Our Week - December 4 - 8

Hi Families,

This week we celebrated the Hour of Code (well it was a week of Code for us!) and we used various learning tools to problem solve and communicate together. For more information about coding or the Hour of Code please visit code.org.  Here are some stories from the week!


Chicka Chicka Letters
We opened 2 new letters this week and our alphabet is halfway there!  We got the letters F and O. The F was a fish and the O was and owl and an octopus!


Hungry Monster
Ms. Coutinho read us a funny story called The Hungry Thing. It was about a monster who eats strange foods like 'schmancakes' and we had to figure out what the real food was through rhymes (did you guess pancakes?). We took turns to make rhymes with different endings and feed the monster in class!
                         

Aquarium Update
We now have water tanks for turtles, squid, octopus, and sharks! Next week we'll make a final plan for the aquarium and then it will be ready to open!

  Ozobot
'Cozmo' and 'Ozzie' our Ozobot friends came back to class this week. We used coloured markers to create roads for them to move on. We made straight lines and had our 2 Ozobots race! 

Robot Mouse
'Mousey Mouse' is a new coding friend in our classroom. He is a robot mouse than we can move by pushing buttons to give it directions. Mousey Mouse can go forwards and backwards and it can turn left and right. We have to plan, problem solve, and think as a team to help him get to the cheese!

  Big Buddies
Friday afternoon we celebrated coding with our Big Buddies. We used ipads, computers, coding mats, Robot Mouse and the Ozobots, Sphero, and Dash! We had an amazing time and we even taught the Grade 6s a few things about coding!



NATURE WALK REMINDER!!
Our Nature Walks were missed on this months calendar! We will be visiting the forest on the remaining Thursdays and Fridays!

Our Week in Kindergarten - November 27 - December 1

Hi Families,

What a fun week we had! Here are our stories!

Maze Coding
We made a maze at our construction centre to drive cars through. Then Ms. Ancona taught us about coding with a game called coding buddies! We made directions for our friends to follow. You had to walk forward, jump, or turn around. 



Being a Scientist
Ms. Coutinho worked with a group of scientists today to learn about what happens when you put different things in water. Today's experiment - mixing colours in water.

               

Feeling Angry
Ms. R taught the Chickadees about feeling angry this week. We listened to a Howard B. Wigglebottom story and then made pictures on our own about what to do if we feel angry. 

We feel angry when:
-People don't share
-Friends don't play with me
-Mom doesn't buy me candy
-I don't sleep in

We can start to feel better when we:
-Take a deep breath
-Belly breathe
-Count our fingers and toes
-Kick a ball
-Take a quiet break

Letter X
Our letter X arrived this week. We thought it might be an X-Ray or an eXit sign or a foX. 
We were so surprised when we saw it was a treasure map and X marked the spot! 


Flakes
Our Grade 4,5, and 6 students made a play called 'Flakes'. We got to go and watch the play on Thursday! Some of our big brothers and sisters were in it! We really liked the music!
                       

Rekenrek
In Math, we learned about the Rekenrek this week! it is a special tool we can use to count, add, subtract, and make numbers! We liked the sounds that the beads made as they moved.
                         

Our Aquarium
Our Let's Pretend Aquarium is beggining to take shape! We did a lot of thinking and research in fiction and non fiction books and started to make tanks for our fish to live in.
   

Our Week November 20 - 23

Hi Families,

Here are some stories from this week.

Aquarium
We brainstormed lots of great ideas for our Let's Pretend Centre and then we did a survey. The votes are in and we're going to make an Aquarium! We have started to research what an Aquarium is and plan out what we will need. 
                          

10 Frame
We experimented with a large size ten frame this week. A ten frame helps you organize things up to the number ten. We are using it to learn how to recognize numbers without counting (subitizing) and how to compose and decompose numbers (addition/subtraction).


10 in the Bed
Using our 10 frames we told the story song 'Ten in the Bed'. We enjoyed this story so much that we created a puppet show to go with it. We created puppets and props. Stay tuned for a special performance of this song at our assembly!


Name Tags
Every morning we begin the day by signing in using our name cards. Each letter of our name is in a box. We are using these cards to count the letters in our names and find the longest names and the shortest names. 
                           

Our Week November 12 - 16

Hi Families,

Here are some stories from last week.

New Fish
We have a new fish tank in our class and 7 new fish! They are big guppies and they are colourful. Now we just need to name them!
                    

Winter Squirrels
On our Nature Walk we played a game called 'Squirrel Gets Ready for Winter'. For this game, each student pretended to be a squirrel and hid 3 beans. We then had to find our beans as food through the winter - it was hard work! Some students found their beans but many did not! How do the squirrels do it?
                     

Belly Breathing Story
A group of Bluejays worked together this week to create a story about Belly breathing. We are now doing belly breathing twice a day - once standing up and once sitting or lying down. We find that it relaxes us and makes us feel calm for the day.
                             

Red Poem
Last week we learned about Remembrance Day and made poppies that were red. This week we read a new poem and it was all about the colour red. We worked as a class to create a story all about red things in our classroom. I wonder what colour we will learn about next?
                                        

Chicka Chicka Letters!
This week we opened 2 letters. First, we got the letter Y and it was a yo-yo decorated with yellow yarn. Our second letter was the letter U. It was decorated as an umbrella and a unicorn!! We were very excited to see this! 

           

Robot Creations
Our beautiful junk centre is up and running and we love it! We have used many boxes to create robots and have made homes for our robots in our construction centre.
**If you ever have boxes, wrapping paper rolls, or shoe boxes at home PLEASE send them in!! We will put them to good use!

Our Week - November 6 - 10

Hi Families,

Here are some stories from our wonderful week! 

Poppy Painting 
This week we read stories about Peace and made poppies in different ways. We have begun to write our own peace stories too:
'Peace smells like fresh air'.
'Peace feels like rose petals'.
'Peace tastes like pepperoni pizza fresh from the oven'.
'Peace looks like friends helping each other'.
'Peace sounds like friends laughing'.


Chicka Chicka Letters
Our alphabet is still growing! We got the letters Gg and Nn this week. The Giraffe and Ninja Turtle letters were really great!
             

Math Centre
Our Math centre has some new activities this week! There are new materials for us to work with. Now we can sort, measure, count, and match with dominoes, cubes, links, chains, dinosaurs, and even worms!

                    
Nature Walk
On our visit to the forest this week we looked for interesting things and then we sorted them in to 2 piles - 'nature' things and 'people' things. We noticed that all the 'people' things were junk and garbage and that they shouldn't be in the forest!

Beautiful Junk
We opened our Beautiful Junk centre this week! It is a great place to build and create and imagine! We have lots of neat things sorted by colour and we can find what we need and use it!

**We are always looking for boxes, lids, containers, and wrapping paper tubes so please send them in if you have any!!!

Snow!
It snowed today!! It was not a lot of snow but we had fun making snow angels and piles of snow!

Our Week in Kindergarten - October 30 - November 3

Hi Families,

Here are some stories from our wonderful week!

Helping Hands
This week we introduced 'Helping 'Hands'. Each week we will have 6 helpers. They get to sit on the couch or on special seats. The helpers get to help the classroom by stacking chairs, cleaning shelves, and taking the attendance. 

Halloween
We all got to wear costumes on Halloween. We had Superman, Vampires, Spider girls, a Mermaid, and a Hulk! It was fun to see our cool costumes and to pretend to be someone else. After lunch, we did the parade. We walked in the gym and all around the school. We also got to pull the seeds out of a pumpkin and put a face on it!                                                        

Tulips
We helped to plant tulip bulbs in JK yard in the gardens around the trees. We have to wait a long time but we are excited to see them. We think the tulips will be red and white.                                                                                
                

Chicka Chicka Letters
On Friday we got the letter S. We predicted that it might be a snake, a snowman, Superman, a sun, a spider, or a sandwich. It really was a spider! But it only had 2 eyes and not 8 like usual spiders.
                              

Chickadee Visits
The JK families get to come to school to visit. We have had some Moms and Dads so far. More will come to visit next week!

Our Week - October 23 - 27th

Hi Families, 

After a P.A Day last week, we have a lot to tell you about!

Ms. Boag's Library
On Monday, we opened 'Ms. Boag's Library' in our classroom. We all got to choose a special book from her collection to take home and read with our families. We saw some of our favourite books and some new titles too!

Tree Painting
On Tuesday, we went to the forest to look at the trees in the Fall with Mrs. Darlow. Then in the afternoon we thought about the fall trees and we painted them with Mrs. Boag! First, we made the tree trunk and then used sponges to make leaves.
                          

New Trees!
On Wednesday, it was 'Get Outside and Play Day'! We had fun playing outdoor games like 'Fruit Salad', 'Here and There', and 'Don't Throw Your Junk in My Backyard'!
We were also surprised to see 4 trucks in our backyard! The Board has given us 3 new trees and they used a digger to dig holes and to plant them!
We named the trees Fireball (Autumn Blaze Maple Tree), Big Red (Red Oak), and Honey (Honey Locust). We promise to water them and take good care of them!
                      



Leaf Hunt
On Thursday, we went on another nature walk but this time we had a challenge. It was a leaf hunt challenge. We each needed to choose 2 leaves from the forest floor that were our favourites. We drew pictures of the leaves in our nature journals and then brought them back to class!                                                    

Chicka Chicka Letters 
This week we got 2 new letters for our Chicka Chicka alphabet! We got the letters H and J. The Hh was a house and a hive for bees. The Jj was a jaguar and a jigger (we learned this is a kind of fish hook).