November 2019 Kindergarten News

Of course we needed a little Halloween fun!

Loose Parts Play by Acacia

Our google document for November is up and ready for you to add dates that you are available to go offsite or stay indoors for cooking. We are not cooking this upcoming week however we will be making mini pizza's the following week. Our community volunteer Donna will be away until December and I am looking for a replacement community volunteer.

The November class calendar is prepped and ready to go home on Monday.

Reflective Learning

I have begun to conference with the children individually asking them to do a simple reflection upon their own learning beginning with math. I will send home a copy of the sheet for you and either post a video or photo on their e-portfolio connected to the reflection sheet. 

I have sent home an invite to all families to join Freshgrade. If you have not received the invite please email me and I will resend. Freshgrade will be used to share student learning.

Science

This month the children will have some fun taking home a science kit which includes Dr. Zed kitchen experiment ideas. Your child can choose a science experiment and then present to the class on Friday. If Friday is a holiday please plan for Thursday. We will continue with the home project program until each child has had a turn with the kit.

In the classroom we have begun to decompose a pumpkin (from our pumpkin bowling game) and will do some experimenting with leaves in the next week.

We did an activity at the beach last week comparing nature loose parts to colour charts. It was pretty surprising the broad range of colours the children found and sorted together.

Literacy

Our Daily Literacy Flow is well established and the children have been practicing a fourth strand, literacy play, separately with a partner. This month I will add the fourth strand to the daily literacy flow. The literacy play includes alphabet name and sound work, rhyming games and word building (for those who are ready). 

I have added some library books to bolster the classroom collection and many of the children now have 3 - 4 books in their personal book boxes. Thank you to families who purchased scholastic books as I have added four new books to the classroom collection using bonus points.

They have all completed writing conferences with me focusing on using the Kindergarten Writing Criteria. The conferences will continue all term with the children meeting with me for a few minutes each week to review what they are doing well and setting a small learning goal. We have moved from loose paper to journals for at least three of our writing blocks and loose paper for two of our days.

We have begun to play games using our weekly letter names and sounds. This week we worked together with magnetic letters to build words using the letters satipn. Some of the words were sat, pin, it, is, tip, tap, in.

Math

Our class inquiry "What is a Pattern" has progressed well and the children can easily build a simple linear pattern using two attributes. This week they will compare patterns in nature using nature's loose parts and some photographs.

The children have begun to practice counting up to ten and back down to zero to reinforce oral counting as a circle game and have been doing lots of counting as a group. I have refreshed some of the counting jars and increased quantity in some as requested by the children. Some of the counting strategies observed this week were counting by 1's, touch and count, make a new pile and organizing then counting. Partners are counting together, taking turns or working side by side.

We are also continuing with making good estimates using what we know. Last week the children were estimating how many eyes were in the estimation jar. After their estimates, we worked together to sort them and then counted how many eyes. All but two children were within the range!!

This month I have planned some new activities with subitizing (instantly recognizing a dot pattern) using circle games as well as some new partner games.  Follow the link from a earlier post if you are interested in more information  Subitizing.

Look Closely Program

We are continuing with this program and children will continue to loose closely at items using a new medium, charcoal for the sketches with a feather as the prompt.

Thank you,