Dear Families,
The rainy season has definitely arrived and we are transitioning to staying onsite during our stormy mornings but trying as much as possible to go offsite and have outdoor play during November and December. Please send your child to school dressed for the weather as Mrs. Noble seldom schedules an indoor recess.
Both Miss Sherry and I will be away on Wednesday morning at a district workshop. We will do our very best to prepare the substitute teacher for a onsite morning with the children.
Ms. Macdonald will begin her practicum at the end of November and will remain with us through to December 17th.
On Monday we will begin inviting your children to share their name stories. I have already shared my name story with the children and Miss Sherry will be sharing her name story on Monday.
I have been working with students 1:1 on letter formation focusing on a few students each day either offsite or in the classroom. This will be our second round using rainbow printing. this time the children were introduced to a new drawing tool, Chalk Crayons, which have been added to the classroom atelier. We have also continued with our prewriting program using directed drawing on dry erase boards.
In the atelier (art area) the children have continued with exploring water colour paints and been introduced to combining permanent black marker with a water colour wash. We have continued to offer opportunities for easel painting and collage art. The atelier is open twice daily during morning exploration and afternoon quiet play. When a new tool is introduced all children are rotated through the centre while the rest of the art centres are a choice activity.
Thank you for sending in your colour objects. We still need some families to send in this month's project --a scavenger hunt for colourful loose parts before the children can sort and design their colour wall.
I am about halfway updating portfolios with the pattern posts and afterwards will send home an Ongoing Record of Communication this month for mathematics: counting and patterning as required by the school district.
We have continued our morning table work with a different activity each morning; Counting Collections, Story Play, Math Play and Literacy Play. We were doing Math Play 2x a week but will switch to Literacy Play 2x a week beginning in December.
Our Parent Group has provided $150.00 to purchase play resources so I have made two purchases based upon my observations of the children and reflecting upon existing classroom play resources.
I have purchased a wooden marble chute for the children and introduced it to them this week. I have also ordered a set of balancing rocks similar to Jenga Tower but for five and six year olds. Many of our Kinders still enjoy building, knocking down and ramp play and I imagine that these two new learning centres will be very popular.
I have also added castle building blocks with peg castle characters and dragons which the children are enjoying greater success stacking and balancing as they design homes for dragons, princes and princess' (from my home collection).
I requested and received funds from the school to purchase wooden dollhouse furniture and have placed an online order which should arrive in December. Sorry the Ikea Dollhouse will go onto next year's school wish list but in the meantime your children will certainly enjoy family play using the dollhouse furniture and peg people on our new story play table (repurposed train table).
Thank you for your generous support for our new class beverage station. We have plenty of hot chocolate and tea to last through to January. The children will be finishing their survey on Monday as to which drink is preferred on Thursday afternoons tea or hot chocolate. I personally am looking forward to berry tea :)
Mrs R. shares....
we are adding more movements to our ball skills, and are now moving into pushing and releasing the ball above our heads. We have been practicing pushing and releasing the ball above our heads aiming at a wall to practice this movement.
We have been focusing on different animals behaviour during the fall. The most recent investigation we did was why Humpback Whales travel to warmer waters in the winter months, and then why do they move back to colder waters during the summer months. The students had lots of great ideas Including: “they travel to stay warm”, “they travel to eat food”, “they travel to have their babies”. Our students are a smart bunch! For literacy we are doing lots of rhyming, singing, and are dabbling with reading constant-vowel-consonant words (c-a-t, then changing the front sound to /f/ to make f-a-t, changing the front sound to /p/ for p-a-t, etc.) the kids are excited about pre-reading!
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