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.