Spreading Kindness

At this time of year, it is a wonderful opportunity to learn to be inclusive and that was the ultimate goal of our winter holiday learning.  The students are learning about how others celebrate holidays and to celebrate differences.  In all of the hustle and bustle that this time of year brings, I can truly say that this group of children continue to spread kindness and work together.  I am so proud of their efforts in the Christmas Concert.  They sang and danced and demonstrated courage by getting up on the stage and doing their best.



P.S. We were so excited to receive mail from the North Pole.  Please ask your child what we received.

Happy Holidays!  See you on January 6th 2020.

T'was the week before Christmas Holidays and the Children were Busy!

T'was the week before holidays and the Kindergartens are happy and excited.  We have an incredibly busy week ahead.  Here is a quick breakdown of special events we have in store:

Monday December 16- Dress Rehearsal for our concert.
Tuesday December 17- Concerts at 11:45 am and 7:00 pm
Please have your child in the KA classroom no earlier than 6:40 pm for the evening performance.  Students can be picked up immediately following the completion of the concert in our classroom.
Wednesday December 18-Wear your Christmas Socks and Accessories Day as well as caroling in the gym.
Thursday December 19- Wear red and green.  KA will wrap up our festive learning with a holiday party.
Friday December 20- P. J. Day, caroling in the gym, and our special lunch hot dog lunch and movie with KB.  Please send snacks for your child in their lunch bag.

Happy Holidays

T'is the Season

We have had an exciting week, pretending to travel on our holiday train making stops at several different celebrations.  Our first stop on the train was Hanukkah where we made latkes and played dreidel.  Our second stop was at Los Posada, where we welcomed a special guest, Mr. Melo to talk about traditions he had as a child growing up in Mexico.  As a result of his visit, we are working together to create a pinata.  Our third stop was Kwanzaa, where we focused on the colours of the candles and showing kindness to others.  Our final destination is Christmas and the children are excited!  We worked collaboratively to decorate our classroom tree and listened to music.  Next week promises to be very busy with our Christmas concert and special activities.

Please plan on having your child arrive no earlier than 6:40 on December 17, as the classroom will be locked.  Children will return to our classroom after our part in the concert and should be picked up at the end of the concert.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to ask.

It's Not A Box!

At this time of year the days seem to fly by, especially with many special activities.  Earlier this week, we attended an electrical presentation in the gym.  The students learned about electrical safety and conservation.  Our focus then switched to designing our Holiday Train.  We used the book "It's Not a Box" as a spring board for constructing a huge train in the classroom.  Each student responded to the literature by designing a blue print for the train.  We worked collaboratively to decide on the colours for the train and by the end of the week we have the train designed and painted and ready to use next week.  Our last exciting activity was creating lists for Santa and walking to the Post Office.  The students are noticing more new and familiar sites around Clinton and excitedly chatter to each other as we walk.

Ready, Set, Teamwork

This week we read "Builder Brothers: Better Together" and learned a new motto for our class "Team work makes the dream work"! When we were finished reading the book, we found instructions about how to build a race car from paper rolls and cardboard.  We worked cooperatively to build the cars and ended our week of learning about ordinal numbers by having a race.  Here are a couple of pictures of our learning.



Please check mailbags for December Newsletter.

Learning at it's Best

We are embracing the changes in the season and using it as a spring board for learning opportunities.  Here is a picture of our experience.

During this week, we have focused on kindness to combat bullying.  We took the time to read "Bully Beans" and did some activities around this book.  Each child has received a small bag of beans and should share with you what they learned about bullying.

Nature Trail Walk- November 19, 2019

We still plan on going on our nature walk as long as the weather cooperates.  Please dress appropriately.

Snails, Turtles, and Bears, Oh My

We started this week with Remembrance Day, where the kids learned more about peace.  Please ask your child to sing the song for you that we prepared for our Kindergarten ceremony.  We learned about animals that hibernate and are demonstrating this learning through the dramatic play area and our sensory bin.  We had a visit from our Health Nurse Sarah, who taught us how to wash our hands properly and gave us helpful tips to stay healthy.  We completed another experiment with gummy bears and are learning more about observing, which coincides with our in Social Thinking goal in which we are working on Thinking with our Eyes.

Here is a picture of our experiment. Please ask your child to tell you all about it!

On Tuesday, we plan on taking a short walk on our local nature trail in hopes that we can see some of the animals we are learning about.

Looking for...

We are working on gathering ideas for writing from the world around us.  Last week we read "The Idea Jar" in class.  We are trying to fill a jar with small items like, but not limited to :  action figures, unicorns, animals, or anything else that interests your child.  If you have any of these items that are micro in size and would be willing to help fill this jar, please send them in immediately.

We are also looking for Kraft peanut butter jars with green lids for other collections.  If you could wash and send them in, we will put them to good use.

Thank you in advance for supporting our learning.

Countless Leaves and Opportunities for Learning and Growth

Wow, for a short week, we sure packed in many opportunities for learning.  We were able to enjoy one less messy math activity that took us outside to use leaves as our manipulatives before the excitement of the snow!

Here are two pictures that encompass the excitement as the children notice and name what is happening around them.

The first was the pure joy and sense of well-being as they played in the leaves.

The second was many of the students watching in awe as the first snow of the season fell.

These are truly amazing moments to witness.  I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of the families who came in for interviews and who continue to support our learning experiences.

We will dig into our woodland creature and hibernation activities next week.

Bubbles to Bears Our Learning Is Constantly Shifting

Last week was a fun-filled adventure with so much excitement, including our "Bubbling Cauldron" dramatic play area.  We have settled back into our routines and have started constructing our next dramatic play centre.  We have created a simple woodland area in our classroom.  If you have any plastic creatures or stuffed animals that would enhance this area, we would gladly put them to good use as we begin to explore how the animals around us are getting ready for the cold weather.  Please label anything you send in so we can return it when we are finished.

Here are some pictures of the students enjoying activities in the "Bubbling Cauldron."

Orange and Black Day on October 31

Today is Orange and Black Day in KA, please wears these colours and leave costumes at home.

Fun, Friends, and Fantastic Opportunities for Growth and Learning!

We have had an amazing week filled with new experiences and opportunities.  On Wednesday, we were able to participate in Bus Evacuation Safety and had our Mindful Mike presentation.  On Thursday, we ventured to London to Kidscape where we were able to run, play, climb and interact with others.  Here are some pictures of our experiences this week.

Kidscape October 24, 2019 Reminder

We will be heading to Kidscape in London tomorrow for an exciting day of play and learning.  Please arrive at school on time and remember to pack your lunch and have socks on for the activities.  Mailbags can remain at home.

For children who have ordered pizza, it will be packaged up to be sent home at the end of the day Thursday.

Pumpkin Palooza

Our learning this week had us taking a closer look at pumpkins and even digging deep inside them.
We learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin and were amazed that it takes 120 day to grow a pumpkin.  We are now trying to sprout some of our seeds in our classroom window . Our math focus was patterning with pumpkins and our "Messy Math" had us learning about estimating and counting the seeds inside a small pumpkin.  It was hard to believe that a tiny pumpkin could hold 322 seeds!

We read many books about pumpkins.  We noticed that all of our books ended by baking with pumpkins so that is exactly what we did.  We rounded out our week baking pumpkin muffins together.

A Whirlwind of Learning

This past week felt like a whirlwind of learning.  I am quite positive that we could not have fit in anymore learning opportunities if we tried.  We began our week with a visit from the Central Huron Fire Department to emphasize the importance of Fire Safety.  On Wednesday, we enjoyed the opportunity to walk to the local Farmers Market and finally, we spent the the remainder of the week preparing for our special fall meal.  Our classroom was filled with a constant chatter of excitement and wonder of new learning and connections to previous experiences.  





Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Picture Day Thursday October 10

Please remember that tomorrow, Thursday October 10, 2019 is our Picture Day.  If you have not already done so, please return your pose selection.

We will also be making vegetable soup and apple crisp tomorrow to enjoy together as a special snack on Friday. 

Snuggle Up and Read and Farmer's Market Walk

I hope you were able to find the red folder in the green mailbag.  These are the Snuggle Up and Read folders.  Please read nightly, record the book and return the next day.

Also, you should have the information for our walking trip to the Farmer's Market tomorrow.

Lastly, please return the field trip permission form for Kidscape as soon as possible.

Feels like Fall

The changing weather sure came quickly this week and it was very fitting as we have been searching for signs of fall which isn't a hard task in Rural South Western Ontario or in our classroom.  Our "Messy Math" had us searching our playground for 2-D shapes.  Please ask your child if they can locate any shapes within your home.  Our inquiry and literacy focus was learning about the purpose of scarecrows.  The children were very captivated with small scarecrows that I brought in and enjoyed creating their own and doing some writing.  Our Farmer's Market is always open for business and is a hot spot in our room.  We will extend the play next week by adding coins for our purchases.

 

                                      

Please check mail bags for information from our Lion's Screening today and for detailed information on our class trip to Kidscape on October 24, 2019.

Terry Fox

We have had a very busy and productive week here in KA.  We explored rocks outside in our Messy Math and brought them into our classroom to use as manipulatives.  We are busy exploring the letters in our names and working on developing the fine motor skills that it takes to form letters and words.  We also attended our first whole school assembly and participated in the Terry Fox Run.


                             

Please wear an orange shirt on Monday September 30th to show that Every Child Matters.

Dreaming of a Farmer's Market

The students have made a list of materials that would help us construct a "Farmer's Market" in our classroom.  If you have any of these items that you wish to donate, please label and send them in as soon as possible.

These are some of the items we are looking for:

-apples of various colours
-corn stalks and cobs
-pumpkins
-squash
-gourds
-and anything else that you may find in a Farmer's Market

We Ready to Take off on our Learning Journey!

Hello Everyone!

We are so excited to report that we are ready to take off on our learning journey.  Routines and rules are well established and we have been busy working on many of our learning skills.  We want to include you and keep you up to date on our adventures and the best way to do this is our blog platform.  Early last week, I subscribed each family to our blog.  You should have received a verification email.  So before we begin posting regularly, I would appreciate if you could pop a quick note in the planner to let me know that you have access to the blog.  I will follow up with those that I do not hear from.  We will try our best to post weekly and give you a window to our world of learning.  This is also a place where you will find updates and sometimes requests for materials to extend our learning through dramatic play.  The children are excitedly talking about turning our dramatic play centre into a Farmer's Market.  We will work together to construct this area and will gather a list of items we may use throughout this next week.

Welcome to KA Wonders "Where small ideas turn into big learning opportunities!"