The Art Center

A few weeks back, we learned about a new choice that we would have during choice time. It was called the art center! However, we did not have a lot of materials to build and construct things from. We got an idea to ask our families to help us find beautiful things around the house!

We co-wrote a letter to our families together with Ms. Petersen. We knew we had to ask really, really nicely for our families help. We thought at first that we would just ask moms and dads to help us but then we realized that we could ask our brothers and sisters and grandparents, too! We also came up with a list of things that we were looking for. We thought about all of the beautiful stuff we have at home and how we could use it at school.

 

We took our bags and notes home and were really excited to fill them up! When we returned to school after the weekend, we each chose our favourite thing in the bag to share with the class. We noticed that we had a lot of different stuff!

 

Since the art center would be shared with everyone, we decided that we would all dump our bags into the middle of our circle on the carpet. We had so much stuff but it was hard to find what we were looking for! After much debate, we decided to sort our items. At first, we didn’t know what to sort by. Should we choose colour, size or material?

 

We decided on material so that if we were looking for a specific item, we would know where to find it! We had done lots of sorting activities beforehand, but this one had a real purpose. We got right to work and began sorting our big pile. Some items belonged in two groups and some items were unique and didn’t have a spot. We had to use our problem-solving skills to figure out where these items might go. We discussed these items as a class and came up with conclusions together.

(Where does this button go?)

 

Lastly, we labelled the bins so that anyone who uses the art center can find what they are looking for. We listened REALLY closely to the sounds that we heard and used our best ‘kid spelling’.  Look at all of those sounds that we know!

 

 

(Note: At this early stage, I do not correct student spelling. It is more important for the children to become comfortable and confident with their writing abilities. If I critique and correct the letters, students can become self-conscious and unwilling to take risks when writing. I also use writing time to inform my instruction. If, for instance, I notice that many students are struggling with a particular sound, I make sure to emphasize that particular letter in the future.)

We are really proud of the art center that we created. We have already started to build beautiful things and can wait to construct more! A special thanks goes out to all of the families who helped us find buried treasures at home that we are reuse and repurpose!

Winter Concert

The Winter Concert will be held on Thursday, December 4th. There are two performances at 1:00 pm and 6:30 pm. All students are invited to perform in the evening concert and should be in the classroom just after 6:00 pm to get ready. Students should wear their holiday best! 

Please remember that there is NO KINDERGARTEN CLASSES IN THE MORNING ON DECEMBER 4th. All students are to come in the afternoon (12:35 - 3:30 pm). Students can be signed out from the classroom after the performance, or they are invited to stay until dismissal time.

Our school is also dedicated to completing 3 Christmas Hampers for Winnipeg Harvest. Please check out the decoration tags that will be posted outside our door for donations that we are looking for. If you are able to donate the item, please remove the decoration tag and return it along with the requested item. We thank you so much for your support!

Read To Self

Over the last couple weeks, we have been practicing what is known as "Read to Self". This is an independent time where we look at, and read, a variety of books and poems! "Read to Self" is part of a literacy program called "Daily 5". Almost all classrooms at our school incorporate "Read to Self" into their literacy blocks! By learning how to "Read to Self" in Kindergarten, we are preparing for older grades too!

When we first started, a lot of us exclaimed that we don't know how to read books! We didn't know how we would read books during "Read to Self" time. However, Ms. Petersen showed us that there are 3 ways to read a book. We can:

1. Read the pictures
2. Read the words
3. Retell the story in our own words

Right now, we are experts at reading the pictures! Sometimes we also like to find letters that we know too. When we start our sight word study, we will begin to recognize words too!

Before we start, we always go over the expectations. These are the expectations that we came up with together:

• Read with a quiet voice
• Stay in your spot
• Eyes on your own book
• Read for the whole time
• Be respectful to the books

We also remind ourselves why we need to practice so much. It's so we can become better readers! We talk about how when we learn something new, it takes a lot of practice until we are great at it! It is just like when we are learning to play a sport, learning how to dance or play an instrument. 
 
There are a variety of spots that we get to sit at while we are practicing "Read to Self". We have to come to the picture chart to see where we will be sitting for that day. Then Ms. Petersen changes our names to a new spot for the next day.

When we get to our spot we keep our book closed. When everyone is settled, Ms. Petersen says "3-2-1-go". We do our best to read for the whole time until Ms. Petersen says "Stop". We know that if we finish reading our book before the time is up, we must go back to the beginning and start again.

We have a chart that keeps track of our progress. When we first started, we could only read our books for 1 minute. Now, we are up to almost 5 minutes! We love watching our "tower" get bigger and bigger. Our final goal is 15 minutes! We also realize that we must work as a team to read for longer. If everyone is following the expectations, our "tower" will get taller!

After we fill in our chart, Ms. Petersen picks 2-3 people who were doing an excellent job during "Read to Self" time to add a pom-pom to the jar. This gives us motivation to keep doing a great job! We hope to reach our goal soon!

Colour Days and Observations

We have been so excited to participate in the variety of colour days over the past two weeks! Each day we try to find matching clothing items for the colour of the day. Lots of staff and students in the school notice and ask us why we are all wearing the same colour! We simply say, "Because it's (purple) day!" We also read a book that goes along with our colour of the day and go on a scavenger hunt in our classroom! We try to find one thing that is the correct colour. We noticed some colours are trickier to find than others! We have also noticed a variety of different shades and are learning to identify light and dark colours.

Last week, we also did two experiments! We were quite excited to see what would happen. On Tuesday, we noticed three cups sitting on Ms. Petersen's desk. She asked us what we noticed about the set-up.

Some things we observed before the experiment:

• There are three cups
• One is filled with red water, one is filled with blue water, one is empty

Then Ms. Petersen rolled up two paper towels like snakes. She put one in the red water and arched it so it would go into the empty middle cup. Then she did the same with the blue water. We noticed it kind of looked like the letter M!
 
Each child had to draw what they saw and make a prediction. We talked about how it is okay if our guesses are wrong because they are just that - guesses! We were so excited to see what was going to happen. We kept checking the cups during the day. When we returned to school the next day, we were shocked to see purple water in the middle cup! We also noticed that the paper towels had changed colours. The paper towel coming out of the red water was now red, and the paper towel coming out of the blue water was now blue. We noticed the water "crawled" up the paper towels and went into the middle cup and mixed together to make purple. Blue and red makes purple!

We were so excited when Ms. Petersen set out another experiment for us to watch on Thursday. This time we observed different things:

• There were 2 cups instead of 3
• The cups were empty
• The cups were sitting in a pan with handles

We gathered in front of the desk and watched Ms. Petersen pour vinegar into both cups. We also observed that the smell was not so pleasant for some of us. Some of us have tried vinegar on our french fries before. She added food colouring, like the previous experiment, but this time we used red and yellow. Ms. Petersen showed us a spoonful of baking soda. It looked white like sugar or salt. She told us she was going to put some baking soda into each one of the cups after we made our predictions.

When we made our predictions this time, lots of us used our knowledge from the previous experiment. Some of us thought the cups would change colours - to blue and purple. Some of us thought the white baking soda would change to red and yellow. Some of us thought it would make orange, but we weren't sure where. Some of us thought it would explode! We really thought hard about our guesses!

Then we gathered around the cups again. When Ms. Petersen added the baking soda to the cup with red vinegar, it started fizzing and bubbling until it spilled out of the cup! The same thing happened when she added the baking soda to the yellow vinegar. It exploded! Then she took a spoon and stirred the liquid that was now in the pan. We noticed right away that it turned orange! Red and yellow make orange!

We can't wait to see what other fun colour activities we will do! We also want to thank our families for helping us remember what colour to wear!

 

A Week of Halloween Activities

We had such a fun, engaging week leading up to Halloween! To get us excited about Halloween, Ms. Petersen had set up a variety of special Halloween stations for us to try out as a part of our entry routine! These stations help us work on a variety of skills such as literacy, numeracy and fine motor skills.

We were the most excited to try the Halloween goop! We got to squish the goop around in our hands and it felt very neat. There were even little spiders hiding inside! The majority of us liked squishing all of the goop in our hands, but some students preferred to touch just a tiny bit.

We also worked hard at creating Halloween patterns! At the start of the week, lots of us were creating two element patterns. As the week went on, Ms. Petersen challenged us to make trickier ones!

We also practiced our gluing skills by gluing marshmallows to create ghosts! We needed to use lots of hand muscles to squeeze the glue out. We are also trying to remember that "A little dot holds a lot!"

We all got to practice making spiderwebs as well! We had to concentrate so that we could stretch the small rubber bands over the popsicle sticks. It took some practice, but we made some pretty cool spiderwebs!

On Wednesday, we got to participate in Halloween gym! Mrs. Kjernisted set up the gym with lots of spooky stations. The lights were dimmed and Halloween music was playing, too! We liked swinging on the ropes across the snake infested swamp. We also liked guessing what was in the different boxes when we closed our eyes and felt around!
  

Finally, after many sleeps, it was Halloween! We were sooooo excited to show off our costumes to our friends! We started our day off by using a sharing circle to explain our costumes. We also read a really funny story called "Boo!" by Robert Munsch. It is about a boy who paints his face very scary to get lots and lots and LOTS of candy! We talked about only eating just a bit of candy at a time so that we do not get sore tummies. We would like to thank our friend Adam for sharing this Halloween book with us!

Afterwards, we got to make a pumpkin or a ghost puppet to take home! We worked very hard at cutting out our puppets and gluing on their faces. We also added some silly hands to them!

  We also got to play some special Halloween games. We liked the pumpkin face bowling the best! We had to stand back and aim our ball at the tower of cups and see how many we could knock down! We also practiced our aim by trying to throw paper balls onto our pumpkin plates. The more we practiced, the better we got!

We also had some time to eat the delicious snacks that many families offered to bring! Our tummies were happy that there was as mixture of healthy snacks and special treats. Thank you so much to the families who took the time to prepare the wonderful snacks and goody bags! We also appreciate all of the generous offers from families to supply treats for the future as well!

Our favourite part of the day was when we got to go on our Halloween costume parade! It was so much fun showing off our costumes and seeing other costumes, too. In the morning we went on our parade with Mrs. Bangart's class and in the afternoon we got to be a part of the school-wide parade! It was so neat going through the whole school showing off our costumes. We had a blast!

We would also like to give a special thanks to our wonderful volunteers who helped make our Fall Celebration extra fun. Thanks very much to Mrs. Gray, Mrs. Jaworenko, Mrs. Morrison, Mrs. Fazenda, Mrs. Montanez, Mrs. Geladov and Bianca (Mrs. V's daughter) for volunteering your time to help us out!

Volunteers for our Fall Celebration

We are looking for 2 volunteers in the morning (8:40-11:35) and 2 volunteers in the afternoon (12:35-3:30) to help with our Fall Celebration on Friday, October 31! We will be playing some games, doing a craft, enjoying our snacks and having a great time! If you are interested in volunteering on Friday, please send me an e-mail at kpetersen@retsd.mb.ca. We are always looking for volunteers to help on other days as well!

Also, Tuesday, October 28 is Hat Day! Bring $1 to support Unicef and you can wear your hat all day at school! I am looking forward to seeing all of the students' hats! Thanks for your support!

Computer Time

This week we got to go to the computer lab for the first time! We were so excited when we saw the computer picture on our schedule! Last week, we each got a chance to try our computer log-ins on Ms. Petersen's computer. She showed us our computer card, which corresponds with the keyboard image sent home previously.

 

Ms. Petersen showed us how to press the "Tab" button to skip to the next line. She also showed us how to press "Enter" when we are all finished. We still need lots of practice finding these buttons on the keyboard but we know we will become faster typers with practice!

When we got to the computer lab, Ms. Petersen showed us how we could play a game on the big screen. We had to watch and listen very closely and carefully.

The first thing we had to do was find the "e" picture near the bottom of our screen. Once we clicked it, a new box popped up. But that box was so small and we wanted to make it bigger! Ms. Petersen taught us to click the square picture at the top to make it bigger. Then we had to find the star picture near the top. Ms. Petersen had already "favourited" some of the websites we will be using this year.

We searched for another star picture in our "favourites". This picture represents www.starfall.com. This is a great website for Kindergarten students! This time, we practiced in the ABC section. We noticed lots of letters that we have learned already. When we clicked on the letter, it made the letter sound and showed us some items that started with that letter. It was really fun!

We noticed that moving the mouse around was really tricky! We are used to using iPads, iPhones and laptops which all have touch screens or pads. It was also hard to remember which side of the mouse to click! We hope mom and dad can practice these skills with us at home. The more we practice, the easier it will get! We look forward to visiting the computer lab again next week!

Fire Prevention Week

In the morning, the AM students got to experience their first assembly! The topic of this assembly was fire safety and fire prevention. Frankie Hollywood and Jen from Energy 106 were the hosts. We thought that was pretty cool because sometimes we hear their voices on the radio. There were also many dignitaries present. We also got to see two real firefighters dressed in their uniform! Then we watched a video that showcased fire prevention tips. The other students in our school did a great job of illustrating posters to show us how we can prevent fires and keep ourselves safe! The assembly ended with a wonderful poem about fire safety.

 

Afterwards, we all got to go inside the smoke trailer. It looked like a mini-house, or a camper, inside. There was a small kitchen area, a TV, and a small bedroom. First, the firefighter reminded us of some important information:

• If there's a fire, leave everything inside - even your favourite toys
• Check and test your fire alarms often 
• There should be a fire alarm near your bedroom
• If there's a fire in your house "Don't hide - go outside"
• Have an escape plan at home
• Tell an adult if you see matches or a lighter laying around 

Then we all went into the bedroom area and the firefighter shut the door. Soon we heard the fire alarm - it went beep, beep, beep, beep. We looked up and we saw smoke (artificial). We knew that we had to get down low on the ground right away so that we wouldn't breathe it in (just like if there was a real fire). The firefighter opened the bedroom door slowly and he said it was not safe to exit that way. We had to find another way out safely. We noticed the window could open and it had a ladder so we could get out without hurting ourselves. The firefighters helped us crawl out the window and down the ladder. It was really neat!

This was a great introduction to fire safety, which we will be learning even more about in the next couple months! We are very thankful we got the opportunity to participate in this fun activity!

Bucket Fillers

Over the last few days, you may have heard your child talking about an invisible bucket that they carry. Or, you may have even heard the phrase "You're a bucket filler". Bucket filling is a concept that is taught and utilized in many classrooms in our school and in our school division.

The idea is simple, but very powerful. We learned that everyone in the world carries around an invisible bucket. Did you know that our pets carry around invisible buckets too? When our bucket is full, we feel happy. When our bucket is empty, we feel sad. When we say or do kind things, we are being bucket fillers. When we say mean things or make bad choices, we are being bucket dippers.

When we fill someone's bucket, we fill our own buckets too! However, some might think that dipping from someone's bucket will fill their own but that is not the case. You can never fill your bucket by dipping from someone else's. All day long, our buckets are either being filled or dipped from. 

Over the week, we read 3 different books about filling buckets. These books showed us SO many ways that we can be bucket fillers at school, at home, and in our community. These books were purchased from Scholastic and are often featured in their monthly flyers.

 

 

 

 

After we finished reading these stories, we sorted these actions to see if they would make people feel happy (bucket fillers) or if they would make people feel sad (bucket dippers). We had some great conversations led by the students. For instance, one child said that "cut in line" could go under being a Bucket Filler because a friend might have been nice enough to save him or her a spot in the line. We also talked about the fact that sometimes we do or say things that do not make others happy. When we recognize that we are being bucket dippers, we simply need to change our words and actions around to do the right thing! 

 

Our chart also inspired us to talk about a time when we were a bucket filler! Here are what some of the students said:

 

·         I helped Newman reach his toy when it was on the dresser – Nina

·         When Lucas fell on the ground, I gave him a bandaid and a nice snack – Lily

·         I listen to my mom and dad – Benjamin

·         I clean up my room – Adriana

·         I clean up my room right away when my mom asks – Cruz

·         I invite my cousins to go bowling – Udit

·         I share toys with Farrah – Kayden

·         I eat my supper when my mommy tells me to – Addison

·         When my cats’ toys are too high, I help them – Daniel

·         When mom said colouring time was over, I listened right away – Isabella

·         I clean up right away when mom plays the clean up song – Mac

·         I share my doctor case supplies with Easton – Katelyn

·         I clean up my toys right away – Thomas

·         I rake up the leaves with mom and dad – Connor

·         I clean up right away in my bedroom – Emily

·         I like raking up the leaves - Adam

Learning Our Letters and Sounds

Over the last two weeks, we have started our letter study! From now, until December, the students will be introduced to 5 letters every two weeks. Last week, we focused on the letters S, M, F, B and A. The letters are strategically introduced from easiest to produce (sound-wise) to most difficult. Throughout the two week period, we do a variety of activities. 

We start the day by identifying letter cards, both uppercase and lowercase. We sing a song to help us remember the letters and their sounds. We also do actions while we sing. For instance, we rub our tummies when we say the /m/ sound. We think of something that tastes really delicious! We have lots of actions to show you. Ask us to sing you the letter song! It starts off like this: "The "S" says /s/..."

Some days, a handful of friends come up to the easel and write their name in the correct spot on the T-chart, depending if they have the particular letter in their name or not. Ms. Petersen pulls popsicle sticks with our names on them to see whose turn it is. We know that if we do not get a turn today, we will get one soon.

We also get to see what is inside of Ms. Petersen's special bag. First we check to see what letters we will be using for our sort. Then Ms. Petersen picks another popsicle stick to see whose turn it will be. That person picks an item out of the bag. They show it to their friends, and we decide as a class which pile it belongs to, according to its beginning sound. We are getting really good at listening to the beginning sounds!

 Ff - frog, fish, fence, fairy book

Aa - alphabet book, anchor, apple, action figure

In the coming weeks, we will be practicing printing these letters with the proper formation!

Earning Pompoms and Terry Fox

Phew! It was a full and busy week for us! Thank you to all of the families who were able to make it to our Meet the Teacher BBQ. I know the kids were very excited to show you around our classroom. We really appreciate everyone taking the time to come and see what makes Kindergarten special!

Since the beginning of the school year, you may have heard your child talking about our coveted pompoms. Each day, we try our best to earn pompoms by following the classroom expectations and working really hard in the classroom! We earn pompoms by raising our hand to speak when we are on the carpet or when we clean up right away when choice time is finished. We also earn pompoms for helping our friends and being good listeners. There are so many ways that we can earn pompoms!

 

The morning class (orange pompoms) have earned a special surprise and the afternoon class (brown pompoms) are SOOO close to earning theirs.

We work as a team to fill up our pompom jar. When all of the pompoms have been placed in the jar, we get to see what's waiting for us in our special Mystery Motivator bag! This means we have earned a special surprise as a class. Then, Ms. Petersen empties out the jar and we start over. Each time there will be a new surprise!

Sometimes, if we are having a hard time following the expectations, Ms. Petersen might ask us to take a break. We usually take our break here.

This is a quiet space away from many distractions.

When we have had some time to think about our actions, Ms. Petersen will come and talk to us. We think of ways that we can follow the expectations together. We can also use the break area if we are feeling sad or mad. These are feelings that all people have at some point and the break area is the perfect place to calm down. When we are feeling better, we continue on with our day in Kindergarten!

This week, we also learned that we would be taking part in the Terry Fox run! We had so much fun following our "spirit days" of red/white clothing and wearing our hats! As a class, we have raised over $250.00 already! Way to go! Thank you to all our of families and friends for their support. We know that we are helping lots of people get better by raising and donating money. Just a reminder that all Terry Fox pledges should be returned to school by Tuesday, September 23. 

Unfortunately, the morning class was not able to participate in the run because Mr. Busceti announced that there were sights of lightening outside. We could not run outside because it was not safe. We were a little bit disappointed, however, weather permitting, we will do the Terry Fox run this Tuesday instead with Mrs. Bangart's kindergarten class. We are looking forward to it!

Lucky for us, the weather cleared up in the afternoon. First we went to the Terry Fox assembly. It was our first time at an assembly. We learned that this is when all of the students at Bernie Wolfe School get together in the gym to listen to special speakers and presenters. We watched a movie about Terry Fox and sang a chant led by the Grade 2s and 7s.

Afterwards, we got to go outside and race around the track! We had so much fun racing others around the track and showing everyone how fast we could run! It is a pretty long track for us Kindergartners. If we needed to take a break from running, we sat with Ms. Petersen in the middle of the field. It was so much fun! When we got back to our classroom, we definitely needed to take a big gulp of water! It certainly was a great way to end our week.

First Week in Kindergarten

Wow! We have had an exciting week in our new Kindergarten classroom! This week we have been focusing really hard on learning new routines and following classroom expectations. We have learned that the word "expectation" means the things that we need to do to follow the rules and be safe. Everyday, we practice our expectations (that the students created) for carpet time.

Today we posed for some pictures, showing how well we can follow all of these expectations! Ms. Petersen is going to add the pictures to our chart to help us remember.

We are also becoming experts at our entry routines! Each day, we come into the Kindergarten room and hang up our backpacks in our cubbies. After that, we change our shoes and get our green or blue mail folder. We place the mail folder in the green bucket then go to the carpet to wait for Ms. Petersen.

To start our day, Ms. Petersen takes attendance. This is so we know who is here at school and who is at home. Ms. Petersen says "Good morning/afternoon, _________" and we say "Good morning/afternoon Ms. Petersen". 

After attendance, we start our meeting. The first thing we do is check our schedule. 

 

The schedule lets us know what we are going to do for the day! It also helps us to know when our favourite activities (such as gym, music, snack time or choice time) are going to happen. When an activity is finished, Ms. Petersen takes off the card.

After that, we look at our calendar. We are learning that it is the month of September. Then we all count together to figure out what date (number) it is. We are trying really, really hard to raise our hand with a quiet mouth when we think we know the answer. The calendar also shows us when important days are coming up, such as Picture Day or Meet the Teacher BBQ!

Then it is time to trace our name two times. We try really hard to stay on the black lines. We do our best and it is okay if we make a mistake. When we are finished, we put it in the blue bucket and get started on our stations. The stations help us develop our small hand muscles to help us print better!

One station we practice is the sticker station. We take off the circle stickers very carefully and try to place them directly on dotted paper.

In our classroom, we have a red timer that shows us how much time is left for an activity. When the red is all done, we wait to hear Ms. Petersen's instructions.

When the time is up, we clean up our stations, push in our chairs and sit in our special spots on the carpet. To end our meeting, we usually sing a song. We are learning so many new songs! We love singing about pirates, fishing, twinkling stars, moose and bubblegum! We can't wait to see what fun things we will do in Kindergarten next week!

Welcome new Kindergarten families!

I am so excited to meet you and for us to start learning and exploring together. This is a just a reminder that if your interview took place Wednesday, Sept 3rd, you will come to school with half the class on Friday, Sept 5th. If your interview took place Thursday, Sept 4th, you will come to school with half the class on Monday, Sept 8th. All students will join together to create their full class on Tuesday, Sept 9th.

If you haven't already done so, please bring all school supplies and school supply money ($25) to school on the first day. I will meet students outside the Kindergarten doors at 8:40 or 12:35. They will be waiting anxiously to tell you all about their first day at 11:35 or 3:30.

I can't wait to see what the year has in store for us!

Love,
Ms. Petersen