Update from Ms. R

It 's been a busy week! With a field trip to the farm and Halloween activities, there was a lot going on in Room 101.

On Friday, a copy of the "5 Little Pumpkins" poem was sent home. Your child already knows the words. Please sit down and read the poem with your child and point to the words as he/she says them. This is great practise for sight word recognition and one-to-one correspondence of spoken words to written words.

I wish all of our families a safe and happy Halloween!

Important Dates:

November 11 - Remembrance Day
November 15 - Report cards go home (senior kindergarten only)
Week of November 15 - Parent/Teacher interviews for all kindergarten students
November 19 - P.A. Day - no classes on this day

News for October 29

News for October 29

This week, the students focused on talking about our farm trip and learning about Halloween.

Almost one hundred kindergarten students from our school went to the farm. We saw lots of animals, learned about how pumpkins grow, harvested vegetables directly from the field, walked through a corn maze and had a hayride on a trailer pulled by a tractor. It was a busy day! A video of some photos from our trip can be found at the end of this posting.

The students learned the letter/sound/action for the letter B. They also practised making the letter with wood pieces and using the magnet boards.

The senior kindergarten students began using their printing workbooks this week. The students are required to use the proper pencil grip and writing the letters from the top. We learned a song, "Where do you start your letters? At the top!" to help the children remember.

The students experimented with using different materials to create patterns. Plastic teddy bears and unifix cubes were used to make various repeating patterns.

Two new centres this week were the water table (where children experiment with different containers, scooping and pouring water) and sewing cards (where the students exercise the small muscles in their fingers and pracise eye-hand coordination).

The class practised the poem "5 Little Pumpkins" using the pumpkins puppets they made. A copy of the poem was sent home for your child to read with you.

On Friday, there was a Halloween parade in the morning and the afternoon for the students to not only show off their costumes but also see the costumes of the other students in our school. We had a class party where the children frosted and decorated cupcakes.

The read aloud books for this week are listed at our companion blog at:
http://planet5books.blogspot.com/

Global News Update

The planned air date for the Global TV segment for the afternoon class is:

Wednesday, November 3 between 6:00 and 7:00 PM.

The segment will be between 2 and 3 minutes long.

Update from Ms. R

The students are starting to wear their cold weather clothing. Please make it easy to find misplaced items by writing your child's name on all clothing, shoes and boots with a permanent marker. Often children may have the same style of boots, for example, and the only way to see to whom the boots belong is to look inside for the name. Thank you for your help in this matter.

Important Dates:

October 27 - Parent Council Movie Afternoon in the gym from 3:30 to 5:00
October 28 - Trip to Round the Bend Farm - morning and afternoon classes - 8:30 to 1:30
October 29 - Halloween Parade and in-class Halloween celebration
October 29 - Lice Check (notice sent home this week)
November 15 - Report Cards for senior kindergarten students sent home
November 19 - P.A. Day - parent interviews - no school on this day

News for October 22

News for October 22

This week the morning and afternoon classes each had a special event. The morning class went to the gym to see a play called, "The Crab Prince", based on an Italian fairy tale. The afternoon class was visited by the Global TV crew. They filmed the students singing the "Falling Leaves" song and looking at leaves with magnifying glasses. (The tentative air date is October 27. I will post the date/time when I am told.)

The letters for this week were "D" and "P". The students learned the songs to help them remember the sounds that these letters make and used the wood pieces and chalkboards to create these letters.

The class talks about patterns everyday when we do the pattern on our calendar. The pattern for October is pumpkin-leaf-cat. Students began to do patterns on their own using unifix cubes. The children are getting very good at answering the question, "What comes next?" Some students in the afternoon class decided to take the cubes and make a tower. When it got too big, they asked if they could put it along the ground. They made a tower using all the cubes! A video showing this can be seen at the end of this posting.

The students had a chance to make large drawings on the ground outside using big pieces of chalk.

The children finished their class books for October. "Thanks for..." was made by having each child think about what they are thankful for in the world. These words were typed and the students glued the words, his/her photo and made a drawing to go with it. The details of this book and the other read aloud books can be found at our companion blog at:

http://planet5books.blogspot.com/.

The class had a lot of fun investigating the different ways to stack plastic cups. Some students chose to work alone and others worked as a team. Some children stacked them so that the tower was taller than they were!
After rereading the book, "Mud Puddle", the students showed their understanding of the story structure by acting out the story.

The class learned a new poem this week called, "Five Little Pumpkins". They also learned the actions to do when reciting the poem.

The children each made a pumpkin puppet this week. They used the skills they have been practising like, using a glue stick and using scissors, to help them do this craft.

Update from Ms. R

Thanks to all the parents for being a great part of Room 101's Borrow-A-Book program! Reading to your child every day is one of the best things you can do at home to help your child's literacy development. Please return the book everyday and keep the reading log chart paper in the bag.
Many of the children have asked to take home the books I read aloud in class. These books are a part of our program and we need them to stay in the classroom so we can refer back to them to make connections in our learning. Please go to our companion blog at http://planet5books.blogspot.com/ to see these titles. You can use this information, if you wish to borrow these books from the public library or to buy them. Remember buying them through this site makes a bit of money for our class budget.

Notes:

1. Please remember our school snack program does not include Friday. I still provide crackers on the snack table, but you may wish to send a healthy snack with your child on Fridays.
2. The Global News TV crew will come to our class on Tuesday, October 19 in the afternoon. If you want your child to participate please complete and return the media release form (sent home on Friday afternoon).
3. The permission forms for the class trip to Round the Bend Farm were sent home this week. Please return the completed forms (along with $5.00) as soon as possible.

News for October 15

News for this (short) week.

The class talked a lot about trees and leaves this week. The students collected leaves and looked that them with magnifying glasses. We raked the leaves into a big pile and jumped into the pile! We read books about why trees are important to the world and learned a song about how leaves fall in autumn. A video of this song can be found at the end of this posting.

We started Room 101 handwriting/phonics program this week by learning the capital letters F and E. Through using hands-on manipulatives, songs and gestures the children can now recognize the letters, write the letters and "read" the sounds of the letters.

The classes finished the "Thanks for" community books this week. Their words will be typed and put into book form and put into the reading corner.

Each student created a new colourful drawing for the class "October" bulletin board. The students are now telling more detailed stories about their artwork.
Another new song for this week was "And the Green Grass Grew All Around". It is a song with a growing pattern of details based on the structure of a tree.














As ususal, the details of the books read aloud this week can be found at our companion blog at:
http://planet5books.blogspot.com.

Update from Ms. R

Well, I must apologize for my absences at the end of this week. I have a very bad cold that resulted in my having a sinus infection and losing my voice! Having a cold is one thing, but not being able to talk so I can do my job is quite another. I hope to be back on Tuesday.

I would like to wish all the families of Room 101 a safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

Note: QSP magazine fundraising started this week. Your participation helps to raise money for school activities. Information envelopes were sent home on Monday.

News for October 8

News for October 8

This week the morning students went to their first assembly in the gym. It was to launch the school's QSP fundraising event. The selling of magazine subscriptions helps to raise money for our school.

Every child had instruction at the "teacher table" this week on how to properly (and safely) use scissors.

Students exercised the small muscles in their hands by using their "pinchy fingers" (the thumb and pointer fingers) to manipulate and count coloured pom poms.

We continued to talk about fall and the changes that happen outside during this season. We now have a tree of our own inside the class that we will cover with leaves in the fall colours. We also learned about the holiday of Thanksgiving. We began to create a new class book, "Thanks for..." by writing down what each student is thankful for this time of year.

We practised our new song about popcorn and one about swimming.

I've included a photo of my pet cat "Iggy" sitting in my teacher basket. This is where the students put their name cards at the beginning of the day, as well as, any papers from home that are for me.

As always, to read more about the books we read together this week, please visit our book blog at:

http://planet5books.blogspot.com/

Update from Ms. R

After 19 days of being friends together in Room 101, the children have settled into routines, learned the names of their classmates and managed to move (fairly reliably) through the school walking in a line. I am also happy to report that most students are now able to put on their coats by themselves. Everyday I am lucky to see the faces of children as they do something for the first time and say, "I did it myself!"

Library Books

We visit the library once a week. The students began their book exchange this week. Students must return their books in order to take out a new book. The morning class goes to the library on Day 3 (this week that was Thursday) and the afternoon class goes on Day 5 (this week that was Monday).

School Snack Program

Our School Snack Program begins on October 12. Students need to sign up for this program to participate. Forms were sent home this week.

Important Dates:

October 11 - Thanksgiving Day holiday
October 19 - Trees For Life Canada/Global TV visit - details to follow
October 28 - Visit to Round the Bend Farm - details to follow
October 29 - Halloween parade

News for October 1

News for October 1

Room 101 was a busy place as usual this week!

On Monday, our school participated in the annual Terry Fox Run. In the morning, the children met out in the field and the kindergarten students ran around the track. In the afternoon, we had the field all to ourselves as we ran around the track.

My friend, Joan came to visit the class this week to talk to the children about American Sign Language and to teach the children how to do the signs for our national anthem, "Oh Canada". A video of Joan signing the national anthem can be found at the end of this posting.
The children went to the gym this week to get their photos taken. We also had a class photo taken. The proofs will be sent home to families in 1-2 weeks.

The students, in addition to our regular activities, had a chance to assemble wood puzzles with geometric shapes, string wooden beads and play a math matching card game (matching numerals to repeated drawings of the same number). The children know that one of the reasons to go to try these activities is to exercise the small muscles in their fingers (necessary for fine-motor development).

The students are showing great creativity as they cooperate in group play. A boat and a jet plane were built in the "big blocks" centre this week. Some children decided to use materials from the "house centre" to create a picnic.

As a link to the read aloud book, "One Watermelon Seed", we studied popcorn. The students had a chance to look at a real cob of corn, dried popcorn kernels and, of course, we popped some popcorn. We also had a wonderful time as we sat down together to share the snack. Some comments heard were:

"I can smell the popcorn!"

"I can hear the popcorn popping."

"It tastes so good."

"Ms. R, can we do this again?"

As always, details of the books we read together can be found at our companion blog:

http://planet5books.blogspot.com/

Here is Joan signing "Oh Canada":