13/14 - Friday Folders and Poetry Books

Every Friday we will be sending home GREEN FRIDAY FOLDERS

and YELLOW POETRY BOOKS.

The Friday Folders will contain any important notes and school information for parents.  We will also be using it to send home student work from throughout the week.  Please empty the Friday Folder and return it to school every Monday.  If you ever need to send a note to school for teachers please be sure to put them into these green folders.

Our class will be learning a new poem every week and this poem will be sent home in their Poetry Books.  Please read over these poems with your child and help them with the little "homework" activities for that poem.  DO NOT do the work for your child!  Sit with them, help them and do it together, but do not do it for them.  These are just meant to be short, fun activities for your child to complete over the weekend to give them a sense of accomplishment and pride in their work.

13/14 - Welcome To Our Room!

Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of what your child's classroom looks like!  We have many fun, inviting and educational centres in our classroom.  Below is just a sample of some of the activities your child will take part in while in Kindergarten.  You will see the arts and crafts/writing centre, the dramatic play centre, the blocks/building centre, the sand centre and the listening centre.  Not pictured is exploration centre, our painting station or our Smartboard/computers/laptops that make up our technology centre.

2013/2014 School Year - Introduction

Hello!

My name is Miss Pal and I will be your child's Kindergarten teacher this year!  We have two adults in the classroom, myself and Mrs. Menzies (our ECE TA).

I will be using this blog to keep you updated about any news, events and fun learning happening in our classroom!  Not to worry, this blog will not contain any personal information about students, nor will it have any pictures of the students either.  If you have any questions or concerns about this blog, please don't hesitate to speak to me in person.

This blog will primarily be a place for parents to keep up-to-date on what we've been doing in our classroom.  Although we do send home hard copies, this blog will be a place for you to easily view online copies of classroom newsletters, monthly calendars or other important information. 

Be sure to check back occasionally to see what our class has been up to this year!

Bye!

Thank You!

Parents, Caregivers and Students,

It's hard to believe the school year is already done!  This year just flew by!  I just wanted to thank you all for a wonderful year.  It was really a pleasure having the group of students that we did this year.  Thanks again to all the parents and caregivers who took time out to help our classroom, whether it was by coming in to volunteer, to help pre-cut materials, send in healthy snacks, etc.  Our school activities cannot take place without help and support like yours.  A very special thanks to the boys and girls in our class this year!  I hope they had as wonderful a year as Mrs. Menzies and I did.

Take care and have a wonderful summer!
- Miss Pal :) 

Poem for week of June 10th

Once again, we came up with this poem as a class during a shared writing exercise. The students brainstormed the topic, the rhyming words and even the homework!

Poem for week of June 3rd

We decided to write a poem together this week and this is what we came up with!  The boys and girls first chose a topic we've been working on - favourite animals - and then we wrote this poem together!  

The homework to accompany this poem was also created by the students. They decided we should draw a picture and write a sentence about our favourite animal.

Well done, boys and girls!

June Calendar and Newsletter

Poems for weeks of May 20th and May 27th

Roots

For our latest Science unit of living things and planting, Mrs. Menzies thought it might be neat to show the kids how roots grow. So, over the next few weeks we are going to observe how roots grow on this plant!

My Pet Snake

Earlier today our class put on a wonderful performance in front of some of the other Primary children. All classes from Kindergarten and Grade One performed songs for one another. 

The theme was "Pet Show" and each class sang a song about a different kind of pet. Our song was called "My Pet Snake" and for our costume, students got to wear these handmade snake puppets!

I knit the needed material, while Mrs. Menzies stitched them up and added the eyes and tongue! Each student got to take a puppet home as a thank you for a wonderful performance. 

Happy Mother's Day!

For our latest Science unit we've been discussing the life cycles of plants and animals and decided to do a little planting of our own!

Mrs. Menzies worked with each student to go through the planting process. After the initial planting was done, we did a little procedural writing about the steps you'd need to follow when planting. Then, we watched as our plants grew over the next few weeks and recorded our observations in our science booklets and through a lot of oral discussions.

The plants were transplanted into individual pots and sent home as a lovely gift for Mother's Day! (I forgot to take a picture of the pots after Mrs. Menzies' wonderful wrapping job!)

Hopefully soon, you'll have some beautiful marigold flowers blooming!

Happy Mother's Day!

May Calendar and Newsletter

Here is a quick overview of our activities for the month of May.

Fundraisers
Our school is taking part in 2 different fundraisers this month. The first is our annual Jump Rope for Heart day, which will take place on Thursday, May 2nd, where the entire school gets together for a fun afternoon of jumping rope in the school yard! Fundraising envelopes were already sent home last week. All money raised for this event will go to the Heart and Stroke Foundation towards important research. Students are asked to return their fundraising envelopes before that date.

The second fundraiser taking place this month is one of our favourites! We will be having a dance-a-thon on Friday, May 10th and one of our very own Kindergarten parents has offered to be our D.J. for the event! A big thank you to him for volunteering to help our school. All money raised through the dance-a-thon will go directly to our school!

Mathematics
During the month of May we will begin to look at the concept of time. Later in the month we will shift our focus to 3 dimensional shapes. The children will learn the names of several 3D shapes (i.e., cone, cylinder, cube) and search for these shapes in their daily lives.

Science
We will continue to discuss seasonal changes that occur in spring (planting, caring for the garden, baby animals). We will also talk about living and non-living things that are around us.

Librarian Visit
On May 10th a librarian from the Public Library’s Children’s department will visit our class. She will talk to the children about the services and activities available to families at the various library locations.

Dressing for Outdoors
Spring is finally here…sort of! Although some days are sunny and warm, we also continue to have gloomy, rainy and sometimes even snowy days! Please help your child to be dressed appropriately for playing outside, as some sunny days can still be quite cold and jackets may still be necessary. Sunhats and sunglasses are also great to have, as well as sunscreen on warm sunny days.

Are you Moving?
If you are moving and your child will not be at our school next year, please inform the office as soon as possible.

Thank you for your ongoing support of the Kindergarten program!
The Kindergarten Team

It is important to help the Earth because...

Schools United For Elephants

          In honour of Earth Day coming up on Monday, we have been talking a lot about our favourite animals and this lead to a great discussion about what we could do to help animals, just as we had tried to help children around the world have access to clean water.  I am astounded by the giving and caring nature of some of our students! 

          I had come across a great campaign against the sale of ivory and for the protection of elephants worldwide and felt this would be a great campaign for our class to take part in! 

The organization was started by a young girl in Taiwan and from there it spread through her school, to other schools in her country and then to schools across the world.  It is called Schools United for Elephants.  The website is provided below, so please take a look if you would like:

http://ecosysaction.org/celia's-corner/

The campaign does not ask for any money, but instead for students around the world to simply pledge their support for elephants and against ivory products. 

We created a poster in our class to vow not to buy ivory and to spread the word to help save elephants.  A picture of that poster was sent to the Schools United for Elephants campaign and has been posted on their Facebook page and will soon appear on their webpage as well. 

You can view the Facebook post here:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Elephant-Girl-Celia-Ho/207892889353942?id=207892889353942&sk=photos_stream#!/photo.php?fbid=235287883281109&set=pb.207892889353942.-2207520000.1366378894.&type=3&theater

You should all be very proud of your little ones!  They are growing up to be very caring and giving world citizens!

*Update* - April 25th, 2013 - We got an email response from the Schools United for Elephants campaign that said, "On Tuesday, we shared your work with the Consul of Canada here in Hong Kong. He was very pleased to see a school from his country taking part in this campaign."

Colour Poems

As of last week we will be sending home colour poems. Each week the students will bring home a poem of a different colour to help work on their reading, spelling and recognizing of common sight words. There will be 2-sides to this homework.

The front page is the same as usual where the students draw a picture and write a sentence, while the back is for them to read the poem and fill in the missing words using the word bank at the bottom of the page.

This past week's poem was on the colour yellow.

Poems

Here are Poems from the weeks of March 25th and April 1st. Sorry for the delay in posting.

Mr. Men/Little Miss Books

With the convenience of iphones and tablets these days I rarely find myself on an actual computer.  Alas, I've finally found a few minutes to get onto the good ole laptop to post some examples of the fabulous Mr. Men/Little Miss books made by some of our students.  Enjoy!

Miss Lunch Time.  First, she goes to school.  Then, she plays.  Finally, she plays more.

Miss Jumpy.  First, she jumped to the sky.  Then, she fell to the ground.  Finally, she ate pizza.

Miss Popcorn.  First she jumps on the bed.  Then, she jumps on the light.  Finally, she falls on the pizza.

Mr Bubble.  He blows bubbles everyday.  He blows bubbles at home.  He blows bubbles on people.

Miss Reader.  First, she draws a star.  Then, she builds a house.  Finally, she makes soft mittens.

Mr Drawing.  First, he was flying.  Then, he fell on some weeds.  Finally, he had a weed on his head.

Mr. Skater.  First, he throws a party.  Then, when he played music something happened.  Finally, everybody came over.

 Mr. Sandwich.  First, he goes to the outside and he turned into a snowman.  Then, sun melted him.  Finally, he turned into Mr. Sandwich again.

Miss Bike.  First, she jumps up and down.  Then, she spins around.  Finally, she jumps up and down again.

Miss Cloud.  First, she flies to the sky.  Then, she falls.  Finally, she flies all over again.

Miss Muffin.  First, she went to the store.  Then, she went home.  Finally, she washed her face in the frying pan.

Miss Stripe.  First, she changed into her pyjamas.  Then, she played a little.  Finally, she went to sleep.

Mr. Block.  First, he builds blocks.  Then, he knocks the blocks over.  Finally, he builds it all over again.

Mr. Run.  First, he runs to school.  Then, he destroys the blocks.  Finally, he runs home.

Mr. Strong.  First, he breaks the door.  Then, he breaks the restaurant.  Finally, he breaks the road.

Mr. Silly.  First, if you get so near him you will get tickled.  Then, he will be silly.  Finally, he will turn into a diamond.

Mr. Super.  First, he went to the park and he saw Miss Happy.  Then, Mr. Super rescued Miss Happy.  Finally, he didn't hold the hand so Miss Happy fell down into the water.

Mr. Truck.  First, he eats a bed.  Then, he throws a fan in the garbage.  Finally, he puts a chair in a fan.

Mr. Video Game.  First he plays video games.  Then, he played so much.  Finally, the tv broke.

Mr. Yellow.  First, he is cooking.  Then, he knocks the food over.  Finally, he did not clean up because he is silly.