December 4th Newsletter

Good morning families,
We have enjoyed our first week with Miss Macdonald and are loving having two teachers and a pre-service teacher in the classroom working with and supporting your children.
Miss Macdonald's lessons will focus on providing the children with knowledge and strategies for mindfulness drawing upon our Social Emotional Curriculum. She will also be extending our pattern play to continue building this understanding with the Kinders.
We are offering the children increased the opportunities for literacy play goals; concepts of print, letter names & sounds, producing a rhyme and beginning to recognize Kindergarten sight words. 
Our teaching team has planned some special activities with your children for December which include:
baking gingerbread cookiesmaking a family giftchristmas art for your hometree ornaments as a family giftfamily christmas card using water coloursfamily story play using loose partsfamily traditions and celebrations 

 Pattern Tinker Boxes

In math the children have finished their first pattern study and will be introduced to two math concepts: quantities that can be decomposed into smaller numbers & 1:1 correspondence. We have been doing this with "ways to make five"  and now will expand to ten for this unit of study. 
They will be continuing with counting collections once weekly and math journals once weekly working alongside their learning partner.
OSCL's have begun to be sent home and there is a example on your child's e-portfolio showing his/her pattern work. 
We are approaching the conclusion of our social studies inquiry on Identity so expect to see a post on your child's e-portfolio this month followed by an OSCL.
We have been using our five senses both in the outdoor program and the classroom. This month with all of the December special activities we will complete our senses study with sound and taste using winter baking and sound boxes. 
While the children have embraced their learning about what animals we share our ocean and forest with. I would like to work on a guided inquiry in January as we transition into winter learning  through stories, art, songs, poems and non-fiction literature. This will overlap two kindergarten science areas seasonal changes and animals have observable features.
              
Our atelier is full of wonderful, authentic art materials thanks to an art grant that our Inquiry team was successful in obtaining. Many of the children are enjoying water colour painting (combined with many different materials), playdoh, kinetic sand, plastercine and as well potters clay has been ordered. 
The children have been using the paint easel regularly as well as drawing with a wide range of materials; chalk crayons, crayons, pencil crayons, water colour crayons/pencils, oil pastels, washi tape and sharpies. We are noticing that our weekly drawing lessons are reflected in increased student confidence using drawing materials in the atelier.
A new show and tell calendar has been sent home for December.