Fairy Tales

We are still loving Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  You can watch it on the link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3qTeyZxrJA

Kindergarten students were busy in the month of December using the Fairy Tales “The Three Little Pigs” and “The Gingerbread Man” as our central stories.  In these stories students explored character feelings, ways of solving problems and patterns. 

In our dramatic play centre, students created a brick house and fire place for the three little pigs. All elements of this house and many of the engineering challenges were solved by the students using materials available in the classroom.  They enjoyed knocking on the door and using the pattern from the story: “Little pig, little pig, let me come in.”  “Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin.”

On our last day of school the Gingerbread Man visited our classroom and left a note.  The Gingerbread man never stays in one spot long, so we have to solve the clues and chase him all around the school.  When we got back to our classroom, we found him resting on the teacher chair with a gingerbread treat for everyone!

If you are looking for ways to support your child's success in Kindergarten, please consider suggestions from the following list:  

Happy Holidays From,

Miss Viner, Mrs Ferguson and Mrs. Coates

We look forward to seeing you all in the New Year! 

Pumpkin Inquiry

In Kindergarten, we have been learning about pumpkins. Just like scientists, we asked questions about our class pumpkin, shared our observations, and recorded our findings. We even learned the scientific names for the different parts of our pumpkin (e.g., skin, stem, vine, pulp, seeds). We incorporated our pumpkin inquiry into our centers by introducing a pumpkin observation center, play dough center, puppet center and jack-o-lantern face center. We read the story “Pete the Cat Five Little Pumpkins”. Ask your child to retell the story, or check out the audiobook together on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm1qvX1ygOo.

We have been learning about the letter “p” and identifying words that start with that letter. We noticed that the words “pumpkin” and “pulp” both start with the letter “p.” If you are looking for a fun activity, see how many “p” words you and your child can find around the house or at the park (there’s another one)!

          

             

Getting Right to the Heart of the Mat Man

The Kindergarten students have been learning how to hold a pencil in a comfortable and effective manner.  “We use our pinching fingers” explains Jordyn.  When we hold our pencil properly it makes it easier to print our names and draw shapes.  We have been learning how to draw the basic pre-printing shapes so that we can use shapes to draw whole pictures.  We also watched a “Mat Man” video and learned how to draw a person with all of the correct body parts.  Our class made a “Drawing a Person Checklist” together and we use it every day to make sure we remember to include all of the body parts a person needs.  If we forget any body parts then we can use the checklist to identify the body parts we need to add in an effort to improve our work.  We have a variety of learning centers that help us develop our drawing skills and the muscles in our arms.  These include shaving cream table, whiteboards, buddha drawing board, art centre, and mat man centre.