Ice Cream:The Full Scoop Book, Ice Cream Art

To start our shapes and colours unit, we read the book Ice Cream: The Full Scoop by Gail Gibbons.

 

Then, we talked about ice cream and how it started. We also talked about our favourite flavours and the kids came out with flavours that I have never heard of (e.g., gummy worms!). We also discussed about the two shapes we see. Some of the kids alsomentioned  that an ice cream scoop is not a full circle when you look at it sideways. It is a half circle or semi-circle. We also talked about the shape of the cone which is a triangle.

 

At the Art Centre, we made all different kinds of ice cream pictures. As you can see, everyone has a different idea of what her/his ice cream should be. Enjoy!

Busy, busy, busy during this month after report cards

After all the report cards have been handed and interviews done, it is hard to believe we are entering the second term of the reporting year of our Kindergarten Journey. Over the next several weeks, your child will be involved in a variety of activities:

• practice of the holiday concert on December 16 at 9 AM (mark your calendars! Our class parents will be helping in the preparation and feel free to ask them if they need help)
• learning about the different kinds of shapes via art, math, science and other subjects within the program
• counting and sorting buttons and coloured blocks
• reciting colour poems and songs with a focus on rhyming words and the identification of some basic sight words
• playing counting games that focus on numbers from 1 to 10, then 11 to 20

Our Art Centre has focused on making art that is about shapes (e.g., ice cream). The Reading Centre will focus on books about colours and shapes. Our Science Centre w will focus on water after our successful scientist in the school, Water Is Fun (thank you to Andrea F. (Ayrianna's Mom), Jen S. (Jake's Mom), Linda (Cynthia's Mom), Kim (Parker's Mom), Parmis (a school volunteer)).

Our letters of the month are the letters 'A' and 'T'. Let's focus on the sounds that these letters make. We are going to follow this up learning words in the -at family (e.g., cat, mat) in order to focus on phonics and understanding the importance of using letters to create simple words.

Let's keep circulating our classroom books because believe it or not, we are making a third one!

Enjoy!

Ten Little Pumpkins Poem, Exploring letter A, Exmploring numbers 1 - 10

We have been doing the Ten Little Pumpkins Poem. We have the poem on chart paper and used flash cards from 1 to 10 to put in the numbers. After learning the poem for a week, we have been learning to write the numbers 1 to 10 into the poem using a board marker. When we have centres, the children opt to play 'teacher' and learn to practice writing their numbers.

 

 

We have also been using a 'WRITE ON WRITE OFF' activity book of writing our numbers from 1 to 10. Ayrianna and Alex love doing this and have taken turns using a washable marker. If any of our parents have such resources, I encourage you to use them at home for fine motor skills and dexterity.

 

We are exploring the letter A through the poem Ape With An Apple. During carpet time, we learn the different sounds that A can make. And we have included this as part of our poem folder to practice and talk about the letter A at home.

 

Keep talking about the letter 'A' and numbers at home.

Smartboard time!!!

Finally, all the pieces of the smartboard are here (we are waiting for the speakers to come but I connected my own speakers to use the smartboard!). I introduced the smartboard by practicing on the starfall website, specifically the letter 'A'. As you can see, the kids are having fun and excited to use it.

Thank you to the parents who have contributed their precious resources for the smartboard technology that the Kindergarten team can now use!

 

Enjoy!

 

Visit from Locke Librarian Sue Williams

We were so lucky today on this cold November day, Nov. 18, to have our Toronto Public Library Librarian from Locke Branch visit us and talk about the different resources we can borrow from the library.

She read to us wonderful books about things we like in silly stories. But most of all,   Sue brought us her friend, the Grinch!

Sue and the Grinch talked about the library card and the wonderful things that it can do for us!

We are planning to visit the Locke Library monthly starting in the month of January. 

We love the Toronto Public Library! Let's support them! 

Second Classroom Book: Ten Apples Up On Top

The children have written their stories based on the Dr. Seuss classic, Ten Apples Up On Top. They coloured their pictures and wrote their sentences to describe their stories.

Exanples of their hard work are below:

We have compiled to make our second classroom book. Miles, Filip, Jake and Jacob made the title page of the book...

and the cover book...

We will start circulating the book first among the JK's and then the SK's.

Well done, class!

Have You Ever Seen A Pumpkin Poem, Life Cycle of A Pumpkin

The children's new poem for the week was Have You Ever Seen A Pumpkin, sung to the tune of Have You Ever Seen a Lassie.

After learning the poem, we also used the poem to learn new words like tall, squashed, small and bumpy that were used to describe the pumpkins. We also counted the number of times the word 'pumpkin' appeared and took note of the 'p' sound. 

For the chart, we also pieced the words jumbled up to create the poem for everyone to discover more about words and practice their phonetics and of course, reading.

We read books about the life cycle of the pumpkin...

We discussed about the different stages of the life cycle in the pumpkin and made our worksheet by colouring the different pictures and sequencing them properly. 

Enjoy!

Remembrance Day

In preparation for Remembrance Day, the  whole school had to make their poppies and put them on a wreath cutout.

The kids loved making their poppies... 

... and we glued them on a wreath...

On Remembrance Day, Mr. Kennedy played the bagpipe beautifully for the school. Hope had a question for Mr. Kennedy which she asked "Are you a soldier?". It was a good question because I, too, wondered about it. So, she asked him at the end of the ceremony.

 

 

Amy and Jake were selected to hold the wreath at the front.

 

The children lined up getting ready for their turn.

 

The kids were silent at the ceremony.

 

 

After the ceremony, all the wreaths were placed outside the school.

 Lest we forget...

 

 

 

Imagination Centre: making a robot

It has been the thrust of the board to make kindergarten learning child-driven. We encourage our children to use their imagination to create things that they would like to make due to interest and background knowledge. 

At the art centre, which is also the imagination centre, I have left four tin cans, along with toilet paper rolls, beads, feathers, buttons and the like. 

One child wanted to make a robot. So, I presented to him the materials and asked him to draw his own design of a robot.

He designed his robot as below!

Based on what he wants, we created his robot by adding structure to it using cardboards, clear tape and necessary materials like beads and buttons. He wanted to make his robot stand up so we had to analyze what to use and how to use the toilet paper rolls to serve this purpose. And voila...

As you can see, Jacob even remembered what he learned previously and made an AB pattern on the robot's body.

Great job, Jacob!

AAB pattern Whooo Is On The Gate?, Five Little Pumpkins Poem

After learning about AB pattern using apples, we wanted to learn about a different kind of pattern: AAB. But we wanted to make it fun this tune. Using a template for a fence, we decided to create our Halloween picture this time. We used crayons to paint our fence. Then, we used watercolour, usually black, to colour the whole picture to make it a scary night scene.

Here are some of the scary scenes we made...

Then, using different foam shapes, we created our AAB pattern and our Halloween spooky scenes!

We hoped you like our pictures!

For our poem of the week, we had Five Little Pumpkins.

After learning the poem, we used hand puppets to tell the story of the Five Little Pumpkin.

We even watched it on youtube:
Five Little Pumpkins Sitting On A Gate

Happy Halloween!