Websites and Apps

Many of you have been asking us about different educational websites and apps to help your child enhance what they are learning at school. If you go to our school's Wiki Page, you will find a list of websites and apps for each age group, by subject.  Please follow the link below to start downloading these apps.

Wiki Pages Apps and Websites

Your Partners in Learning,
Ms. Stefanoff and Ms. Russell

Our Holiday Concert Song!

Our Holiday Concert is coming near!  It will be held on Wednesday, December 10 at 6:30 PM.  Both Kindergarten classes will be coming together to perform the song "Frosty the Snowman."  We have been practicing a lot in our classroom, but we would love it if the students could also practice outside of school.  With that, we have posted the video with the song below which you can play at home for your child to practice.  Even playing it in the background during lunch or play can really be helpful.

We have also posted the song under "Pages" at the right hand side of this webpage. Please save it to your Favourites so you can quickly access it to practice!

Your support is greatly appreciated and we look forward to seeing all of you on December 10th for our Holiday Concert!

Your Partners in Learning,

Ms. Stefanoff and Ms. Russell

Numbers

In Math, we have been working on numbers and counting, as well as Data Management. The students are doing great.  We have counted past 20 on our hundreds chart, used 5 and 10 frames, skip counted and put numbers in order.  We will be starting Patterning next week, but number sense will always be taught and explored throughout the day.

Getting Ready for Outside

We are very proud of the students this week! They have been able to get ready for outdoor play more independently. We have had many discussions, lessons and practice, which has helped a lot. They are starting to put on their boots, snow pants and jackets by themselves.  It is so great to see that they are beginning to become more independent!  Encouraging this at home too will be beneficial as it helps them practice more and gain even more independence and confidence!

Animal Houses

Our Construction Inquiry is still going on and with that came new structures this week. We noticed many students building animal houses and zoos.  It was really interesting seeing them build something new and different!

Tips for Reading and Writing with your Child

Some Tips to Help with Beginning Reading and Writing

One of the best ways you can help your child build strong literacy skills is by reading to/with them. The greatest benefits of reading come when your child is an active participant engaging in discussions about stories, talking about meanings of words, making predictions, and making connections to other books, the world, and/or your child’s life.

 Here are some ideas for you to do throughout the year:

1. Read to your child daily.

2. Talk about the book as you read with your child and after you have finished reading it.

3. Look at the book cover before reading. Point out the title, author and illustrator.

4. Point out words or phrases that are repeated several times throughout the story, including sight words.

5. Encourage your child to finish predictable phrases or rhymes.

6. Remember to focus on the meaning of the story. If your child reads something that doesn’t make sense, often he/she will go back and try again. If this doesn’t happen, stop and ask, “Does that make sense?”

7. If your child comes to a word he or she does not know and asks for help, consider asking these questions:

• Does the picture give you a clue?

• What word would make sense here?

• What letter does the word begin with (or end)?

If these strategies fail and your child wants you to say the word, go ahead and do so.

8. Don’t worry if your child memorizes a particular phrase or story. That is an early stage in the reading process.

9. Encourage your child to point to the word with his or her finger as they read.

10. Some helpful questions:

• What happened at the beginning, middle, or the end of the story?

• What do you think will happen next?

• Why do you think the character did that?

• What would you have done if you were that character?

• What was the best thing about the story?

11. Make sure your child sees you as a reader, (reading a newspaper, enjoying a good book, reading a catalog, etc...)

12. When reading with your child, always sit beside them with the book between you so that you can both see the text and enjoy the pictures.

13. Consider giving books as presents so your child associates books and reading with a pleasurable experience that has special meaning.

14. Make sure your child sees you as a writer, (writing things such as grocery lists, thank you notes, notes to other family members, etc....)

15. Have a wide variety of writing supplies available for your child to write and draw on including various sizes and types of paper, pencils, crayons, markers, chalk, etc.

16. When your child draws a picture, encourage him/her to tell you about it. Then write down what your child says as he/she says it. Let your child see you write down what is said. Read it back. Point to the words as you read.

**adapted from https://www.facebook.com/groups/OntarioKindergartenTeachers/772337076138160/

Winter Clothing: Snow is here!

Winter Clothing

“Snow pants, boots, jacket, hat,

Mittens go on after that.”

A little poem to help children learn the difficult process of preparing for outside play!

The snow is here and although it may not stay just yet, it will be coming eventually.  Just a reminder to make sure that your children are coming to school dressed for the weather.  This includes hats, mittens, snow pants, jackets, boots and scarves/neck warmers.  The students are outside playing during lunch recess and sometimes in the morning and/or afternoon, so it is very important to make sure they are prepared for the weather outside.  

Please also remind your children to wear their mittens and hats outside.  We are finding some students are forgetting to wear them, and although we are reminding them, a few more reminders from home never hurt. 

Thank you for your support.

Your Partners in Learning,

Ms. Stefanoff and Ms. Russell

Reminder: JK Observations Tomorrow

Just a reminder that the third day of JK Observations is tomorrow.  For those who are scheduled, it goes from 10:05 AM to 10:35 AM.

Also, a big thank you to those parents who came today!

Your Partners in Learning,
Ms. Stefanoff and Ms. Russell

Melting Ice

After lunch recess today, many students brought in pieces of ice.  The class noticed that the snow was not the same as yesterday and that a lot of it had turned into ice.  So, we put the ice pieces into a bin and watched what happened.  The students were amazed by all the sand and dirt that ended up in our bin!

We are now very excited to see more snow fall, as we want to explore snow and ice more!

Exploring with Bingo Dabbers!

We always try to bring in new materials to the classroom.  Today, we put out bingo dabbers for the students to try.  They loved making pictures with them and got really excited when they noticed the colours mixing together!  We are starting Patterning next, so these will be great to use to make a pattern!

Taking surveys: What is your favourite food?

In Math, we have been working on Data Management.  We have been taking surveys and making graphs with the class, like the ones below:

We took a survey today with the students, as a class, about our favourite every day snack, as you can see here:

This led to a lot of excitement about favourite foods!  So, at Activity Time, the students made their own surveys and went around the classroom to ask their classmates what they like most.  They even went next door to Mrs. O'Neill's class to ask them.  As you can see from the pictures below, we are learning about tally marks and how to count them.

Reminder: JK Observations

This is a reminder to those JK parents who have a JK Observation with us tomorrow, that it is from 10:05 AM to 10:35 AM.

Also, a big thank you to the parents that came in to see their children today. It was great having you!

Your Partners in Learning,
Ms. Stefanoff and Ms. Russell

Reminder for tomorrow: JK Observations

This is a reminder for those JK parents, who are scheduled, to come in for your observation tomorrow.  It begins at 9 AM to 9:30 AM.  Looking forward to it!

The observations are continuing the rest of the week, so please check you day and time to come in.  Thank you!

Your Partners in Learning,
Ms. Stefanoff and Ms. Russell

Our Construction Inquiry!

At the end of October, we began an inquiry on construction and building. We noticed the class was really into building with the wood blocks, which led to this.  The students have loved exploring all the building materials in our classroom.  We have seen so many elaborate structures being made! Here are a few:

The students have also been looking at many pictures of well-known structures, like the CN Tower and the Empire State Building.  Here, some students re-created the Empire State Building:

Recently, we have began to learn more about the different building materials used in construction, like brick, wood and metal.  Next, we will explore which materials are the strongest and best for building structures.

Andy Goldsworthy Art

During our SK Parent/Teacher interviews, many parents expressed how much they loved what was hanging on our classroom door.  If you have not seen it yet, please look at the picture below.

We have been on a few nature walks this year already, where we collected leaves, sticks, acorns, pine cones and stones.  We have used these items throughout our classroom in different ways; for sorting in Math to creating natural pictures in Art.  We learned about  artist Andy Goldsworthy, who uses only natural surroundings and objects in his artwork.  After looking at some of his work, the students were eager to try to make their own.

This is what led to our class creating a piece of art together using natural materials; a natural tapestry. It was a big process, as it took a few tries to get our art just right, where all students felt it looked great.  We first worked on it as a group, where each student added two to three objects at a time.  Then, we left it open during Activity Time, where many students worked on a picture together.  Eventually, it was left open again during Activity Time and  each student had a chance to add to it, which made our end result.

The We class is very proud of the tapestry we made.  We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Writer's Workshop ideas!

Yesterday, we had Writer's Workshop.  Our writing has been going well, especially since the students are now understanding the steps of writing: 1. Think of an idea, 2. Draw a picture, 3. Label, 4. Write sentences and 5. Add details.   We got really excited about our ideas yesterday; below shows all the wonderful ideas that were mentioned.

 As you can see, an idea is displayed through a picture and words.  We also love how the students are beginning to label more and talk about what they have written, independently!

Welcome to our class blog!

Welcome parent(s) and guardian(s)!

We are very excited to be embarking on this new trend: blogging!  The main reason we have developed this blog is to better communicate with you about what the students are doing in class, important dates and other special events.  We also want to start using more technology in our classroom; some of you may have heard we now have iPads in our class, which have been extremely popular.  So, this is another way to introduce more technology.  It will be a great way to communicate with you all and for you to be able to see all the wonderful learning going on with the students!

On our blog, you will see pictures and posts of the different activities we do daily.  The pictures we post will not have any faces shown, it will only be of activities and work done in class.  If a student is in the picture, their face will be blurred out.

We will be posting on here every week, as much as we can, so please visit the blog regularly!

Thank you!
Your Partners in Learning,
Ms. Stefanoff and Ms. Russell