Twas' the Last Day of Classes Before Holidays

 

We made it to the break! It was a short, but fun day today. Bonus: it was pajama day!! :)

 

Some people coloured....

and some built structures.

 

Everyone exchanged presents~ some home made, some baked, some bought.

 

We danced.

 

We also definitely ate (we may be finding popcorn around our classroom for a little while).

 

And we watched the movie, Frozen. Some other students from Grades 1 to 5 joined us, while others watched the movie Mrs. Miracle in the grade 3/4 classroom.

 

 

With early dismissal, everyone was off in a hustle and a bustle. With presents in one arm, and Chester and our class fish in another, I closed the door to our classroom for the last time in 2014. I look forward to continue learning and growing together in the new year.

 

Happy Holidays everyone!!!

 

 

Singing, Guessing, Building, & Watching!

We made it through the Christmas concert last night! Everyone did a wonderful job and they all looked fantastic up on stage. :)

 

We began our day with our Phys. Ed. class, which was a bit of a free choice day. Students explored different ways to move and play with hula hoops, balls, and scooters.

 

Just after our calendar meeting, the SRC President and Vice President visited our classroom to help catch us up on some of the 12 Days of Christmas activities that we missed. Students had to guess what three wrapped presents were. Then, one student was blind folded and had to guess what a mystery ice cream topping was. It was pasta sauce!

 

He guessed correctly.

 

We also discovered a mystery during our calendar meeting today! When we went to write the date on the white board, we saw that someone had already changed the date to the 17th! Plus, they had left a smiley face. Just in time, Miss Owens (the Grade 1/2 teacher) popped into our classroom. The students asked her about it. We came to the conclusion that it was possible that the elf, Jingles, from the Grade 1/2 classroom had made her way into our room and changed the date on us.

 

We  also joined the Grades 1 to 4 classes to sing songs at the Lodge this morning. The senior citizens at the Lodge sang us a song too! Everyone enjoyed recess outside after we returned back to school. When we came back inside, everyone drew pictures of their family in their All About Me booklets. Then it was time to enjoy a yummy turkey Christmas lunch, which was prepared by our awesome SCC!

This afternoon, students got to enjoy their free choice center time. There was some colouring, building with blocks and lego, as well as some acting as animals and cake baking for a Princess party in the drama center.

 

Finally, we ended off the day by watching a classic, the Muppets Family Christmas.

 

That leaves us with only 1 more day of classes for our Kindergarteners before the holidays!

C-C-C-Christmas Concert Season is Upon Us!

 

Our students had gym first thing this morning, followed by their calendar meeting and snack. We read the story that goes with the sounds that 'c' and 'k' make, traced the letters in the book, sang the song, learnt the action (clicking castanets in the air), and practiced sounding out some words with all of the sounds that we have learnt so far. We could even spell "snack"!

 

 

 

That was about the extent of their 'regular' routine that we had today! We spent the morning practicing for the Christmas concert with the other elementary grades.

 

While some older students practiced in Period 4, the younger grades watched some classic Mickey Mouse Christmas stories, featuring Donald Duck, Mickey, Chip and Dale, and Goofy. From the amount of laughter in the room, they thought that these oldies were goodies!

We performed our dress rehearsal during the last period of the day for the middle years and high school students. Then, we had time for a talking circle at the end of the day. Students shared their thoughts on the day, as well as some of their favourite things to do during the Christmas season.

 

Tomorrow is our official Christmas Concert performance. I'm looking forward to watching the K's do an amazing job up on stage!

 

 

Practice, Practice, Practice

Today looked a lot like Tuesday! We had Christmas concert practice this morning on the stage. We also spent last period practicing Christmas carols for both the concert and our visit to the Lodge next week. We are now going to be singing at the Lodge with the Grade ones, twos, threes, and fours so its great to have older students to assist us in learning the songs.

 

We also went to the library this morning since we ran out of time on Tuesday.

 

We had a few disagreements during our free choice time, so we needed to have a discussion about disagreements and how we can solve them effectively. It also gave me the opportunity to read a story, Little Porcupine's Christmas. It turned out to be perfect for the moment, as there is a lot of bucket dipping in the story. Therefore, we were able to recognize that behavior and discuss how Porcupine felt when his classmates were saying upsetting things.

 

 

We also learnt a new sound today~ the /n/ sound. We read the a story and learnt both the song and the action. This one is quite fun! What five year old doesn't like pretending they are an airplane? :)

We also practiced some new words (pan, pat, pin) and reviewed some words and songs from earlier lessons. We're getting better at sounding out words!

 

 

For our 12 Days of Christmas activity, each grade had to wrap either their teacher's stapler or hole puncher. 3 students volunteered and worked really well together for this task. :)

 

3 more days until the holidays! Have a great weekend everyone.

Perfecting Performance

The majority of our day was spent focusing on the Christmas Concert, which is a week from today.

We did start out the day with our K/1/2 Phys.Ed class. It was our first time trying out some different relay races. During our calendar meeting, we went through our next Jolly Phonics sound - /p/.

 

We read the story to go along with the sound, discussed all of the words with /p/ sounds that were shown in the picture of the story, and then everyone traced the letter on the page.

 

 

We also practiced the action, the song, and reviewed some of the songs that we have already learnt.

Our new words that we sounded out today were tap, sip, and pat.

 

 

 

The rest of the morning was spent practicing our part in the Christmas Concert, both on our own and with the other grades involved.

 

We had our free choice center time in the afternoon. I began working one on one with some students to create letters to Santa. During the last period of the day, some of the Grade 5/6 students came to help us with making some tree decorations that will be props for the concert.

 

 

Those who finished early read together.

 

Finally, we ended off the day with some dancing!

 

Let the countdown begin: we only have 4 more Kindergarten days of school before Christmas holidays!



i - i - it's Friday!

Happy Friday! Here are some of the highlights from our day:

 

*It was free choice Friday in gym! After our usually warm ups, stretches, and tag games, students got to choose what they wanted to play with from the equipment room.

 

*As a part of the 12 Days of Christmas activities, we had to write a Christmas song. I believe it ended up something like

"Jingle Bell Jingle Bell Jingle Bell Rock

Santa wakes up to the sound of his clock

He delivers presents to all girls and boys.

Jingle Bell Jingle Bell Jingle Bell Rock.

(I can't remember this line)

"Hey Santa, how you doin' today?"

Jingle Bell Jingle Bell Jingle Bell Rock.

 

*We discussed the seasons today. We watched a video of a song about the four seasons, looked at some photos that show the different seasons, read the book Calendar, and then students coloured a tree for every season.

 

*We also learnt the /i/ sound today through Inky Mouse, including the actions, how to print it, and the song. We also reviewed the words 'sat', and 'at', as well as introduced the words 'it', 'sit', and 'is'. They did a much better job today without sounding out the words!

 

 

 

*We also continued our discussions on how people are the same and how we are different. I also posed the question, "What would the world be like if it were run by kids?" and then we followed up with a book that explores the same topic.

 

 

 

We rounded off the day with our "This is me in December." portraits. It was such a busy end to the day that we did not get to our talking circle. After everyone had cleared out, I also realized that we forgot to choose a student to take Chester Racoon home for the weekend! So, he's with Miss Gagnon for the weekend and fitting in quite nicely. :)

 

We wish everyone a holly jolly weekend!

One the 3rd Day of December....

Today began with the first of 12 Days of Christmas activities set out by our school SRC. Five Christmas songs were played over the intercom and we had to guess the song title. I had to help out a bit: they thought that all of the songs were "Jingle Bells", even though that one wasn't played at all. :) Since we're missing tomorrow's activity, I did the trivia activity with them today. Also tricky! They weren't sure how to complete the lyrics, "On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...." so we had to google the song! We also read A Porcupine in a Pine Tree and Merry Christmas Mouse. They actually tie in really well with our numbers unit in Math, including counting backwards. Mouse has a different number of ornaments on each page, starting at one and going up to 10. Then he has 100 more ornaments!

We worked on an art activity today that was Christmas related as well~ we turned ourselves into elves! The students did a great job and they had a blast. Students from other grades also enjoyed seeing our elves on display in the hallway.

 

Another exciting part of our day~ the SLP came for a visit! He always comes with exciting learning adventures. Today he showed us an app on his I-pad that helps us learn our letter sounds. He also read a story called Time Flies, about a bird that flies into a dinosaur museum and travels back in time. It was unique because it had no words in it. Students had their try at 'reading' the pictures and inferring what was happening through viewing. Finally, he showed us some really cool magnetic shapes (good shape review!) and demonstrated how to make a large ball with them. He left them in our classroom for students to explore for the rest of the day.

 

 

 

We rounded off the day with another holiday story about a sheep who saves Christmas (the title is evading me right now). We then brainstormed some things that we think about when Christmas comes to mind. Students then worked on drawing a picture to be published in a special holiday edition of a local newspaper.

 

It was a busy day and the buzz of holiday excitement is definitely in the air!

We'll be back on Friday. :) See you then!

 

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Winter!

 

Well, November ended and December began with a frosty chill in the air! We had our first day of all day inside recess. This meant a lot of play time and also more body breaks!

 

The wintery and Christmas décor is making it's way into our classroom! :) Even though it was only the first, and we usually only count up to the date on the calendar, we counted all the way to 25 just so that we could get an idea of when Christmas Day will be.

 

During our calendar meeting, we also reviewed the /s/ sound and learnt about the /a/ sound. We continued our story and read about how Inky the Mouse was photographing ants for the /a/ sound. Students took turns tracing the a in the book:

 

 

Then we learnt the action (wiggling your fingers up and down your arm) and the song:
(sung to the tune of Skip to My Lou)

/a/ /a/ ants on  my arm

/a/ /a/ ants on my arm

/a/ /a/ ants on my arm

They're causing  me alarm!

 

After snack, it was math time! We read 5 Little Penguins Slipping on the Ice. Then, students played a game where they had a piece of paper with the numbers 1 - 6. They were to place a bingo chip under each number and take turns with a partner rolling a dice. When they rolled a number, they could remove a chip. The first person to remove all of their chips first won the game.

 

Treasure maps were popular again today! Here they are trying to decipher where the treasure is hidden:

 

One of our students received a Christmas card making set from Scholastic and was kind enough to share with her classmates. Several of them were very busy during their free choice time with colouring cards are decorating envelopes!

 

Our health lesson today focused on feelings. We read through the story The Way I Feel. With each picture, students guess what feeling was being shown. Then we discussed our connections to those feelings. Afterwards, students drew pictures of themselves and had to complete the sentences,

"I feel _____________ when _____________________. I express this feeling by ______________."

 

 

During our library time, we also read a story called I Have Feelings, about a hamster that shares her wide range of emotions throughout the day and that everyone has feelings (mommies, daddies, and babies too!)

 

Another bit of excitement from the day~ we got mail! We received another Little Passports package. This time our friends Sam and Sophia wrote to us about their adventures in France!

We received stickers, a post card, boarding pass, photos, and a camera!

 

We also watched a video of the Dr. Seuss story, There's a Map on My Lap. Many different types of maps now adorn our Social Studies board right now. We will be talking more about how our surroundings influence us in the next few weeks (lessons about the seasons included!). Our surroundings certainly influenced our day today. Hopefully the weather man is correct and it will be a bit warmer as the week continues. :)

Sssssuper day!!

Happy Thursday everyone! We had many things going on at our school today.

 

During our calendar meeting, I explained why we have a new yes/no question to answer as a part of their morning jobs. For the last three months, they had to answer, "Do you have the letter ____ in your name?" and place their name under the yes or the no. Today, the question was, "Do you like snakes?" This was because we were going to be introduced to Stretchy Snake and the ssss sound! Even before I got started introducing the snake story, someone said "S is for snake!". 

We read the first page in the book Jolly Stories, practiced making the action to go with the sss sound (waving your hand in the air like an S or snake shape), and then students took turns tracing the s shape with their finger. There is texture to the S in the story book, so that makes it even more exciting. We discussed some words with the ssss sound and then sang the Jolly song to go with this sound:

The snake is in the grass

The snake is in the grass

Ssssss, ssssss

The snake is in the grass

(Sang to the tune of The Farmer In the Dell)

 

For math, students were given 5 small pieces of paper. They were to write one number on each paper so that they would have the numbers one to five. Then they had to represent that number by placing the correct amount of objects underneath each number. So, under the number one they put one object, under number two they put two objects etc...

 

 

After finishing up our math, we were called to the gym to be a part of the celebration of Dustin Tokarsky, a goalie for the Montreal Canadiens who attended our school up until Grade 8. A news crew was in the building today and, amongst other footage, recorded the entire school cheering "Go Dustin Go!" We also wore red, white, and blue to show our support.

 

When we returned back to class, we reviewed some of our "All About Me" activities and what it means to be unique. I told the students that we would be talking about what is the same and what is different between us and other children around the world.

We started off by reading Around the World We Go! It's interesting that some of them already recognize some landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower. We also had a discussion about compasses as well. After going through the book, we read and discussed two short videos. The first video showed us how other children around the world get to school. We were also able to compare the way our school looks with how some other schools in the world look. The second video showed photographs of children from all around the world and what their bedrooms look like. This one seemed to really get across the idea that not everyone has all of the luxuries that we do! They started to spontaneously discuss how they could donate their clothing and toys. We didn't get to discuss this topic any further, because then it was lunch time. The SRC had set up a hot lunch option for today~ Subway! Yum yum.

 

I had intended to set up some new items in our classroom for our upcoming unit~ including a variety of maps. As the perfect introduction, during their free choice center time, one of the students exclaimed, "I'll make a treasure map!" So, out came the maps and atlases! 

 

Some students were pretty excited about how huge the map of Saskatchewan was.

 

Treasure maps were a hit! I heard that there were three hidden treasures. :)

 

After our last recess, our eventful day continued. The elementary students who chose to dress up took part in an Elf Contest. The winners get to spend the day with Santa at the town's annual Santa Clause Day. The contest went right into our Raider of the Month Assembly. The 3/4 class had organized a relay race where students had to put together a large snow man. There was a runner for each group (4 groups) for each grade, so three of our K's got to put their running shoes to the test! There was a lot of cheering and it looked like a lot of fun.

 

By the time we returned back to our classroom, it was time to bundle up to head home. Today was our last day of Kindergarten in November! The countdown to Christmas holidays will soon begin. It feels like we have a lot to accomplish before then! I'm looking forward to some exciting lessons on the seasons, spatial relationships, and holiday related art activities. :)

 

Meet you back here in December!