We started talking about colour mixing and how red, yellow and blue (primary colours) can be mixed together to make orange, green or purple (secondary colours). Using primary colours and eye droppers the children experimented mixing the different colours together to see which ones made the right secondary colour. In November, we did an inquiry on the red eared slider turtle. We have our very own slider turtle in the classroom. The children discovered many new and exciting things about slider turtle. We learned about their habitat, their physical traits, reasons why they are called red eared slider turtles. The children performed an experiment called 'Dancing Raisins' They inquired and wondered how raisins can float when placed in a container filled with water. What causes the raisins to float when they are heavier than water and should sink to the bottom of the container and stay there. Take a look at the following video below. In English and French we have started learning some winter words. In English the children learned words such as; Tuque, mittens, snow, snowman, boots, skates, sled, freezing, gloves, skis. The children copied these winter vocabulary words down on a worksheet and made a list of their favourite winter words. In French we are working on the following words; une tuque, les mitaines, les bottes, des patins, des gants ,un foulard, neige, bonhomme de neige, les skiis.
Here are some of the songs we will be learning this January:
Lots of fun things have been happening in our class this month! We have been doing many different activities that have to do with Thanksgiving, Fall and Halloween. In English we are continuing to introduce new letters and their sounds. Practice identifying and sounding out the following letters. View the videos with your child. They are very helpful.
In French we have been learning Fall Themed French Vocabulary. Some of the words we have been learning are: pomme, feuille, fantôme, citrouille, araignée, chauve-souris, sorcière, chaudron, squelette. We have also been learning a French Fall song and a few French Halloween songs.
Some autumn songs the children learned as we entered into the season.
Why do leaves change colour in the fall. Through experimentation the children discovered reasons why leaves change from green to orange, yellow, red and brown.
As we approached Halloween, we introduced spiders and began an inquiry on spiders and learned some simple facts about spiders. We also introduced graphing by posing several questions about spiders, such as 'Are you afraid of spiders?' Children then placed their spider under YES or NO.
In art we have been creating many different fall and Halloween crafts. We have made some beautiful fall trees, stained glass leaves, spooky spider hats and so much more! We started the month off with our Dramatic Play Area set up as a school. The children enjoyed recreating our community time picking the star of the day, singing our English and French songs and finding the date on our calendar. Last week we transformed our Dramatic Play area into a Haunted House. The children got to dress up in various Halloween costumes and use the cauldrons to make magic potions! We had a discussion about how a pumpkin is a squash and how there are different types of squashes. We brought in a pumpkin, an acorn squash and a butternut squash. We talked about the differences between these squashes and what we can do with them ("Can we eat all 3 of them?"). We took a vote to see what colour everyone thought might be inside the 3 different squash "Are they going to be different or the same?" We then decided to take the seeds from the acorn squash and pumpkin and plant them in one of our pots to see what would happen. We are going to observe our 3 plant pots over the next few weeks to observe any changes that may happen! Here are some more pictures from our class this month!
We would like to welcome all our new families to Kindergarten B and welcome back our families returning from last year. We have had a busy first month in KGB! The children have been learning the rules and routines in our classroom. They have also been sharing things about themselves to their new classmates during large group community time. The children are enjoying sharing family pictures to their peers. Thank you for sending in the beautiful family photos. The children are loving this "All About Me" activity. In French we have started learning how to say "Je suis ici" (I am here) when we are doing attendance and have also been learning about how to ask others how they are feeling - "Comment sa va? In English we have started learning about different letters and letter sounds through songs. We would like to welcome all our new families to Kindergarten B and welcome back our families returning from last year. We have had a busy first month in KGB! The children have been learning the rules and routines in our classroom. They have also been sharing things about themselves to their new classmates during large group community time. The children are enjoying sharing family pictures to their peers. Thank you for sending in the beautiful family photos. The children are loving this "All About Me" activity. In French we have started learning how to say "Je suis ici" (I am here) when we are doing attendance and have also been learning about how to ask others how they are feeling - "Comment sa va? In English we have started learning about different letters and letter sounds through songs. We have started discussing Thanksgiving in Kindergarten B and learning why it is an important holiday. Children have created a Thanksgiving Thankful Tree. The children were assisted in writing on a paper Fall leaf what they were thankful for and placing the leaf on our tree. The children also read a story and are learning a song on giving thanks for everything God has given to us. Last week we had Miss Amanda from "Luv To Groove" teach the children some simple dance routines and promoting the love of dance as a form of exercise. Take a look at some of the activities the children participated in this first month of school. * A note to new families to our classroom. We post the songs that we have been using in our class on this page of our website, as well as in our songs tab. That way if you are looking for a specific song to listen to you can go to that page instead of scrolling through the blog :) Any videos we use for inquiries will just be posted in our updates not in our songs tab.
The end of year is fast approaching and there has been a lot happening in Kinder B! We have been continuing to learn about different jump out words (sight words) as well as learning about rhyming words and syllables. We have been listening to different songs as well as playing games in small and large groups and on the Smart Board. In art we have been learning about different types of lines and how we use different lines and shapes to make our art pieces. Last week we went on our trip to the Museum of Agriculture. We were able to see lots of different animals on the farm and learn all about them. Thank you to all the parent volunteers that joined us! In numeracy we have been learning about graphing and tallying. We have also continued with subitizing and addition. In Science we have been continuing to learn about our butterfly life cycle. We watched our caterpillars turn into their chrysalis and then we were able to watch them hatch into butterflies! We then released them back into nature. With all the rain some of the children had lots of questions about worms. So we collected some from our yard and put them inside our special worm house. We used our special worm house to observe our worms and see how they make their tunnels. We did a science experiment about plants and how they drink water. We took some white flowers and placed one flower into a different container of food colouring. We then recorded what we thought would happen to the flowers. We learned that flowers use their stems to "drink" the water and because they were drinking up the coloured water their white petals turned the same colour as the water! In our dramatic play centre, we opened up a flower shop. The children took turns being the customer and the cashier. The children wrapped their bouquets and then sold them to the customers using pretend coins. The children learned about our Canadian coins during this play and using interactive games on the Smart Board. Here are some more pictures of us during play!
There has been lots of fun things happening in Class B the past few weeks! The children decided they wanted to turn our dramatic play area into a Butterfly Field. They had lots of fun painting the mural and butterflies to decorate the dramatic play area. We learned about symmetry while painting our butterflies. We learned that if we paint one side of the butterfly and fold it over then both sides will be the same! We have also been learning about the life cycle of the butterfly and will hopefully get to watch the life cycle in action soon when our caterpillars arrive in our classroom. With the arrival of Spring and all of the birds returning for the Summer the children thought it would be fun to make bird feeders for the birds. We made them using bird seed, flour and corn syrup and cut them into shapes using cookie cutters. When then hung them outside in the trees for the birds to enjoy! We had fun making our own individual pizza's. The children got to make their own dough from scratch and then choose from different vegetables for their toppings! We then got to enjoy our homemade treat for lunch! We have started learning about vowels, consonants, rhyming words and syllables. We have been working on these by participating in various activities during community time and during centres. We have also been participating in different dice and domino games and learning how to recognize the amount of dots on the dice without having to count them (subitizing) . Here are a couple of videos we have been watching to help us learn. Our Lady of Fatima school hosted a presentation by the MASC. This group is an arts organization in Ottawa. The group put on a show for our children. They were quite captivated by the show and the artists. We had the pleasure to have a parent volunteer named Anna Baksheeva visit our classroom. She plays the violin and came into the classroom to play a few songs for the children. The children then had an opportunity to try out Anna's violin. We hope everyone had a very Happy Easter with family and friends. We made a Resurrection garden for our prayer table and talked about the Easter story. We also had our Priest Father Tavis come into our class for a visit and talk to us about Easter and answer any questions that we had. We have had many different Easter activities set out for the children to explore and participate in. This week our chicken eggs came into the classroom! They are growing inside the incubator where it is nice and warm. We have started talking about chickens and where they come from and how they grow inside of the eggs. We have also started talking about how they hatch and what they use to break out of their egg when they are ready to come out. Hopefully when we come back from the Easter weekend we can watch them hatch! In our dramatic play centre, the class as a whole decided on a Pokemon activity centre. The children helped to build the centre by painting murals to exhibit their favourite Pokemon. There was inquiry, writing, drawing, colouring, creating and imaginary play that takes place daily at this learning centre. A variety of different stones and rocks were placed at a learning centre. The children were asked what they noticed when observing the objects. They were given the opportunity to draw, write, cooperate and collaborate their ideas using a magnifying glass, a flashlight, a paper, pencil and a clip board. Take a look at some of our discoveries. The children explored some new jump out words. They explored the words with the help from a Jack Hartman video and using their Reading Super Powers. The Reading Powers assist the children as they begin to read. The Reading Powers included; looking at the pictures in the book. looking for jump out words, pointing to the words as they read and sounding out the letters of unfamiliar words. The last few weeks have been full of activities! Tuesday Feb 28th was Shrove Tuesday, we went over to the Church and Father Tavis explained to the children the significance of Shrove Tuesday and then we got to go into the Church Hall and have pancakes! On Wednesday March 1st it was Ash Wednesday and we attended our Ash Wednesday service at the Church. We also had Blues in the Schools come to our school for a week and perform for us every day! We got to listen and learn about different types of music and about rhythm. We also had Dr D Science come in to teach us about magnets. In Numeracy we started talking about 3-D shapes. We have learned about Spheres, Cylinders, Cubes, Cones and Pyramids. We have been comparing the shapes to the shapes in our environment (a basketball is a Sphere!). In Literacy we have started talking about Pop out words (or Popcorn words or sight words). These are words that appear frequently in reading and writing. We did some small group reading and had a sight word hunt in our classroom. In art we put out paint and pictures painted by famous artists. The children enjoyed trying to recreate the paintings on their own! We also put out pencils and mirrors and the children drew their self portraits. In French they worked with Ms. Danielle and wrote out a little bit about themselves to go along with their self-portraits. In French we have been busy learning new vocabulary through some fun songs! The munchkins show great excitement when the songs come on and are picking up the words really well! We couldn't be prouder of them!
A reminder that next week is March Break so there is no school. Have a great break and we will see you back on March 20th!
We had a fun filled St. Valentine's Day and week. Below are some Valentine Learning Centres the children participated in. Photos from our Buddy Day on Friday. We had a Game Day with the children in our classroom. Earlier this month the children participated in an inquiry that involved snow in a mason jar. The children were asked to make their predictions and then their discoveries. There were three questions posed to the children. When the snow melts will there be more snow, less snow or the same amount of snow in the jar? The children also used a tally chart to record their findings. We have been exploring Magnets. The children have been inquiring about objects that are Magnetic and Non-Magnetic. Magnetic objects contain metal. They have engaged in activities that allowed them to sort a variety of objects into Magnetic and Non-Magnetic containers. We have extended the learning and looked deeper into the inquiry and have placed liquids into their exploration. The children experimented with paperclips and three different liquids. The liquids used were water, vegetable oil and corn syrup. The question posed was; Do you think the paperclip will still be magnetic in the liquids? The children made their predictions and after experimenting recorded their findings. Here are a few videos on magnets we viewed in the classroom. The French team of educators invited a French speaking musician to come perform for all the students from Kindergarten to grade 6. The children enjoyed his energy and very engaging performance. His name is Kattam. He can also be found on Youtube. Here are some other learning centres the children participated in these past few weeks.
Happy New Year and Welcome Back! We hope everyone had a great and restful Christmas! We welcome Ms. Danielle to our class replacing Mme. Gauthier as she goes on Maternity Leave. Many of the children know Ms. Danielle as she is the English teacher in Classroom C. We are excited to have her joining our class! During the first week back at school, the children were given many opportunities to share their favourite activity or adventure they did over the Christmas Break. Denis told us all about his visit to grandma's house. Stanley shared his adventures in the United States of America. Natasha went to church to celebrate Jesus' Birth. Tyler had many visits with his cousins. Devon went tubing. Sienna played with her little brother and many many more fun filled stories were shared during large group sharing time. The children have been showing lots of interest in measurement. We have been learning about standard and non-standard units of measurement. The children have been using rules and meter sticks to measure various things in the classroom (their block structures, shelves and each other) and they have been using non-standard units (blocks and unifix cubes) to measure things like the size of their shoe! We read the story of "The Three Little Pigs" and then the story "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs" where the wolf gets to tell his side of the story. The children enjoyed acting out the stories in the dramatic play and block area using the felt board and face masks that they made. We also took a vote as to who's side of the story they believed, the Pigs or the Wolf! With all the snow that has fallen in the past month, the children have been very interested in all things that have to do with winter! We have started exploring different centres about winter and snow. Our literacy centre involved the children brainstorming and coming up with a list of words relating to the winter season. The children copied the words onto their paper and read them aloud to one another small groups. The children learned simple rhythms and beats using an assortment of percussion instruments. They were introduced to the Copy Cat Rhythm Game. The leader would play a simple beat three times and the children would copy the beat using their instrument. Some easy beats included; Ti Ti Ta Ta and Tika Tika Ti Ti. We have been introducing the children to an activity in which a cropped winter photo is presented and the children have to use their imagination and past experiences to describe what they see in the photo, what they think of the photo and what they wonder about the photo. Here are some more pictures of the children during centres!
|
|