A Book is a Gift that can be Opened Again and Again

Posted on December 16, 2018 by thekinderteam

A Christmas tradition from our homes has been to give a book bag every year to our children (thank you to Dianne W. for this wonderful idea).

When they were young, we bought mostly picture books, activity books and comics; and although it’s changed to reference books, novels and magazines as they’ve grown older, it’s a gift our kids still look forward to every year. It’s the one present they can open while they’re waiting for the parents to get up. We have to admit it’s pretty funny to walk down the stairs on Christmas morning and see your kids sitting quietly reading around the tree! But it’s extremely gratifying as well.

We thought we’d share with you some of the Christmas books we’ve selected over the years. All of these books are beautifully written, rich with language and charming illustrations. We hope that you might find one (or more) that you would like to read with your child.

Books We’ve Given….

The Jolly Christmas Postman (Janet and Allan Ahlberg)
Christmas Tree Memories (Aliki)
Franklin’s Christmas Gift (Paulette Bourgeois and Brenda Clark)
Gingerbread Baby (Jan Brett)
The Wild Christmas Reindeer (Jan Brett)
The Night Before Christmas (Clement Moore and illustrated by Jan Bret)
Dream Snow (Eric Carle)
Merry Christmas Maisy (Lucy Cousins)
Country Angel Christmas (Tomie dePaola)
Tony’s Bread (Tomie dePaola)
Winter’s Gift (Jane Monroe Donovan)
Snowballs (Lois Ehlert)
Little Robin Red Vest (now called Little Robin’s Christmas) (Jan Fearnley)
Attic Christmas (B.G. Hennessy)
Angelina’s Christmas (Katharine Holabird and Helen Craig)
Lucy and Tom’s Christmas (Shirley Hughes)
Fletcher and the Snowflake Christmas (Julia Rawlinson and Tiphanie Beeke)
The Night Before Christmas (Clement Moore and illustrated by Tasha Tudor)
The Polar Express (Chris Van Allsburg)
McDuff’s Christmas (Rosemary Well and Susan Jeffers)
I Spy Christmas : A Book of Picture Riddles (Walter Wick and Jean Marzollo)
Max’s Christmas (Rosemary Wells)
A Christmas Story (Brian Wildsmith)

Recent Book Purchases we’ve made for the Kindergarten

Night Tree (Eve Bunting)
Alfie’s Christmas (Shirley Hughes)
Pippin the Christmas Pig (Jean Little and Werner Zimmermann)
Auntie Claus (Elise Primavera)
The Night Before Christmas (Clement Moore and illustrated by Barbara Reid)
Richard Scarry’s Best Christmas Book Every! (Richard Scary)
Olive, the Other Reindeer (Vivian Walsh and Jotto Seibold)
Merry Christmas, Squirrels (Nancy Rose)

Reading with Your Kindergarten Child: Ways to Support Literacy at Home

Posted on May 10, 2018 by thekinderteam

One of our greatest joys as teachers is sharing our love of reading, writing and literature with our young students. It’s important that we work together, as teachers and parents, to create supportive literacy environments at both home and school.

At school, one of our clues for “where to start” is from our children’s home literacy experiences. We quickly learn about our children’s exposure to stories and nursery rhymes, and discussion (listening to others and speaking aloud) and book handling skills. We observe their familiarity with using paper, pencils and crayons and can sense if the children feel that their scribbling, drawing and printed work is, and has been, valued. We build upon those experiences by providing our children with a myriad of activities where they can use their literacy skills and develop them further. The processes of reading and writing go hand-in-hand: Good readers become good writers, and good writers become good readers.

One of the most important things we do is provide as many opportunities for oral languageas possible. This includes Storytime, chanting poems and singing songs, brainstorming vocabulary, classroom discussions and teaching questioning skills. In addition to teaching phonological awareness, the development of the children’s oral language is an important part of a balanced approach to reading instruction.

During Storytime and other oral language activities, here’s what we’ve noticed about our Kindergarten children’s story awareness:

-they love to rhyme and predict patterns

-they chime in to read the parts of the story they know (with and without cues from the teacher)

-they ask a lot of questions about the story

-they try to make connections between the story and their personal experiences

-they ”read” the picture clues and any known words in the text

-they show interest in what the words say on a page or a chart

One of the most popular Activity Time Centres in the classroom is the Imagination Station. Here, the children are encouraged to write, draw and create to their heart’s content. We supply colouring supplies, scissors and glue. We add in colourful and patterned paper scraps, stickers, envelopes, small booklets we’ve made from leftover paper, lined paper and any other doodads (scrapbook embellishments) we might have to encourage the writing process. Sometimes we have to create a secondImagination Station at another table because everyone that day has something important they want to express in print. This is all in addition to our daily Alphabet and Theme writing activities. Your children are writing, printing, drawing and colouring a lot in class. This has been one of our most prolific years in Kindergarten.

During Alphabet and other writing activities, here’s what we’ve noticed about our Kindergarten children’s print awareness:

-they recognise their own name in print around the classroom and love to look for it

-they show an interest in the names of their classmates

-they show interest in reading and copying the environmental print around the classroom (eg., names, daily schedule, numbers),

-they show interest in printing independently (“I don’t need any help; I can do it by myself”)

-they pay attention to the sounds and sound sequence when printing words

-they enjoys receiving notes with messages from their classmates and parents (in lunch bags)

-they enjoy communicating with classmates by writing messages

So, taking into consideration what we are doing at school, and based on our observations of our children, here are a few more ideas for you to support literacy at home:

Read aloud daily to your child. As parents ourselves, we can say this is one of the most precious times you will spend with your child. Enjoy every single story because the time will come when your child wants to read independently. Besides the weekly Library Book, build a bedtime story routine into your evening so you can enjoy some cosy time with your child. You can add a little bit of alphabet practice during your story (“Let’s look for the words beginning with the letter S”) and ask questions to develop understanding, but the idea is simply to enjoy reading and the pleasure of sharing a good book together.

Sing songs and listen to music. Singing songs and listening to music, like nursery rhymes, is very important to develop an awareness of rhyme, rhythms and patterns. Children learn songs and quickly memorise them; this contributes to their ever-growing oral language base which will help to make them stronger readers.

Visit your local library regularly. Does your child have a library card? Do you visit your public library every week? In addition to visiting our own amazing school library and our Teacher-Librarian, Mrs. Kennedy, regular visits to your local public library is a great outing for everyone. Your child can borrow books, audio recordings and children’s magazines, and you can pick up some great new reads for yourself. Your child will love to see what you’ve borrowed to read!

Model your own love of reading to your child. Let your children see you reading books, the newspaper, the calendar, recipes, and let them know why you are reading. They are learning from you that reading is purposeful, as well as fun. Try sharing aloud funny things from your own reading, and your child will start to do that with you. Children need to see moms and dads, grandparents and siblings reading. When they understand reading is an activity valued by the people they love, they will come to love it, too.

Provide a variety of reading materials. We have a lot of books in the classroom, but we also have a Listening Centre, a Book Nook, reading wands to “read the room,” alphabet puzzles and games and now, Home Readers. At home, your child can also play board games, read the environmental print on grocery packages, the fridge magnets, your shopping lists, the North Shore News and all of its accompanying flyers.

Spend time just talking with your child. Respond to your children’s questions, take the time to explain concepts to them and use the correct vocabulary. We all need to model good oral language. The children will love to hear stories about your day, themselves when they were toddlers and preschoolers, and they will especially enjoy stories about you when you were young. Time spent sharing between your child and you, or your child and grandparents, is an opportunity to share the history of your family. Activities such as crafting, baking, cooking and gardening all have their own vocabulary, skills and processes which are not only fun to do, but doing them together creates shared memories of special times.

Provide a variety of writing materials. The sky is pretty much the limit for what is available for your child in the way of school supplies and craft materials. In our classes, Mr. Sketch (smelly markers) have been a huge hit every year. With the exception of some inky noses, these are great markers for our Littles. The children are used to using the larger pencils in class, but they do enjoy our fancy pencils, pens, skinny felts, pastels, bingo markers and paints and paintbrushes. We give them a lot of recycled materials like old cards, envelopes, little notebooks and scrapbook paper for cutting, gluing, creating and writing. Colouring book pages continue to be very much loved. The children are very interested in using tape and staplers, hole punches and ribbon scraps to gather their work into booklets. For outdoor writing and drawing, sidewalk chalk is very fun!

Model that you are a writer, too. Through your own work, at home or out of the house, you can show your child that writing is an important part of everything you do. Let your child see you write cards, shopping lists, cheques, or a short email so they understand that writing has a purpose. You can respond with interest to your child’s writing, and answer the messages they write to you. We often ask the children what a scribble, string of letters or drawing is all about and they are happy to oblige. You can also take a moment to label your child’s work for her, show him the correct formation of letters or spelling of some words if he asks. Your response demonstrates to your child how much you value their literary efforts.

Still looking for more ideas? For further reading, you can visit these two posts where we describe in further detail additional ways to support literacy at home.

Reading with Your Kindergarten Child: Establish an Atmosphere for Reading at Home

Reading with Your Kindergarten Child: Literacy Awareness – A Book is More Than a Story

Sources: The Phonological Awareness Companion. LinguiSystems, Inc.1995; Conversation Connections Parent Program, Workshop 2: Handout M. The Psychological Corporation, 1993; Strickland, S.D., Mandel Morrow, L. “Family Literacy and Young Children,” The Reading Teacher, March 1989, pgs. 530-531; Schiller, D., Quigg, J., Wylie, K. “Stress Free Reading at Home: A Handbook for Parents.”

Autumn’s Booknook

Posted on November 19, 2017 by thekinderteam

One of the great pleasures of being a teacher is discovering the many beautiful new story books to read aloud to our students. This Autumn, we’ve found some fabulous books about that the children have really enjoyed listening to in class.

Wonderfall by Michael Hall. In this delightful play on words, Wonderfall is told from the perspective of an oak tree. It takes concepts such as “peaceful” or “dutiful” and changes them to “peacefall” or “dutifall.” The oak tree goes on to explain what it means by each idea with respect to seasonal changes and the advent of autumn leading to winter. The pictures are bright and colourful, with repetition of a similar shape (in this case the oak leaves) to other books by Michael Hall (My Heart is Like a Zoo and Perfect Square).

Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn by Kenard Pak. I had originally read this book at Kidsbook in the Village at the end of this summer and was amazed with the watercolour illustrations. The main character takes a walk greeting the animals and signs of nature such as the wind, flowers and leaves. In response, each one “greets” her back and explains how they are getting ready for all. The attention to detail on the animals and small figures is amazing, right down to the coffee sign in the village as our protagonist strolls through her neighbourhood.

Because of an Acorn by Lola M. Schaefer, Adam Schaefer and Frann Preston-Gannon. This is a wonderfully illustrated book that integrates cause and effect in seemingly innocuous natural events. For example, because of a fallen acorn, a tree grows in its place. The story continues in this way, incorporating wildlife and and plants, and demonstrates the beauty and harmony of the ecosystem.

The Secret Life of Squirrels by Nancy Rose. Okay, this book brought the house down. The children were laughing hysterically (we had to call to order at least three times) about the antics of Mr. Peanuts, the squirrel, in this beautifully photographed book. The author-photographer sets up little vignettes around her home and waits for the curious squirrels to come by and visit. She’s waiting with her camera to photograph these dear little animals. Mr. Peanuts, and friends, are among her actors.

All of our books were purchased through Scholastic Book Clubs.

If the Shoe Fits…..

Posted on June 19, 2016 by thekinderteam

It was Cinderella’s turn to make an appearance last week in the Kindergarten….She left a little glass slipper amidst a flurry of fairy dust on the Special Helper chair in the meeting area.

The children entered the classroom and walked to the meeting area as is their usual routine. We believe that establishing, maintaining and reinforcing classroom routines is an essential part of the children’s self-regulation as routines create predictability about what might happen next, and reduces anxiety about the unknown.

As they settled themselves on the carpet with a book and quietly greeted their classmates, there was a beautiful silence as the children happened upon this provocation in a moment of sparkle. Truly, you could hear the children’s brains trying to make sense what they were seeing with what they know about magic. And then came the flood of questions.

Who did this?

Is that Cinderella’s slipper?

Did you (the teachers) do this?

How did this get here?

We could not have asked for a better reaction. The children were buzzing with excitement, trying to logically figure out how this occurred (we had left tiny trails of glitter around the classroom the day before and denied our involvement), verbalising what they already knew about the story and some were very much convinced we had been visited by fairies.

We finally did explain we had created that little scenario as a special surprise for the children to get them to start thinking and talking about what they knew about Cinderella. And they most certainly did.

We read three different versions of Cinderella. The first was beautifully written and illustrated by Barbara McClintock. We loved this story because it is very traditional, explains how Cinderella got her name and has a very happy ending for all the characters.

Next, we read Cinderella by Cynthia Rylant with paintings by Mary Blair. Mary Blair’s original paintings were for the “Cinderella” animated movie by Walt Disney Studios. This is a lovely and romantic retelling of the story Cinderella, probably unlike other versions the children have heard.

“Who can say by what mystery two people find each other in this great wide world?”

Now, if those words do not set your heart aflutter, we don’t know what will….

As for the children, who felt the pictures were not at all like the movie, they still did very much enjoy our reading of the story.

Our final Cinderella story was a bit of a twist, similar to The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugenios Trivizas and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury. We read Cinderella Penguin or The Little Glass Flipper by Janet Perlman. The laughter when we read aloud the title was almost hysterical. After all, we had already completed our Penguin Inquiry, so the penguin references made complete sense to the children. The children’s knowledge from learning about penguins made a very tidy integration with this book.

We’ve spent some time discussing story structure (beginning, middle, end), characterization and setting. Now, we’re getting into some of the interesting elements about fairy tales, specifically the pattern of 3 and magical objects and people.

The children have a lot of knowledge to draw upon; even if they were not really familiar with fairy tales previously, we’ve read a wealth of them at Storytime (the Sharing item every student had to bring in for the past four weeks was a fairy tale and we thoroughly enjoyed a wide range of books), and used some specific books to teach about the story elements.

We brainstormed all the magical people, objects and words we could think of from all the fairy tales we’ve read so far, and selected a few objects from Cinderella to draw and label for our literary response.

We also decorated some gorgeous shoes for our story craft and made our Fairy Tales folders during Art.

All in all, it was a magical week at school, and not just because of Cinderella.

There’s a change in the air. We’ve noticed in the past two weeks the change in our students. They’ve become more self-assured and self-confident. Many children are showing an independence that was not observable even a month ago. Self-regulation strategies, which we have diligently worked on all year, are being used by the children as they are mindful of themselves and their social context.

Suddenly, everyone has fallen into the routines. They’ve developed a social awareness of, and flexibility for, the constant changes that happen at this time of the year. There’s an indescribable ease with which they move around the class, talking, negotiating and sharing with their classmates. The children are getting ready to move on. But for now, we can only think of our classes as our Kindergarten children…we’re not quite ready to let go.

Fairy Tale Fun with Jack, Hansel and Gretel

Posted on June 4, 2016 by thekinderteam

We’re still having lots of fun with Fairy Tales in our classes. One of the great things we get to do as teachers is share with our students some of the lovely books that have been read aloud to us, or that we’ve acquired over the years as parents to our own children and teachers of our students.

A couple of classic Fairy Tale books we wanted to read were ones that we were given as children. The Treasury of Fairy Tales is my book that I received when I was five years old. The Hansel and Gretel pop-up book was a Christmas gift when I was six. We’ve read Hansel and Gretel to our classes and they just loved the vibrant colours of the pictures and a different version of a familiar story.

A new Fairy Tale classic is The Balloon Tree by Phoebe Gilman. This sweet story is told in the traditional manner of a young princess whose mean uncle wishes to take over the throne from her Dad, the King. When the King is away at a tournament, a plan is hatched by Princess Leora’s uncle to destroy all of the balloons of the Kingdom so the princess has no way to communicate with her father. Princess Leora is locked in her room, but with the help of a wise wizard and a young friend, she is able to find a single balloon and then the magic happens.

We’ve been learning about the story elements (plot, character, setting, theme) and using Fairy Tales as our primary literature source to teach these important concepts. We’ve talked about a story’s structure, beginning, middle and end (as a prelude to discussing plot) with Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs.

This week we focused on good and bad characters in Jack and the Beanstalk. We compared the qualities of what makes good and bad characters, and the differences between main and secondary characters.

We decided to focus on setting in Hansel and Gretel as it’s an excellent example of the literature theme, “Home is Best.” Although we’ve typically taught this theme with Grade One and Grade Two, we thought that our children would be able to make the connection between the story and how they feel about home in their own lives. We recall all of the places Hansel and Gretel visit in the story and list them in the correct sequence. Then, we create a story map by drawing in those locations. Revisiting the story, talking about the sequence of events and what happened at each of those places enriches the children’s understanding of the story. They love to look at the pictures for clues and recall the details of each place.

After we’ve created the map, we label the locations and then orally retell the story again. The children have multiple engagements with a familiar story, which in turns enhances their understanding and appreciation of this important genre.

As part of our integration of the subject areas, we decided to create the Royal Kinder Portraits, another fabulous art idea from the website, Deep Space Sparkle. We give the children a template for the crown which they trace in pencil, then outline in pastel. With guidance, we demonstrate how to draw the face in pastel and then complete it in watercolour. The oil pastels help to “hold” the watercolour paints from mixing together.

Presenting their Royal Highnesses….

This Week in Our Room: May 31-June 3, 2016

Thank you, everyone, for coming out to support us on Sports Day! The children had a marvelous time, enjoying their mini teams and participating in the fun relays. We saw many children love carrying the balloons with their foam chopsticks, jumping in the potato sacks, and pulling with all their might in the Tug of War. They couldn’t wait to show us their tongues after eating their freezies!

We had a good snack afterwards, Activity Time and many children also got a little bit of face paint (or arm paint) done as well. All in all, we had a super successful first Sports Day, and the children can look forward to many more!

Upcoming Events and Reminders

It’s Home Reading Book exchange on Monday so please remember to return your home reading books.

On Wednesday, Elmer the Safety Elephant returns to talk to us further about bike safety.

Book Nook: The Salmon and the Orca Whale in First Nations Stories

Posted on April 1, 2016 by thekinderteam

We’ve just finished learning about the salmon and the orca whale in our on-going study of animals in The First Nations culture. Our Teacher-Librarian, Mrs. Kennedy, has recently read and discussed some beautiful books with our classes during their Library time.

Common themes such as learning from family members, passing on knowledge and ways, and an appreciation and respect for animals and the natural world form a basis for storytelling as part of the First People’s Principles of Learning, “Learning is embedded in memory, history, and story.”

We’ve decided to collect a variety of titles, from First Nation stories to other well loved favourites, and highlight a few of them for you. You might wish to consider them as additions to your own home library.

Sharing Our World: Animals of the Native Northwest Coast is beautifully illustrated and written in clear and simple language. Each of the animals represented is described by its individual qualities. For example, “Salmon have always been our most important food source. We can protect salmon by keeping our rivers and oceans clean.”

Good Morning World (artwork by Paul Windsor, Haisla, Heiltsuk) is a pattern book, focusing on the beauty of our natural world and the positive energy we have from starting a brand new day. “Good morning salmon swimming up the stream.”

More titles:

Waiting for Whales (Sheryl McFarlane, illustrated by Ron Lightburn)
Sockeye: The Adams River (Adam Lewis)
Salmon Stream (Carol Reed-Jones, illustrated by Michael S. Maydak)
P’esk’a and the First Salmon Ceremony (Scot Ritchie)
Dip Netting with Dad (Willie Sellars, illustrated by Kevin Easthope)
Orca Chief (Roy Henry Vickers, illustrated by Robert Budd)
A Salmon for Salmon (Betty Waterton, illustrated by Ann Blades)

To learn more about the Bear in First Nations Art and Stories, click here.

This Week in Our Room: March 29-April 1, 2016

Welcome back to school! How wonderful it has been to teach the children this week, more mature than ever, and watch them quickly settle down to familiar routines like a well-oiled machine. They were very excited to see each other, play together during Centre Time and at recess and get back into their school groove.

We had a very fun first day back on Tuesday with a school assembly right after the holidays! We got to see Dreamrider Productions’ presentation of “H2Whoa,” an excellent play about the importance of water conversation, and brought to us by the Municipality of West Vancouver. Our children watched and learned to be a Planet Protector, just like the heroine, Esmeralda Planet Protector, as she foils the (Water) Evaporator. There was a lot of singing, fun and jokes as the children learned about the water cycle; the three main concepts of evaporation, condensation and precipitation; and practical ways to reduce water consumption at home.

We’ve wrapped up our Penguin Inquiry this week by reflecting on the penguin life cycle and comparing it to our own human life cycle. Next week we will have a fun Black and White Day to celebrate! Please wear your black and clothes on Monday and feel free to bring your stuffed penguins, or other polar animals to school.

We also squeezed in one more post-Easter project, our beautiful patterned eggs done in wax crayon and watercolour resist.

Many of you have probably noticed our beautiful recently paved playground with new painted lines for fun activities like Four Square and hop-scotch. We’re really looking forward to more outdoor play as the weather continues to improve.

Upcoming Dates and Events

We start Badminton in PE on April 4. Our classes will be taught Anna Rice, former Olympian and sister to our own Ridgeview teacher, Ms. Rice. We’ve had the good fortune to be instructed by Anna in the past. The children are going to receive excellent instruction and have lots of fun! We will continue to have high expectations for student safety, listening and participation so that all students can learn. Children must wear running shoes for PE days for the next two weeks.

PE for Division 15: Tuesday and Thursday

PE for Division 16: Monday and Friday

Wednesday, April 6, has been scheduled as the Vancouver Coastal Health finish-up day for those students who were absent, or did not have their screeners completed for Kindergarten vision, hearing and dental check.

We’re still collecting Tombola Goodie Bags for Mayfair, which takes place on Saturday, May 7 from 11 am-3 pm. This is definitely the hottest ticket in town and we encourage all of our families to come out and support our school. It’s really fun and the children will have a fantastic time. Our organizers will be looking for donations for the booths soon, and we will you updated.

Celebrating the Family: Kindergarten Social Studies

Posted on February 9, 2016 by thekinderteam

It’s Family Day today and we’re enjoying some time with our families here at home. Although it’s been mostly centred around homework, we’ve also been in Victoria with my extended family because it’s Chinese New Year’s weekend as well and we usually gather together for at least one big dinner.

Although our kids aren’t little anymore, we’ve remained diligent over the years in planning and organizing time to be with them which can be challenging because of our busy after school and weekend schedules. We eat dinner together late most week nights, one of our few constants where all of us are sitting down and talking (and reviewing who will be driving which car with whom on the way to school and home again). Our kids are both musicians and love to sing and play their instruments with their Dad. And we really enjoy travelling just as family of four to experience new places and foods and activities to create those common bonds and memories.

During this term, our focus in Social Studies has been on the Family. As always, we try to integrate as many parts of our day into a theme to deepen the learning and view it from as many perspectives as possible. We started off with a Sharing Special Helper theme of “Our Family’s Favourite Activities.” This is certainly one of the most fun Sharing activities we do because the children are able to talk about the most important relationships they have–that of the family unit.

We posted the information outside our classrooms, created the Sharing and Special Helper calendar, and continued to use the Remind texts to follow-up with our expectations for Sharing. It’s been so wonderful to see the love as the Special Helper names the people and pets in his or her family photo. Then, our parents have assisted with some writing for their child to read, or with prompts from us, about the things their family enjoys doing together.

Everybody illustrated one of their favourite family activities, then we sorted and classified those activities into broader groupings.

In class, we’ve been reading aloud from our collection of books on Family. We’ve brainstormed the various roles of the family, trying to work through the connections of grandparents, aunts and uncles (Mom’s sister? Dad’s sister? Mom’s brother? Dad’s brother?) and who are the nieces and nephews. We were really surprised at how well the children could explain which aunts and uncles were their parents’ siblings, and those who were related through marriage. The children drew and labelled these beautiful portraits of their immediate families:

We’ve collected quite a few books which talk about different aspects of the family, and grouped them below here for you in case you’re looking for more titles to read.

Family:

The Great Big Book of Families (Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith)
The Family Book (Todd Parr)

Home:

Alison’s House (Maxine Trottier and Michael Martchenko)

Working Parents:

Mommy Works, Daddy Works (Marika Pedersen and Mikele Hall; Deirdre Betteridge)

Needs and Wants:

A Chair for My Mother (Vera B. Williams)

Brothers and Sisters:

Julius, the Baby of the World (Kevin Henkes)
Peter’s Chair (Ezra Jack Keats)
Revenge of the Small SMALL (Jean Little and Janet Wilson)
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (Judith Viorst and Ray Cruz)`
Big Sister and Little Sister (Charlotte Zolotow and Martha Alexander)

Grandparents:

Oma’s Quilt (Paulette Bourgeois and Stephane Jorisch)

Happy Family Day, from our families to yours!

Book Update: Celebrating the Family: Kindergarten Social Studies

We’re so enjoying the beautiful photos and mini write-ups of your family and family activities the children are bringing in for their Sharing and Special Helper Day. We love to see you at the beach, on holiday and celebrating birthdays, often with extended family members and family friends. When the children have an opportunity to see your photos, they quickly realise that although each of them are unique in their own way there are so many similarities between them: the family they love to spend time with, and in what they enjoying doing with their loved ones.

Our families love to read together, listen and play music together, go for walks as a family, travel and celebrate the love of family whether it be for birthdays or holidays. These are some of the delightful activities our children have been telling us about you. We have the opportunity to get to know your child better in their family context and deepen our understanding of your child.

This year we added two more Scholastic books to our Family booklist, The Things I Love About Family by Trace Moroney and Families by Shelley Rotner and Sheila M. Kelly. We used them as a provocation over two lessons to discuss the ways in which families look after each other, the things they enjoy doing together.

We drew these fun pictures when we were finished, and the teachers helped to scribe the writing.

Countdown to Christmas…

Posted on November 30, 2015 by thekinderteam

As we enjoy another clear, crisp and sunny day in Vancouver this last Sunday in November, our thoughts have already turned to…Christmas.

We’re well past Remembrance Day now, so we’ve allowed ourselves to indulge in thinking about Christmas at home and school.

We’re both early decorators at home for the holidays. Christy has earned

The adorable Christmas Village…

the illustrious nickname of “Christy Christmas” so you can imagine how fun and cute everything is at her house. Me? This picture from my Twitter profile gives you a clue as to what my Christmas obsession has been for the past 15 years.

Some of my favourites from my vintage Christmas ornament collection

Some favourites from my vintage collection.

Besides planning for the festivities (we’re both cooking Christmas dinner this year), decorating (Christmas tree, outdoor lights, decorative touches around the house, fresh floral arrangements), baking (cookies, cookies and more cookies for the teenagers) there is the final and inevitable task of…Christmas shopping.

We don’t enjoy Christmas shopping like we used to. When our kids were much younger, Christmas shopping was a lot more fun: we would buy what we, the parents, wanted to give them. We would be able to visit one or two wonderful toy stores and cover the majority of our lists. Now their Christmas lists are very specific, from far-flung stores and might we say…expensive?

Here’s a little poem about Christmas gift-giving we came across a few years ago from a comment a reader left in a personal finance blog….

Something you wish for
Something you need
Something to wear
And something to read.

When we proposed this to the teenagers, it didn’t go over particularly well (“What? Only four gifts?”) But they did understand the sentiment behind it, that perhaps simplifying gift-giving at Christmas might be something to be considered when we reflect on what Christmas is truly about on a personal level.

However, the one gift that we haven’t changed too much is the Christmas Book Bag.

The Self-Regulated Teacher

A Christmas tradition from our homes has been to give a book bag every year to our children (thank you to Dianne W. for this wonderful idea).

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An Introduction to the Bear in First Nations Art and Stories: Kindergarten Social Studies

Posted on November 23, 2015 by thekinderteam

One of things you quickly learn as a classroom teacher is that there is never enough time to teach everything you want, and have to, cover every year. In addition to the mandated curriculum, there’s also the holidays (for us, an essential part of Kindergarten, and it also ties in with Social Studies) and just the curious and interesting things that you want to do with your class because of your personal interests, ideas you learn about from other teachers or activities you think your class will just enjoy and have fun doing. Therefore, the process of integration, combining two or more subject areas, comes into play.

We integrate a lot, because it’s the only way we can fit in everything we have to do, and want to do, with our Kinders.

So here’s what’s going on with us this year.

In the new Kindergarten Social Studies curriculum, Aboriginal Education and learning about the First Peoples’ culture, will be an integral part of our teaching and learning.

We wanted to focus on the symbolic meaning of specific animals according to the First Nations. We were thinking about the salmon, bear and eagle as our starting point as they are familiar animals here on the Westcoast. The animals are a topic the Kindergarten children will be interested in, understand and make a connection with in their own lives.

At the same time, we are beginning our study of local animals in the Natural World (Science), and we have taught within the theme of Bears because not only are bears local and relevant to our area, but we can tie in a literature focus on well-known Bears in stories, such as “The Three Bears” and Corduroy by Don Freeman. This also allows us to have a discussion on the differences between fiction and non-fiction stories.

In order to fit everything in, we’re going to have to integrate Reading, Language and Literacy (stories and literary activities on the bear theme), Community (Social Studies) (the bear, and we will extend to include other animals and their symbolic meaning in First Nations teaching), The Natural World (Science) (bear behaviour) and Art activities.

Children’s literature is of primary importance to us and so we always like to begin with a good book. As Kindergarten teachers, we need to revisit the classic children’s stories with our students through the Primary years to build a broad knowledge base of literature. We make constant references and cross-references to Fairy Tales, Nursery Rhymes, and other well known books, in our everyday discussions. We discussed schema theory in a recent post, and the importance of building a common understanding when developing a new topic or idea.

We asked our teacher-librarian, Mrs. Kennedy, to help us with the Aboriginal Education resources, and other Bear books, and she had some wonderful treasures waiting for our classes during Library this week!

We Greet the Four Animals (Terry Mack and Bill Helin) This book describe the four animals, Eagle, Wolf, Bear and Buffalo, and the gifts or teachings that are offered to us. The children look to the East to thank the Eagle for the teachings of truth or honesty; when they face the South, they greet the Wolf and are thankful for the gifts of being brave and having courage. The children look to the West to thank the bear who Bear teaches about love; and they face the North to thank for the Buffalo for the gift of being able to listen to others.

Explore the Animals: Northwest Coast First Nations and Native Art. This book has beautiful black and white drawings for the children to colour and a brief explanation of the animals.

Black Bears (Tammy Gagne) In keeping with learning about many types of bears, our children began with this book.

As the children are learning about the First Nation’s people, they are learning about the similarities and differences between our cultures. In this way, they can develop an appreciation of themselves and others as individuals, but also how we all work and live together in the broader community.

Hallowe’en Fun in the Kindergarten: Part 2

Posted on October 30, 2015 by thekinderteam

We’re going to share our Hallowe’en booklist for you in case you missed it. It was buried deep in last week’s post.

A holiday post from us would not be complete without a booklist. Here’s the best of what we’re reading to the Kindergarten for Hallowe’en.

Franklin’s Hallowe’en (Paulette Bourgeois and Brenda Clark)
The Fierce Yellow Pumpkin (Margaret Wise Brown and Richard Egielski)
Harriet’s Hallowe’en Candy (Nancy Carlson)
Ten Little Beasties (Rebecca Emberley and Ed Emberley)
Seed, Sprout, Pumpkin, Pie (Jill Esbaum)
A Day at the Pumpkin Patch (Megan Faulkner and Adam Krawesky)
The Pumpkin Book (Gail Gibbons)
It’s Pumpkin Time (Zoe Hall and Sheri Halpern)
The Littlest Pumpkin (R.A. Herman and Betina Ogden)
Little Goblins Ten (Pamela Jane and Jane Manning)
The Biggest Pumpkin Ever (Steven Kroll)
From Seed to Pumpkin (Wendy Pfeffer and James Graham Hale)
10 Trick-or-Treaters (Janet Schulman and Linda Davick)
Big Pumpkin (Erica Silverman and S.D. Schindler)
One Spooky Night (Kate Stone)
Too Many Pumpkins (Linda White and Megan Lloyd)
The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything (Linda Williams and Megan Lloyd)
The Pumpkin Blanket (Deborah Turney Zagwyn)

This Week in Our Room: October 25-29, 2015

With everything that’s been going on for Hallowe’en, we did not work on our next letter, “F.” We will be back to working on the alphabet next week.

Both of our classrooms had the protective film on our windows replaced this week. It helps to reduce the light and glare off of our whiteboards which can make it difficult to see when the sun is shining really brightly.

We sent home the November homework calendar. Please bring back October’s homework calendar next week for a sticker.

Hallowe’en Centres Party

We had a really fun and exciting time at our Hallowe’en Centres party on Wednesday! First of all, we must say a big “thank you so very much” to the parent volunteers who helped to make this special event possible. The children had a truly enjoyable morning making their bat craft and decorating their spider cupcakes, creating a Hallowe’en Math pattern, sculpting with play dough and drawing in their Hallowe’en colouring books.

Hallowe’en Parade and Assembly

The Kindergarten led the way through our school hallways as we led the Primary students in our costume parade. Thank you so much for helping your child to prepare for our fun day! The children all looked so wonderful.

During our Assembly, we sang Hallowe’en songs and reviewed the safety rules for trick-or-treating:

Light your way-make sure you can be seen.
Let’s talk about the route-be certain you know where you are going.
Don’t touch that-if you don’t know what it is, back away.
Follow the rules of the road-walk on the sidewalk and wear reflectors if necessary.
Don’t run-walk carefully so you don’t trip on your costume.
Get home safely, stay together-being safe is the most important part of the Hallowe’en night!

Party’s over….

Well, Hallowe’en celebrations are finished at school for another year. We wish everyone a safe and happy Hallowe’en!

Upcoming Next Week:

Library Day for Division 15 is Monday, and Library Day for Division 16 is Tuesday.

We’re looking forward to seeing our Grade 7 Buddies next week and getting started on our Peace Doves and other art projects for Remembrance Day.

Dates and Reminders:

Wednesday, November 11 is Remembrance Day. School is not in session.