Sneaky Messages

Students were very excited to write and hide their sneaky messages. 

We have been working on print and word awareness in Kindergarten. We can: 

• Point to each word when we read 
• Read from left to right 
•  Count each word in a sentence 

With your child, read the Sneaky Message (use your finger to point to each word) 

Ask your child, "How many words are there?"  (count together!) 

Here are a few sneaky messages our families have found! We will continue to discuss our sneaky messages and how they made us feel next week :)

"Found something in my coffee mug, frogs are pretty special to K and he specifically wanted this coffee mug and told me I have to use it tomorrow morning.

"I hid it under my Mommy's placemat at dinner. She said thank you she was happy"

"Found my sneaky message in the fridge" 

" I hid it in the pantry cuz my mom could find it very easy and her heart exploded with love"

"I found I's sneaky message in his lunchbox!"

" I told her to go make coffee in a little bit. We played hot and cold so she could find the message. She was happy because I wrote it" 

"I hid it in my daddy's piggy bank because when he wakes up he looks there to get his phone" 

"I found my sneaky message and Lilly was excited too" 

"I hide it in the pillows because my Mommy and Daddy could find it . They were happy!" 

REMINDERS

Friday February 19th PM Attends 

Friday February 26th AM Attends

 

Collaborative Art

This week we began a collaborative art project with all five Kindergarten classes. Each class is responsible for a jigsaw piece of the final art puzzle. Collaborative art projects provide students with an opportunity to create lasting artwork that each individual participates in. Creating a collaborative art piece takes patience, teamwork, respect and strengthens our classroom community. 

Each class received a blank paper to use as their canvas. We began by brainstorming ideas, and deciding what our piece of the puzzle could represent. Working as a team, the AM class decided they want their artwork to show their love for the ocean. The PM class wanted to represent their love of the calm colour monster through art. Here are a few pictures of our progress: 

Stay tuned to see the final piece of art our Kindergarten community creates :) 

REMINDERS

Wednesday, February 10th  - Valentine's Day Celebration (see previous blog post or your email for more details ♥️)

Thursday, February 11th and Friday, February 12th - Teacher's Convention, No Classes 

Monday, February 15th - Family Day, No Classes 

Friday February 19th PM Attends 

Friday February 26th AM Attends

The Colour Monster

 Hi Kindergarten Families, 

Thank you to our guest teachers Mrs. Wilcox and Mrs. Roberto for teaching us this week. I am looking forward to seeing all of your smiling faces (under your masks :) ) on Monday! 

To develop our literacy skills we have been using The Colour Monster Wall story. We use Wall Stories to build our oral language, fluency and print awareness, develop confidence in reading and see ourselves as authors and illustrators! Together we are learning how to identify our emotions (e.g. "I feel happy", "I feel calm"), and regulation strategies we can use when we feel sad, scared or mad. 

We began with simple patterned sentences inspired by "The Colour Monster"  to explore feelings and emotions. We are focusing on the sight words "he" and "is". 

 Using our knowledge of lines and shapes, we learned how to draw the colour monster, and how to identify what emotion he is feeling using colours (e.g. yellow = happy, blue = sad). 

The Colour Monster is one of our favourite books in Kindergarten! Here is a version of The Colour Monster we have read in class :) 

Ask your child "What colour do you feel right now?" 

Reminders 

We love getting outdoors and try to go out as much as our schedule (and weather) allows. Please make sure students have mittens and hats everyday! (Snow pants are a bonus :) ) 

Friday, February 5 AM Attends 8-12pm (NO Class for PM)

Wednesday, February 10th  - Valentine's Day Celebration (see previous blog post or your email for more details ♥️)

Thursday, February 11th and Friday, February 12th - Teacher's Convention (NO SCHOOL)

Monday, February 15th - Family Day (NO SCHOOL)

Valentine's Day in Kindergarten at KTS

 Dear Families,

We are getting very excited about Valentine's Day! Valentine's Day provides opportunities to talk about friendship qualities and spreading love (for example, sharing, using other people's ideas, taking turns, giving compliments and showing acts of kindness). 

With this in mind, we will be having a small celebration on Wednesday, February 10th. 

Here are a few guidelines fo the day:

Cards

• Students may bring Valentine Cards for all their classmates. This is optional.
• Because of quarantine restrictions, please send in your child's Valentine Cards by Thursday, February 4th. You are welcome to send them earlier than this date.
• Please fill in the Valentine cards in the following manner:
• To:  (leave blank, this helps with handing out our cards)
• From: Your child's name
• There are 19 students in the AM Class
• There are 17 students in the PM Class

Food

• In accordance with Alberta Health Guidelines, please do NOT send in any chocolates, candies, or food with your child's Valentine Cards
• If you would like to send in a "treat", feel free to send in a pencil, eraser or small toy for each child. This is optional

Students can wear red, pink, hearts etc. if they want to!

Please let your teacher know if you have any further questions.

Thanks!

The Ken Taylor Kindergarten Team 

Patterns, Patterns, Patterns!

 Hi Kinder Families, 

Thank you for all of your support with our week of online learning. What a wonderful week we had, it was great to see all the kiddos face to face! This week we continued our work with patterns. We began with a group discussion exploring patterns and where we can find them in our world. Please ask your child: 

"What is a pattern?" 

"Where are patterns found?" 

We read the book "A-B-A-B-A A book of Pattern Play" and identified the pattern core. We used actions, words, songs, and unifix coloured cubes to identify and extend simple AB and ABC patterns. Here are some creative ways we made patterns! 

Enjoy the warm January weather and have a wonderful weekend! 

Reminders

PM Kindergarten Attends Friday January 22nd 

No Conferences this month Please see email from the school's office for more details (sent last Friday) 

Regular Classes Thursday January 28th 

No School Friday January 29th P.D. Day

January 28th and January 29th - Update

 Dear Kindergarten Families,

Please note changes in our January 2021 Calendar below:

 No Conferences this month, please see email from the school's office for more detail (sent last Friday)

There will be regular classes Thursday, January 28th

AM K 8-10:50am

PM K 11:40-2:30pm 

There will be NO classes Friday, January 29th 

Thank you! 

The Ken Taylor Kindergarten Team 

Alphabet Letter Hunt

This Week in Kindergarten we focused on taking care of ourselves, each other and our classroom. We continued our name work and recognizing/printing using appropriate uppercase and lowercase letters. Continuing our Alphabet Work we went on a Letter hunt. Using our "detective goggles" we went on a hunt around the room to find the Uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet. It was challenging but we persisted and worked together to find all 26 letters of the Alphabet! 

This week we read the book "The Invisible String" ,  "People who love each other are always connected by a special string, made of love. Even though you can't see it with your eyes, you can feel it deep in your heart, and know that you are always connected to the ones you love." When we are at school and we miss you , we tug on our invisible string so you can feel our love!

On Wednesday afternoon we had a Fire Drill. Our PM Class is working on being safe, silent and serious during a fire drill. We did a great job walking outside and calmly exiting the building! 

 

REMINDERS

Please practice logging into Google Classroom! We will be using your child's @educbe.ca for their learning January 4-8th. More detailed information coming soon. 

Thank you!

12 Day of Winter/Christmas at Ken Taylor School continues! See previous blog post or email sent by the office for more information. 

12 Spirit Days of Winter/Christmas Ken Taylor School

  Dear Families,

The school community will be participating in the below holiday activities. Please note that these are optional for your child to dress up/participate in.

Letters in Our Name

 Hi Room 108 families, We have had a busy week in Kindergarten. We now have an AM class (blue team) and a PM class (green team). This week we revisited our rules, routines and expectations. Continuing our alphabet work, we focused on our names. We printed our names using 1 uppercase letter and lowercase letters. We counted the letters in our name and used tally marks/hearts to graph the letters in each students name. 

The next day we worked with a friend and compared our names with each other. What is the same?What is different?How many letters are in your name? your partner's name?

What letters are the same? What letters are different? After, we cut out the letters in our name and sorted the letters using our giant alphabet chart! This was a big task for the kiddos but they had a blast doing it! 

We spent some time outside this week exploring and observing how fall has changed into winter! 

Hope you had a wonderful weekends enjoying the sunshine! 

REMINDERS

Following the christmas break classes will resume online for 1 week. We will be using Google Meet and Google Classroom January 4-8. It is important that each student has access to these platforms, so please practice logging in. 

 More information coming soon!

Friday, December 4 PD Day, NO School K-4

Friday, December 11 PM Attends 8am-12pm

Friday, December 18 AM Attends 8am-12pm 

A is for Apple

 Hi Parents & Guardians, 

Students attended a school wide virtual assembly for Remembrance Day. I must say I was very impressed, they were respectful and handled the moment of silence like pros. It was great to virtually see some of the other students and their artwork. We continued our work with peace and poppies exploring the five senses and created our own poppies to wear for the ceremony. 

We continued our work with numeracy and exploring the concepts "Same and Different" we looked at pictures and noticed what was the same and what was different in image. 

Please ask your child "What is the same?" and "What is different?" 

We are continuing our work with alphabet letters and sounds using our "A is for Apple" song and alphabet charts to help us. We are identifying the letters in our names and challenging ourselves to identify the beginning letter sounds in our classmates names. 

We are continuing our letter work during centre time, matching uppercase and lowercase letters, writing our classroom affirmations and spelling our names with lowercase letters. 

Reminders 

• Thursday, November 19 and Friday November 20 Virtual Conferences, No Classes for K students. I look forward to meeting with each of you online to discuss your child's progress and EYE-TA results. Please check your email for the link to book a time for conferences. 
• Friday November 27 AM Kindergarten Attends 
• Friday December 4 PD Day No School  

Peace Feels Like...

This week we read the book "What does Peace feel like?" it is a book written by children and uses the 5 senses to explore peace. Next week we will be completing journal pages exploring what peace means to us and what it looks like, feels like and sounds like. 

We continued our work for remembrance day, and talked about peace in our classroom using gentle hands, kind words and helping others. We learned about poppies and how it is a symbol of peace. We created some beautiful poppy art (that I forgot to take pictures of!) I will post pictures of our art on Monday. 

We are continuing our work with sorting and exploring the different ways we can sort in our classroom and at our homes. We have some very creative students who wanted to sort their snacks by colour during snack time! Please ask your child "What is your sorting rule?" 

We are continuing our work with our 5 Little Pumpkins wall story. We used macaroni to create our numbers and spent time using our writing strategies to spell key words in our poem. Using isolation and letter sounds we learned how to spell "Oh My" "Run" and "Fun". It was hard work but we persisted! 

On Tuesday November 10th we are having a virtual assembly in honour of Remembrance Day. Poppy donations are gladly accepted at school if you would like to donate.

Reminders 

Thank you for working on independent dressing! I have noticed the growth in this big skill. 

Snacks: Thank you for sending healthy snack and water with your child. We understand treats and candy are popular this time of year. If you do send a treat with your child to school, please limit it to 1 small candy/chocolate. Thank you! 

• Monday November 9th Picture Retake Day
• Wednesday, November 11 Remembrance Day No Class for K-4
• Friday, November 13 PM Attends 8am-12pm (No Class for AM) 
• Thursday, November 19 and Friday November 20 Virtual Conferences, No Classes for K students. I look forward to meeting with each of you online to discuss your child's progress and EYE-TA results.  Please watch your email for further information soon. 

I Can Sort!

 

Happy Halloween Kindergarten! I hope you had a wonderful Halloween weekend with your family.  We had another busy week, we are continuing our work with 5 Little Pumpkins and created reading goals. Every morning we review our goals and affirm we are readers! 

On Monday we revisited our seed exploration and used ten frames to count our seeds and ensure numbers 1 - 10 are "stuck in our brains". We learned when the top row is full we have 5 objects, and if the top and bottom row is full we have 10! 

Working on our Friend of the Day, we used oral language and memorization to create sentences to share the knowledge we learned about our friends. 

For example, "Kamran's favourite colour is blue", "Ians favourite activity is drawing" and "Evelyn is 5 years old". 

 Please ask your child to share their friend of the day sentences.  

I Can Sort! We are exploring sorting in our Kindergarten classroom, and challenging ourselves to sort in different ways. In our animal groups we worked together to sort our mystery objects. by size, colour or shape. We took part in a gallery walk to view each others sorting group and went around the room sharing "The sorting rule is _____" 

Please review these pictures with your child and prompt "What is the sorting rule?"

Reminders

• Picture Day Orders due by November 5th

• AM Kindergarten Attends Friday November 6th 

• Picture Retake Day November 9th 

• Remembrance Day November 11th (No School)