Our last week of 2019! December 16 - 20

Hi Families,

We hope that you have a safe, restful, and happy winter holiday! We will see you on January 6, 2020!

Here are some stories from our week:

S.T.E.A.M week
We participated in S.T.E.A.M week by doing 2 special challenges. Our first was the ramp challenge. We needed to make the longest ramp that we could that a ball could roll through. We worked as a big group and our ramp was amazing!

Our next challenge was a parachute challenge. We used napkins, tissue paper, and plastic bags to make our parachutes and we tested them out in the stairwell.


Holiday Surprise
We worked very hard to make our families special cards and a special gift. We hope you are surprised!


Peter and the Wolf
A woodwind quintet came to perform 'Peter and the Wolf'. Each instrument was a different animal in the story. We like the flute because he was the bird and he tweeted very high notes. 


Kinder Stars
We had our December Kinder Star awards on Thursday and 3 more friends got their awards! Congratulations! Ms. Sindhwani's class did a great dance and they were wearing shiny tinsel!

Pajama Day 
Friday was pajama day and even Ms. Boag and Ms. Ancona had pajamas on! We all relaxed with our stuffed animals and we even had had a pajama day picnic. Ms. Darlow took us outside to go sledding for gym - sledding is just our favourite!!

Goodbye Friends
Ms. A our student teacher finished her placement this week and went back to her school. We learned so much from her and wish her the best! Our favourite was her counting game race to 10! We had to roll the dice and move the puppets along the track to get to the end. Each time we moved we had to add 10 a different way. So if we were on number 5 we would say '5 and 5 more makes 10'!

One of our Chickadees finished the week and is moving to a new house - we will miss you!!!

Our Week in Kindergarten - December 9 - 13

Hi Families,

Our Winter Break holiday time is nearly here! If you are going away on vacation before or after the winter break and your child is going to miss school please let us know in class and also let the office know.

Here are some stories from the week.

Letter M and N
We got 3 new Chicka Chicka letters this week! We now have 13 letters!
Our letter M was covered in marshmallows!

Our letter X looked like an X-Ray!

Our letter N was a nest!


ABC Learning
We have been playing different alphabet games with Ms. A including a mitten search, and a letter sound listening game. We each got a bean bag with a different letter and when we heard our sound we clapped. 


Making Numbers
We have been making numbers in different ways including making sets and tally marks. This week with Ms. Boag we started to make the number 5 or 10 using the smart board. We are learning that we can make the number 10 in a lot of different ways!


How to Be a Good Friend
We talked together this week and made a list of different ways we can be a good friend. We are all trying our best to be kind and to make new friends.

Bird Feeders
We visited the birds in the forest again and gave them sunflower seeds. We also got 4 new bird feeders to put around the school for the birds to have something to eat. We hope they visit the bird feeders so that we can watch them eat!


Dress Up Challenge
To help us practice getting dressed for the winter, we had a special challenge. Ms.Boag moved our coats and snow pants into different spots all around the room and we had to search and find them! It helped us to get ready really fast!

Winter Concert
Thursday afternoon we went to the big gym with the rest of the school to watch the Junior classes perform in the winter concert. They danced, did a play, played the recorder, and performed in the band. Our favourite performance was when they played 'Jingle Bells' because we got to sing along!

5 Little Monkeys
We love telling stories and singing stories too! We have a new felt board story called '5 Little Monkeys' that we can retell using the felt pieces. We like to sing the song too and pretend to be the doctor. It is helping us to learn how to count backwards 5 - 4- 3 - 2 - 1! Our favourite part is chanting 'no more monkeys jumping on the bed'!!

Our first December Week! - December 2 - 6

Hi Families,

It is hard to believe that December is already here! Thank you to all the families that participated in the Fresh from the Farm fundraiser and who joined us at the Black Walnut Movie Night last night. It is because of supportive families like you  that we have such a fantastic school!

Here are some stories from the week...and one from last week!

Making Crayons
Friday afternoon we made our own crayons! We peeled the paper off old and broken crayons and put the pieces into a mold. Then we put them in the oven so they melted together. When the wax cooled we took the pieces out of the molds and had new crayons! 


Book Fair
On Monday, we visited Ms. Dias in the library to see the book fair! There were so many books and we each got to choose 3 to go on our wish lists! Some students were so excited that they got to buy a book! 


Sledding
After another great snow we went sledding again! We got some new green sleds and they go super fast! Ms. Boag, Ms. Ancona, and even Ms. A had a turn on the sleds too!!
We have no photos this week because we were too busy having fun!!

Making New Numbers
With Ms. A this week we learned about making new numbers! We used the sets on the dice and counted on to add the 2 dice together to make a new total. 


Letter C
We opened another letter this week and it was the letter C. Each time we open a letter the Bluejays make predictions of what the letter may look like and we are starting to get very creative. We used to make 1 prediction and now we are making many! 
    

Our Letter Cs were a cat and a caterpillar. I wonder what we will get next?!
           

Feeding Birds
We went back to the forest to check on bird feeders and we were so surprised!! Most of our bird feeders are gone, some are still there but empty, and only 3 are left with food on them! We talked together about where the bird feeders may have gone. Here are our predictions:

-They fell off the trees and into the snow
-A bird ate all the food and the string blew away
-An animal like a squirrel took them off the tree and took them home to eat
-They blew away


I Like Stories
We talked together about things that make us happy and the things that we like. We each made an I Like story and we are going to put them together to make a book. 

Special Art!
Crock-a-Doodle came to our classroom on Friday and we all got to paint a special shape. The helpers are going to take them to a special oven to cook them - we are so excited to see how they look!
                 

Our Week in Kindergarten - November 25 - 29

Dear Families,

It is hard to believe that this is the last week of November already! This month has flown by!
Coming up in December:
Black Walnut Scholastic Book Fair - December 2 - 5th
Movie Night - December 5th
Fresh from the Farm Delivery - December 3rd
S.T.E.A.M week - December 9 - 13th

**We are in NEED of the following:
-Wrapping Paper Tubes         -Small boxes                  
-Plastic bottles                     -Newspaper                              -Cardboard

Here are some stories from the week: 

Larger and Smaller
Ms. A is our student teacher from Ontario Tech University. She has been teaching us about numbers and number sets to help us see which is larger or smaller. We have looked at number sets on dice, cards, and chips. 

Ramps and Balls
Our ramps are back in our construction area! We are having so much fun creating slides to see who can make the ball go the furthest!


New Benches
We have 2 new benches at our school! One is right outside the Kindergarten pen. It is for our families to sit and visit. The other bench is blue and it is a buddy bench!! It is for the big kids to sit on if they need a friend! It is always nice to have a buddy!


New Tree
We were so surprised to see a brand new tree outside by our garden! We are not sure what kind it is but we all took a turn to say 'hello' and to touch the tree bark. This tree is very smooth!



Scientists in School
On Wednesday, we had a visit from Scientists in School. Scientist Lindsay taught us all about ways to protect nature! We studied worms, learned about how to conserve water, discovered many things that come from plants, and practised making litterless lunches! Our favourite activity was learning about birds and making our own bird feeders using pasta and cereal. 

           

                   


Bird Feeders
On Thursday, we took our bird feeders out to our forest and hung them on the branches! We saw a lot of chickadees and even a cardinal! We have never seen a cardinal before! We left some sunflower seeds out for the chickadees too! Maybe someday they will eat the sunflowers out of our hands.


Kinder Star Assembly
Thursday was also our Kinder Star Assembly. We sang 2 songs and said our special class created land acknowledgement. We thank the land and the people who share the land with us each time we go out to the forest. 

Our Week in Kindergarten - November 18 - 22

Dear Families, 

Thank you to all of our Bluejay families who came to visit last Thursday evening and Friday morning and to all the Chickadee families who have come to visit so far this week. We have loved seeing you in our classroom!

Just a reminder that next week we have Scientist in the School visiting! Please visit school cashonline to make your payment.

If you are wondering what is happening at Black Walnut for the next month, stop by our school's foyer and check out our new school calendar!


Here are some stories from our week.

Nature Walk - Sledding
With all the snow last week we were so excited to get outside and visit our forest! We made tracks, snow piles, snow angels, and had fun making the snow fall! We even took some time to go sledding!


Chicka Chicka Letters 
This week we opened 2 new Chicka Chicka letters!
T - was a tree and a tiger! It came all the way from Saskatchewan.

W - was a watermelon and a worm! It came from Alberta!


Dental Screening
On Wednesday, we all visited the dental hygienists that came to the school. They looked in all of our mouths and counted our teeth. We each got a letter to take home telling about our teeth. 


Beautiful Junk
Our new art station opened this week - the beautiful junk station! We have different items of all kinds of colours and we can use them to decorate, to sort, or to make art! We have made necklaces, trees, faces, and more!
If you have any interesting lids, beads, or recycled pieces - feel free to send them into our classroom!


Popcorn
Students from our class have joined the 'Popcorn Club'. This means that we go to the office to help the Grade 7s sort and count the bags of popcorn to deliver to the rest of the school. We love counting - it is such a fun job! It's like we work at the movies!

Parent Night
Thursday night was a special parent engagement night at Black Walnut. We hope you enjoyed learning about about modern learning and well-being.


Name Tags
We have a new job in our morning routine. Each morning, we find our nametag and sign in. We are practising writing our names and are counting how many letters are in our names.