This Week in Our Room:  January 19-22, 2016

The January days are really speeding by.  We couldn’t believe that we’re already three weeks into this month with only one more to go!

While the first term at school has traditionally been a time to focus on classroom routines and expectations, developing pro-social skills and positive work habits, and growth in self-regulation and emotional maturity, the second term is our opportunity to deepen the children’s learning and understanding of the core concepts and competencies.  And with our Kindergarten classes well settled into their classes, self-regulation strategies practiced and in use, it’s time to move forward in their study of different themes and areas of inquiry.

At this time of year, our Unit of Inquiry: Penguin Edition continues to be a joint collaboration with our Grade 7 Big Buddies.  We enjoyed another week of teaching questioning skills and using the 5Ws What, Who, When, Where, Why (and How?) to help the children reframe their guesses into questions when trying to solve the puzzle of the Mystery Box.  We completed another page using Book Creator on Penguin Habitat after completing some research about the Antarctic with our Buddies.

This term we are working on developing the concept of Number in Math.  The children are using a variety of math manipulatives, including those they are comfortable and familiar with through previous explorations, patterning, and sorting and classifying activities, along with the addition of some new ones, to create number sets, count, sequence, add-on and take-away from a specific number.  They use the manipulative objects to demonstrate their learning at the concrete level, and then again at the connecting level through drawing and recording their observations.

A blog post from us is never complete without a quick mention of our Art and Literature theme on Winter.  The children’s Mitten and Snowman hangers was another chance to revisit Patterns on our mittens, and some fun mixed media for the snowman.  Our inspiration for this project were the books The Mitten by Jan Brett and Snowballs by Lois Ehlert.

The Snowglobes were an absolute joy to make with our classes; many of the children brought in a snowglobe for their Christmas sharing so we were pleased to be able to build on our shared experience with this detailed and sparkling rendition.

Upcoming Events and Reminders

Please remember to return your ice-skating permission forms as soon as possible.  We would appreciate as much parent help as possible on our two days, Thursday, February 4 and 18,  with the skate lace-ups so please mark these days on your calendar.

Our classes are expected to go outside for the morning recess and lunch, even when it’s raining.  Although we occasionally keep the children inside if it’s an absolute deluge, part of enjoying living on the Westcoast is the lovely temperate weather and with that comes the rain.  Your children should wear their boots and a jacket, preferably with a hood (or hat), for the rainy season at school.  When we come inside, children are expected to change their boots to inside shoes which they can put on independently; it’s important to us to keep our classroom carpets as clean and dry as possible as we sit and play on the carpets everyday.  If your children prefer to wear lace-up runners, please take some time to teach them how to tie their own laces as this is not a skill we teach in Kindergarten.  We do not allow the children to use umbrellas on the playground as it’s a safety issue, so these may be kept at home.

If you child has an upcoming birthday and would like to bring a nut-free/peanut-free snack for the class, please let us know, particularly if you are in Mrs. Daudlin’s class, with our upcoming 7 February birthday celebrations (a new all time high for birthdays in a single month).