November Adventures

It's been incredible watching students' skating abilities improve over the past three weeks! We tried a few different skating stations this week, and the K's skated for the whole time without any bars! Thank you again to all of the parents who have been able to come out and help!

 Students just completed a learning sequence focused on the story, "To Market, To Market". We were working on connecting to a story, predicting what might happen next, and identifying our favourite parts. We read the book over a few days, so students were able to draw their connections and predictions as the story developed. Students also participated in acting out the story! Ask your child which character they were during our role play, and ask them explain what happened in the story.

Crazy Hair/Hat Day was a huge success on Friday! We had so much fun checking out the funny hairstyles and cool hats!

During music class this week, Miss Lizzy read us one of our favourite Pete the Cat stories, and she was surprised by how well students knew the story! We also learned about a half note and that it represents two counts in music. We practised clapping a variety of rhythm patterns, and these patterns can easily be used as an engaging car game!

We have also been learning so many of the letters of the alphabet and the sounds they make. We have now learned: M, A, S, N, T, I, P, R, G, H, O, D, B, L, C, E, F, and W. We played around with W words this week, creating a variety of W pictures on whiteboards. Ask your child to teach you the "ABC sounds" song. If your child needs a prompt, the song goes like this, replacing W and /w/ with each letter and sound of the alphabet:

W says /w/, W says /w/,

Windy worm, windy worm, 

/w/, /w/, /w/. 

We also went for a fun walking adventure to the Lions Club Park on Friday. We inspected the beautiful frost on the grass, and enjoyed playing at the playground! 

SNOW much fun!

There was so much excitement in the air this morning! We watched the huge flakes falling while we read a story with Mrs. Keiver, and were so eager to get out for our first snow adventure! Although my original thought was to go further from the school, the kids were thrilled to add to the recess creations. As I watched students in the field, I noticed how and where students chose to work. Some students went off to work independently, some worked in pairs or groups of three, and others chose to work in larger groups. As I have observed during all of our earlier outdoor explorations, students demonstrated the ability to ask for help, work collaboratively with others, and solve problems as they came up. Students were very respectful of what had been built by others, and really enjoyed experimenting with this wet, sticky snow. It was neat to see students make connections to activities they had tried during previous snow falls, and watch as they attempted new activities prompted by their peers. We even managed to make our first ever K/1 snowman! Ask your child about their creations and the kids they worked with. Oh, and ask them about snow glue too :)

Supermoon!

Students enjoyed learning about the supermoon. They enjoyed putting their creative skills to work with paint and pastels to create their own supermoons! 

Moments filled with peace

As we discuss the importance of Remembrance Day, I reflect on these pictures and see a lot of peaceful moments. Sharing, working together, caring for each other, experimenting with something new, finding quiet spaces, and enjoying the sunshine. We are all so lucky!

On Friday, students enjoyed experimenting with various instruments Miss Lizzy brought for us! Ask your child about their favourite instrument.

We also paired up with the grade 3 classes and conducted a leaf hunt.

After completing the leaf hunt, we had time to put our imaginations to the test. We worked so well with our big buddies to create nature art, and all of the adults were so impressed by how hard we worked on our projects.

On Monday, we discussed the poppy as a symbol of peace and remembrance. We were able to put all of our sky study work to good use as we painted a sky and grass, and then added poppies to our own versions of Flander's fields. The ideas behind Remembrance Day are often difficult for children of this age to understand, but I was very interested in what students already knew about Remembrance Day. Students talked about soldiers, war, fighting with weapons, peace between people and countries, and wearing a poppy over our hearts. I look forward to many more peaceful moments this week!