5 Little Pumpkins

 

This week we introduced a story called 5 Little Pumpkins. Everyday we read the story and recited the chant to ensure it is "stuck in our brains". As we read the story we are developing fluency, reciting, print awareness, and reading a story from left to right. We created actions to go along with the words we are reciting. We will continue our work with this story the next few weeks through a wall story, the passage will be printed on the wall to facilitate reading practice. Stay tuned! 

As Halloween is approaching, we continued our pumpkin inquiry in other areas of learning. Through a sharing circle we described what the pumpkin looks like, what it feels like, and what it smells like. Yesterday, we were scientists, and predicted how many seeds are inside our pumpkin. We sorted the pumpkin guts from the seeds. We are continuing our seed exploration next week! 

We learned how to draw the inside and outside of a pumpkin. Using our kid writing and magic line we challenged ourselves to print pumpkin. Please ask your child "What is the beginning sound of the word pumpkin?" or share "I can spell pumpkin using word bubblegum!"

We also learned a new Roll & Cover pumpkin game, we play this game during centre time. It has been a big hit!  

Independence

Please continue working on independently dressing. As the cold weather is here please practice putting on our snow pants and zipping zippers. We use this visual in our classroom, feel free to use it at home when practicing independently dressing. This visual is a great way to increase our confidence and independence as young learners. We read pictures from left to right :) 

Halloween 

On Thursday October 29th, please send your child to school wearing their halloween costume and mask. Please make sure your child's costume does not interfere with their COVID mask, and keep any accessories that go with your child's costume at home. Please DO NOT send any candies, treats, or non-edible gifts (e.g. pencils, stickers etc.) Due to COVID we are unable to hand out anything to students. Thank you!  We will continue our regular learning on this day with some halloween activities!  

Reminders 

• Thursday October 29th Halloween 
• Friday October 30th P.D. Day (No School K-4) 

Fall Changes

 

What a busy week we had in Kinder! We are continuing our work with shapes and are beginning to explore sorting. We wondered "What is sorting?" using our knowledge and experiences we shared how we sort items in our everyday lives (toys, food, fruit, coloured items). We read the book Sort it Out by Barbra Mariconda and used our detective glasses to find Packy's sorting rule. During centre time each student had the opportunity to sort shapes using the teacher tool (smartboard). 

We continue our work with Friend of the Day. We are asking questions to get to know our friends and are exploring different ways to represent our age (dots, tally marks, and our fingers). We are continuing to use Kid Writing with our word bubblegum and the magic line. Please ask your child "What is word bubblegum?"

We went on a fall walk, observed the fall changes and searched fall items found around our school. We even made fall angels! 

We sat in a sharing circle, using our senses (sight, touch, smell, and hearing) we shared our thoughts/ideas of leaves and how leaves change during the fall. We also learned how to draw a picture of a leaf and label each part of the leaf. We had so much fun being scientists and observing the changes of leaves. We use the outdoors often in our learning, With the colder weather approaching, a reminder to send your child to school with weather appropriate clothing each day.

Way to go Kenneth Taylor School!!!

With the generous help of our families and our community, we have raised a record amount of $1735.00 for the Terry Fox Foundation!

Reminders

• Zippers! Please practice those zippers at home until they can do it independently! 
• Please continue to send at least 2 clean masks daily 
• Thank you for continuing to complete the daily health check before sending your child to school

I Am Thankful For...

We focused on three letters this week /f/ /v/ and /k/. We have the letter sounds "stuck in our brains" and challenged ourselves to identify words that begin with each letter sound. Please ask your child "Do you know a word that begins with the letter _?" 

We are continuing our work with Friend of the Day. Experimenting with kid spelling, and sounding out our words using our word bubblegum. 

We are continuing our work with shapes and lines. We had a blast during our shape hunt and created a shape wall. 

With Thanksgiving this weekend, the Thankful book by Todd Parr was the perfect opportunity to explore thankfulness, what it looks like, and how it makes us feel. Each student explained what they were thankful for, drew a picture, folded our notes, placed into envelopes, and (their favourite part) surprising our grown ups with our Thankful Mail! 

I am thankful for them, their energy and willingness to share what they are thankful for! 

Reminders 

• Please continue to send at least 2 masks daily
• Thank you for continuing to complete your daily health screen for your child before you send them to school 
• No school Friday or Monday

Happy long weekend! I hope you enjoy the fresh air, sunshine and time together. See you all on Tuesday :) 

Scholastic Reading Club Program

 Dear Parents/Guardians,

 This year our class will be participating in the Scholastic Reading Club Program. Reading every day is the best way for children to become independent readers. 

NEW this year: your order will now ship to your home and you can order online whenever you want using the link scholastic.ca/clubshop. When you checkout, please enter my Class Code RC318570 

When you use the Class Code our class earns 20% of the value of the order in rewards and you get Free Shipping on your order of $35 or more*. The rewards earned can be put towards books, digital teacher resources, and more! *Orders below $35 will be charged $3.50 

Here’s to a great year of reading! 

Ms. Fieldstone 

Orange Shirt Day & Terry Fox Run

 We had another busy week in Kindergarten!! Wednesday September 30th was Orange Shirt Day. Please ask your child what they learned about Orange Shirt Day. 

We continued our work exploring letters and letter sounds. We touched upon the letters /t/ and /d/. We practiced the letter sound, letter identification, and challenged ourselves to find words that begin with each letter. We continued our work with Friend of the Day, using our word bubblegum we S-T-R-E-T-C-H-E-D out the word by saying each sound slowly and identifying the letter using our phonemic awareness. We put the sounds back together and repeated the word! 

With your child, discuss word bubblegum and ask them how we use it in the classroom. 

We explored shapes and art this week! We used creative license to make our own pictures using rectangles. 

Please ask your child "What did you create using rectangles?"

During centre time we had the opportunity to explore with shapes. Some of our friends made people and animals using shapes. 

On Thursday we learned about a Canadian Hero named Terry Fox. He showed us persistence and how we need to try and try again to reach a goal. We ran in support of Terry Fox! We explored the H.E.A.R.T. values and created goals for ourselves that we will accomplish this year. 

Reminders 

Friday, October 9 PD Day NO School for K-4 

Monday, October 12 Thanksgiving Monday NO School for K-4

Wednesday, October 14 Picture Day 

Friday, October 16 AM Attends 

Friday, October 23 NO School for AM Students

Friday, October 30 PD Day NO School for K-4