also be offered opportunities for role playing various situations regarding kind words and kind actions to say and do with friends.

 

 

The jolly phonic sound for this week is the short vowel sound "a". Some of the words the children will examine and sound out are:  cap, hat, sat, ran, cat, can, pan, tap, bag, tag, tan, ham.

The "by heart word" for this week is for.

 

 

 

MATHEMATICS

 



 



Next week the focus in Math will be on number combinations for numbers 5  to 10. Each day we will focus on a specific number and record all the various combinations for that number and record them on chart paper as a large group. Then to reinforce this skill the children will complete an activity page for the number of the day. This will assist the children with early addition practise.

 

 

Number combinations for 5 are:   5 + 0 = 5, 4 +1 = 5, 3 + 2 = 5.

Events for This Week

 

Friday was a snow day and school was closed. Friday would have been our 100th day of school and all the children were asked to dress like they were 100 years old. Due to the fact that we lost Friday, I have decided to cancel our dressing like we were 100 years old. I am not sure if the rest of the school will be dressing up or not, but the kindergarten children and myself will not be part of the event. Monday will be just an ordinary day, but the morning children will have gym.

 

Thursday, February 14th is Valentines Day. In the afternoon I have two parents who will be offering a special snack for the children in the afternoon. At this time, there have not been any parents who have shown an interest in providing a special snack for the children as of yet. If you are interested in providing a snack for the morning program who can either email me, or let me know on Monday morning. Thursday is also the Dance-a-Thon, which both the morning and afternoon children will have an opportunity to participate. This is a fund raiser for Meadowvale School. We appreciate all the donations parents are able to give at this time.

 

Friday, February 15 is an Early Release Day, which means the morning children come to school as usual and will be dismissed at the regular time. However, there will be no school for the children in the afternoon.

 

Monday, February 18 is Family Day and there is no school for any of the children. This is a wonderful day to be sure to enjoy the time with the family. This is a day where almost everything will be closed, in order to ensure families are spending time together. My husband and I are planning on going to visit our one daughter on this weekend. 

Language

 

This week the By Heart Word will be "little". In order to help the children find and write these words, I use some of the words in the morning/afternoon message, but leave a blank where the word fits. Then the STAR for the day chooses a child to find the word on the wall, bring the word to the easel and write the word. This has proven to be very successfully in reinforcing the reading and writing of these words.

 

In Jolly Phonics we will be starting over with the sounds in order to reinforce the sound and action for each of these sounds. I will not be sending home a copy of the sounds since everyone already has these at home. However, I may send home the vowel ones, since many of these were skipped because I felt the children were not ready for them at that time. The sound for this week is the "s", and children will be encouraged to offer words with the "s" sound.

 

We will be working on "ell" family. Some of the words include:  bell, cell, dell, fell, sell, tell well, yell. When I taught grade one I found the children were ready to learn the blends at this time. Therefore, I feel the children are not ready for this skill at this time, so I will leave this for the children to learn in grade one.

 

This week many of the books that I will read aloud to the children will be related to Valentines Day. Many of these stories are connected to friendship and caring about others. The children will be asked to orally communicate about the problem that occurred in the story and the solution. The children will also be challenged to discuss how they would solve the problem. Perhaps at home parents can ask their children about the problem in the story. Problem and solution will be the focus for the rest of  February.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mathematics

 



This week the children will be learning about a number line. As a large group, two children will volunteer and choose a number card. The next step will be for the children to show the number they chose on the number line. Then as a large group the children will decided which number is more and by how many. We will be playing this game several times this week so all the children will able to have a turn.

The Math Stations for this week will be creating various patterns on valentine hearts, graphing of coloured valentine candies on a graph, choosing a ten frame with valentines on the ten frame and finding the corresponding number, roll and cover the number heart (children use two dice and roll the dice, then they cover that numbered heart. The first child to cover all their hearts wins). The last math station for this week will be heart puzzle pieces. I created felt hearts and then cut the hearts in half. On one side of the heart is the number and on the other half are the corresponding number of dots.

100th Day Celebration

 

Your child brought home a note on Friday informing you that next Friday, February 8, 2013 is the 100th day of school. The primary division thought it would be cute if everyone dressed up like they were 100 years old. I want parents to know that this is to be a fun event and not a stressful time. You are not expected to go out and buy things for your child. We practised what we would walk like when we were 100 years old.

 

The girls and boys could wear some kind of hat, wear glasses (dollar store), wear a dad's tie, girls could wear a boa to represent a shawl. Baby powder in the hair to make it look white or gray. What ever you can do just for fun.

 

 

I have a shawl and a cane. But I have not found a wig yet or something to wear. I looked at value village but did not want to spend $10.00 on something I would never wear again. So I will probably just wear my ordinary clothes, use the cane, shawl, and glasses and shuffle along.

 

 

Remember this is to be a fun day!

Mathematics

 

 

We will continue with more activities related to numbers. I noticed some of the JK children are not able to identify the numbers from 1-10 when they are in isolation. Many of the SK's continue to count things by 1's, sometimes by 2's, rather than by subitizing. Therefore, I feel it is very important the children develop a strong sense of numbers to ten. This will assist them with addition and subtraction that will come later on in the year.

 

It is far more important for children to have a strong sense of number through experiences with making the number in different ways, then it is to count to 50.

 

The curriculum states the following:

• demonstrate an understanding of number relationships for numbers from 0 to 10.
• use, read, and represent whole numbers to 10 in a variety of meaningful contexts.
• investigate and develop strategies for composing and decomposing quantities to 10.

Language

 

The "By Heart" word for this week is the word "with". This is not one of the kindergarten words. However, I have found that the children require this word many times when they are writing and it is found in many of the little books the SK children are bringing home. Recognition of this word will assist the children with their reading and writing.

 

The Jolly Phonic sound for this week is the "y" sound. I thank the parents for practising all the sounds with their children. I am noticing a tremendous difference in the children's ability to identify the sounds without too much hesitation. 

 

After this week, I plan on revisiting the sounds, but will not send home a sheet for the children. Hopefully, parents have kept the sheets that have been sent home on a weekly basis. I want to repeat the sounds so the children, especially JK will further their understanding to assist them as SK's next year. Also, the children are not ready for the following blend sounds, ch, th, sh, or the long vowel sounds. I will save those to do near the middle or end of April.

 



Dramatic Play Centre

 

The centre has been changed and is now all set up for the post office. This new centre will promote writing and drawing from the children. It will also give them an opportunity to expand their vocabulary through their oral communications. During play at this centre the children learn to role play, take turns, share with others and self-regulation. Self-regulation is where the children have determined how many children can be in the centre at one time. This allows them to know if they are able to enter the centre or not. I observe the children counting the number of children in the centre.

 

Some children want to participate in this centre all the time. Sometimes they need my encouragement to participate in other centres in order to enhance their learning in other areas and centres.

 

We have the mailbox which the children painted red, and I placed a postal logo on the mailbox. One of the parents donated labels and envelopes. I purchased fancy paper, bigger envelopes, stickers. I made two small mailbags with the postal logo on them and downloaded stamps for the children to use. The children will be very excited and it is very fitting to have it for the month of February, with Valentines Day.

 

Any other donations to the centre would be greatly appreciated.