Friday, December 17, 2010

Update from Ms. R

I would like to wish all the kindergarten families a safe, happy holiday and all the best for the year 2011!

News for December 17

News for December 17

Wow! What a busy week it was...

The children loved the fresh snow and they had fun shuffling and sliding in it, making "snow angels" and packing it into shapes for snowmen and snow forts.

The students experimented with aluminum foil and used it to create decorations for our class holiday tree.

We read Dr. Seuss' famous story, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" a wonderful, rhyming story that expertly teaches that happiness does not come from a store and that it is found in the love of friends and family. Then the class watched the video version, providing an opportunity to discuss the similarities and differences between the book and the video. We also learned the story of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". As usual, more information on the books read in class can be found at:
http://planet5books.blogspot.com.

The big news of the week was the school's Holiday Concert. The morning and afternoon classes each went to practise on the stage twice before the big night. The morning class also got to watch some of the other classes perform. The children performed perfectly on the stage and it was wonderful to connect with all the families before the holidays.

The students created a simple letter for their families by writing and decorating around a photo of the children working in the classroom.

Three times this week, all the students in the school gathered in the gym to sing holiday songs. One of the favourites was "The 12 Days of Christmas" which we also sang in class.

On Friday, it was "pyjama day" and both classes had a small holiday party. After eating treats and being thankful for all our friends, we said "good bye" to 2010 with wishes for a happy holiday for everyone!










Saturday, December 11, 2010

Update from Ms. R

As we approach the last week of school before the winter vacation, I am happy to report that the children have made great progress in taking off and putting on all their winter gear. Please remember to either leave velcro shoes at school or have your child bring shoes each day. If your child does not have shoes, he/she is required to wear his/her boots. The school does not allow children to walk around in sock feet.

Next week we will focus on doing up zippers...

NOTE:

The kindergarten Holiday Concert is on Wednesday, December 15th from 6:00 to 6:45. Please drop off your child in the classroom by 5:45, so you can go and get a seat. Remember to pick up your child after the concert at 6:45.

Friday, December 10, 2010

News for December 10


News for December 10

This week the whole school started the annual "Holiday Mailbox" activity. During the last two weeks before the winter vacation, children are encouraged to write/draw letters to send to other students and to staff members. This is a great opportunity to give students a real reason to write!
The students learned how to make paper chains. Using cut-up pages from magazines and glue sticks, the morning and afternoon classes each made paper chains long enough to make a garland reaching from one end of the classroom to the other.





























The students practised their number sense through several readings of the book "Dinner at the Panda Palace". They also learned that the sum of 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10 = 55. As always, the read aloud books are featured on our companion blog:
http://planet5books.blogspot.com.

The students learned and practised how to write the numbers 1,2 and 3. We also spent some time talking about the concept of place value. That is, helping the children to recognize that the position of the digits effects the value of the number (e.g., 12 is twelve but 21 is twenty-one).

The class practised the three songs they learned for the Holiday Concert on December 15th. First, we will be singing the Hanukkah song, "The Dreidel Song". Next the students will sing and sign, "The Peace Song" using American Sign Language. Finally, the children will sing "Feliz Navidad" in Spanish and English. "Feliz Navidad" means "Merry Christmas" in Spanish. The students also practised how to bow at the end of a performance.

The afternoon class had a chance to go to the gym and see a performance of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". It was a very funny play!

The students had a opportunity to build with plastic cups. Since the children have previous experience working with these, it was interesting how they used what they learned to make stable and more elaborate structures.

The students learned about a real cat named "Dewey Readmore Books" that lived in a library! Two books were read aloud to the class that were about how the cat came to live in a library and about one of his Christmas adventures. Here is a short movie featuring the real "Dewey":

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Update from Ms. R

The class is starting to learn songs for the Kindergarten Holiday Concert. Please plan to attend this special event and watch your son or daughter perform on stage!

Important Dates:

December 15 - Holiday Concert - 6:OO to 6:45 in the gym (please drop off your child in Room 101 at 5:45 and pick them up by 7:00). The grades 1 - 6 concert begins at 7:00.

December 17 - Last day of school for 2010.

January 3 - First day of school for 2011.

Friday, December 3, 2010

News for December 3




News for December 3
We started off this week by learning which hand is the "right" hand and which is the "left" hand. You probably noticed that your child often had a "happy face" stamp on his/her right hand. This was used as a visual clue for the children. We also learned a song to help remember that we use the right hand to shake hands with someone. Here are the words to the song that you can read or sing with your child:
Give them your right hand,
Look them in the eye,
Put a smile on you face,
Then you say "hi" (repeat once)

The students explored 10 alphabet treasure boxes this week. These are containers that hold small objects with names that begin with a particular letter sound. For example, two of the items in the "Dd" box were a small plastic dolphin and a toy drum.
The children used glue and tissue paper to create collages. They experimented with tearing, scrunching and overlapping the coloured tissue.
We focused on the letters U, V and W this week. The children practised the songs, sounds and shapes. We also reviewed the letters and sounds the class has learned so far (13...halfway through the alphabet).
The class discussed the different ways to tell a story. The students talked about how a story can be told through words (orally), through print (reading), through video and through song. We "watched" the story of Frosty the Snowman on DVD and talked about how the video was like a story in a book. Next, we read the story of Frosty as a read aloud book and then realized that the words were actually the lyrics to the song! The children had fun stomping their feet to:
Thumpty, thump, thump,
Thumpty, thump, thump,
Look at Frosty go!
Thumpty, thump, thump,
Thumpty, thump, thump,
Over the hills of snow!
The students had a drawing lesson on how to draw a snowman. After learning the basics and how to look at a snowman to help our brains decide how to draw it (for example, how his head looks like a circle; his scarf like a rectangle), we used our stuffed snowman as a model.
The class began to talk about the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. We read a story about how families celebrate this holiday and began to learn the "dreidel song" (a dreidel is a spinning top with Hebrew letters on the sides).
As always, more information about the books (and DVD) we read this week, can be found at our companion blog at: