January 2020 Kindergarten News

A Pre-service teacher from VIU, Miss Kendra Minty, has been assigned to our room for her spring Practicum. She will begin with field days on January 27th. Miss Minty has a degree in Early Childhood and has taught Reggio Inspired Preschool for many years. We are fortunate to have Miss Minty. She spent many days in December in our room becoming familiar with the children and our routines.
Our community volunteer, Donna, will be away for the month of February travelling and expects to return in March to support our offsite program.

Timber Block Play

It has been a wonderful return to school with the children excited to renew friendships and enjoy school activities.  I have added some new learning centres like the Sand Table, Family Play and expanded the home centre by adding a new kitchen, rug, pillows and a quilt.  
The children are interested in creating a mini mud kitchen for outdoor play. If you have metal pots, bowls or spoons to contribute please send them to school.
With last week being onsite the children were gifted an extended exploration time, completing many art activities and enjoying the expanded time to build, share ideas and collaborate. During the rainy mornings we joined other primary classes in the gym to learn some new games and play some class favourites like Squirrels in the Tree as well as the popular Builders and Bulldozers.
The children have participated in a few projects to reflect upon their knowledge and understanding of Seasonal Changes and Who Lives In Our Forest with two murals and an Animals In Winter art activity using a new technique. They have chosen forest animals to add to our painted mural and will complete it this week alongside a class book about our forest.

I introduced conversations about families in early December and have resumed this month, focusing upon similarities and differences through conversation, books, a new family play learning centre and art. The new family play centre includes two homes to encourage imaginary play dates.

Math Partner Play has been refreshed with a few new games. We have continued with Tessallations, Domino Towers, Pattern Blocks and added three new games; Count down to Zero, Snail Race and Stone Stacking. 
During Monday morning Counting Collections and small group work I have increased the quantity of numbers and introduced ten frames as a counting tool. 

Daily Five this week included a fourth strand, Word Play with the children playing alphabet and word building activities as well as Rhyme Bingo. We have also begun to focus on rhyming words through a rhyming circle game and rhyming books. I have begun to assess the children's knowledge of kindergarten sight words.

Finally with Chinese New Year having begun I thought it would be interesting for the children to learn a little about it and complete a special art and cooking project. They will be decorating lanterns with liquid water colour and making won ton soup on Monday morning. 

Thanks,