Heartland Forest Trip

 

 

It seems so long ago that I booked our end of the year trip and now it is quickly approaching. On Monday, your child will be bringing home a permission form. The school has agreed to pay the cost of the bus and the trip for all the Kindergarten children. Heartland Forest does not limit the number of parent volunteers, however, there is a cost of $2.00 per parent, which is up to each volunteer to pay. Due to the number of seats on the bus we are limited to a total of 18 parents. So unfortunately I will have to have a lottery if we have more than 18 parents who wish to volunteer. Just a reminder this is an all day trip and both the morning and afternoon classes will be participating. The bus will be leaving Meadowvale at 9:00 a.m. sharp and then we will be leaving Heartland Forest at 2:00 p.m. I remind all parents to be sure to have your child dress appropriately for the weather conditions. If it rains we will still go because the coordinator of the trip advised me they would change up the activities and we would do everything under the pavilion. We must think positive and believe it will be a wonderful day!

Language

 

All the By Heart Words are on the chart now. Many of the children know the words and are able to find the word to assist them when they are writing. I have tested the SK children on the words and there are only a few children who continue to experience difficulty with the words. These children continue to attempt to sound these words out. I urge all parents to make sure you continue to practise these words during the summer in order to further building upon your child's reading and writing. Practising these words once a week will assist to foster your SK child's confidence as he/she transitions into a more rigorous grade one program this fall.

 

 

The jolly phonic sound is the "f" sound. The following are some of the words we will be learning:

fat, for, fan, fin, fill, fit, flip, fun, fog, flag, flap, from, flat, frog, fork, fish.

 

 

Reading Comprehension Strategy

 

We will continue with the strategy visualization. The children did an amazing job on the illustrations for their visualizations of the Poem Ding-A-Ling poem.

This week the children will be using another poem to create their visualizations, which they will illustrate.  

Discovery (Science) Centre

 

This week I have created some smelly containers that have various things inside. The children will open the lid of the container and decide if it is a good smell or a bad smell and sort the containers into the appropriate group. I will be asking the children to try to guess what is in the containers. Please do not be alarmed, there is nothing in the containers that will harm the children nor is anything a revolting smell.  

Mathematics

 

 

This week the children will finish up with a few activities with addition and subtraction. The JK will be doing with no more than the number 5 and SK for no more than 10.

 

After this we will be going back and doing some patterning since we have not done that for awhile. The children love patterning and really enjoy challenging themselves to create and continue harder and harder patterns. For example, AABBC  AABBC

 

In Kindergarten the emphasis is mostly on repeating patterns. In grade one the children will review repeating patterns and then go into growing patterns. These are a little more challenging and that is why they do not occur until grade one.

Creativity

 

One of the most important gifts that teachers and parents can learn from young children is that time has no limits. As adults we are overpowered by rushing here and there and getting one task completed quickly so we can move onto the next. However, if you step by and truly watch your young child you will be amazed at what they can accomplish if there are not rushed. Whether it be working with Lego, large building blocks, a 60 piece puzzle or creatively designing a painting or some other kind of picture. A young child who takes their time will create something that is unique and very creatively and thoughtfully completed. I was sent a youtube video about Creativity Requires Time and had to share it with all the Kindergarten Parents. I hope you enjoy the message as much as I did and it reafirms my beliefs about creativity and children!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPbjSnZnWP0

Language

 

The reading strategy we will focus on for the next two weeks is Visualization. As adults, when we are reading we are constantly making pictures in our head regarding what the characters look like and the setting and other pictures. Young children need to learn how to do this, so when they are older and there are no pictures in the books they are reading they will be successful at creating the visualizations by using the words described by the author.

 

 

When I taught grade one, I always found the children were more successful  and easier to make visualizations using a poem. The children have had some practise with this strategy by making pictures of what they visualized using some of the words from the poem. This will be a learning centre and the children will work with me or a volunteer in a very small group.

 

 

The By Heart Word for this week is:  by. The SK children who practise these words are the most successful in their reading and their writing. I encourage all the SK parents to continue to practise these words with your child once a week during the summer. Make it fun by playing fish.

 

The Jolly phonics sound will be the "g" sound. The children sometimes get the "g" and the "j" sound confused. So this is a good time to review this sound again.

Mathematics   Subtraction

 

The children will be introduced to subtraction. I plan to do this first through fingerplays and the choose children to act it out. A great song we will use is 10 in the bed. I want the children to notice when we subtract one number from another number the number becomes smaller. After a few days of acting it out during large group time, the children will have a subtraction station with a few different games between this week and next week. At this time I am looking for parents to donate egg cartons to me. I would love to have four or five of them and need them for this week.

 

I found this link on the internet for early counting, addition and subtraction. It appears to be something most of the children could do with some adult assistance.

 

http://www.smartygames.com/igre/math/preKMath.html