December 2019 Kindergarten News

We have been enjoying some lovely Christmas stories. A few are funny, others sentimental and most are about friendship, family and kindness. Our new book this year is Little Santa by Jon Agee.

Our class visit to Departure Bay Eco Preschool was filled with wonder, joy and new experiences. Kylie read the children Little Santa by author Jon Agee and shared her space with the children. Her yard was full of activities not usually available to the Kinders; a mud kitchen, water play, a car track, a playhouse and a huge sand box.
The children are busy little Christmas elves and have been making decorations for the community, classroom, home and each other. They made Christmas placemats for the senior home after listening to Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mom Fox, handprint reindeer for the classroom and little Christmas trees for home. We have been working in small groups on a delicious family Christmas gift. Thank you to families who have sent in bubble wrap. If you have some, don't forget to send it in. Our clay leaf prints are almost all ready to go home and they need careful packaging.
Thank you to friends and family who made generous donations to the Raffle Chocolate box and to the food bank.
Last week the children made applesauce and latkes with Hannah and the room smelled delicious all day. This week we will be making Molasses sparkle cookies with the children to enjoy with their big buddies.

            

                     

In math the children have begun to decompose numbers to five. I have added counting bags to the math stations and children will count larger groups of objects into groups of five. We will continue to play our new math games Mystery Number, Domino Math, Dice War, Number Towers and Patterning with wooden blocks. This week's new game will be Match It! using a deck of cards from Math Minds, which have tallies, numerals, hand numbers and dot patterns.

We are continuing with our estimating jar and I have added more quantity to our counting jars with new numbers ranging from 10 to 30. Thank you to Katarina and Eli for sharing new counting objects to add to our counting jars. It is nice to refresh and support other classrooms as Mrs. King and I use our math grant to create shared math resources for the school.

Our most recent clay art is almost ready to be sent home. Thanks for the bubble wrap to protect these delicate treasures.
I have completed the writing conferences and have begun to confer with the children about our recent science investigation, Needs of plants and animals (in the forest and our garden). I am really impressed with how rich their conversations are especially around math and how much their stories have grown.  We have read many books, watched videos and spent time in the garden/forest to build upon the children's knowledge and strengthen our understandings.
                         

Almost all of the books purchased for independent reading with the $200. from the school have arrived. I was able to purchase about twenty books. The  children now have a greater range of books to choose from including science, math, dinosaurs, space and rhyme.