Wednesday Update

Even though it was a short week, it was amazing how much these kiddos have done!!  WOW! J This week we…  (Some of these are centers that I bring the cuties over to practice with me, other times they have time to explore and choose what they are doing, so your child may not have done all these things, but most of our kiddos do most of them!!!  It also depends on some of their prior knowledge)

*reviewed the sound, formation, and hand motion for the letter Aa.

*continued to sing the Alphabet Song and compared/matched the upper case letters with the lower case letters

*learned and decorated the song Apple Bingo for our Poems and Songs folder. We stamped with REAL apples! J

*Read Ten Apples Up On Top by Dr. Seuss, as well as An Extraordinary Egg, Little Blue and Little Yellow, Feelings, Alphabet Mystery, Grumpy Cat, Knuffle Bunny Free and many many more! J

*learned the story of The little Red House  (an apple) and made a riddle book.

*Read books on feelings, played feeling games and practiced different faces for different feelings.

*practiced one-to-one correspondence and using a ten frame in math to count apples and then made our own.

*made yummy APPLESAUCE and tried it out! Most of our cuties thought it was delicious!

*we also made and ate painted toast—ask your cutie if we actually used real paint for this! (It was funny how relieved they were when they found out what we were actually painting with!)

*sang the hokey pokey and danced around J

*learned the alligator song.

*had a special celebration of the Autumn Festival—we listened to a special story, watched Ma Laoshi play a special instrument, did calligraphy, made mooncakes, decorated and put together lanterns and did a lion dance!  What fun!

*had two special guests to teach us about Hari Raya!  Rania’s mom and Aria’s mom (thank you so much Reema and Natasha!) told us about how Hari Raya is celebrated in Pakistan, put on henna tattoos, decorated eid cut outs with the kiddos, made Hari Raya cardsgave bangles out, and brought paratha to share.  What an amazing time!!!!

PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES

I look forward to meeting with all of you to discuss your child’s progress. The pre-K teachers will be holding Parent Teacher Conferences on October 15^th and 16^th. During conferences we will discuss your child’s strengths as well as goals for the year. You should have received an e-mail from the office to sign up for a time.

UN DAY and BEING A PART OF OUR CLASSROOM

UN Day will be held on October 9^th—we will attend an Elementary School Assembly in the High School Gym.  As part of this celebration, students are invited to dress in the native costume of their home country, a costume representing their heritage or even a costume of a country in which they have lived or visited. 

A big part of our learning at school revolves around identity, our family, our community and special celebrations.  UN day is a part of that, but in addition to the things we are doing in the classroom, we would like to invite parents to be a part of this over the next few weeks.  We would love you to come in and share about your family, your culture, your traditions or celebrations…the list is endless! The cuties LOVE to cook, you could come in to teach us how to cook something (anything from something cultural to your family’s favorite sandwich on the weekends,) you could read us a story (we have already had a couple of parent readers in and the kiddos are very enthusiastic,) you could show us flags, decorate some artwork special to you or your culture, celebrate a tradition with us….really anything you would like to do!  The best time for us is between 8:20 and 9:15. (You do NOT need to do something that entire time though!) You could do something with the entire class, or just a small group of students (we would make sure that the kids rotated so everyone had a chance with you of course.)  Please let me know a date that would work for you. J

REMINDERS/IMPORTANT DATES

Thursday September 24^th:  NO SCHOOL-HARI RAYA HAJI

Friday September 25^th:  Faculty Inservice—NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS

Friday, October 9^th :  UN DAY—wear clothes from home country

Thursday/Friday October 15^th/16^th :  Parent-Teacher Conferences

*Return red library bag and book on Monday  (NO BLUE BAGS WENT HOME THIS WEEK)

*Please return Identity/Family Banners when they are finished.

*Let me know if you would like to share something about your home country for UN Week, and what date and time you would like to come in.

Thank you!!!  Have a wonderful weekend!  Lynsey

Mosaic Stories

We have been talking about identity in our classroom, and I told the students about one of my favorite memories as a child about growing up in a Ukrainian Canadian family and seeing the stained glass windows when we went to church.  Each different piece told a different story.

The students were asking about what stained glass windows looked like, so we found pictures together on the computer and in books. Liam said those look like pictures his family has! A few of the pictures were mosaics, and the kids were enthralled by the stained glass and the different mosaic pictures. They wanted to make one to tell a story! Together we started hunting around the classroom and ECC for things we could make our own mosaics from and we came up with what is here.

Here are some of the samples we found that inspired us.

The kiddos made mosaics and stained glass out of geoboards, stickers, jewels, blocks...it has been lots of fun! 

Friday Update Sept 14 to 18

Reminder:  Next week the students only have school on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  THERE IS NO SCHOOL next Thursday because of Hari Raya Haji and on Friday because of a Faculty Inservice Day.

We have had a fun and busy week!!!! J This week we… 

*did an amazing job with our lockdown and evacuation practice!

*had our first counseling lesson with Mr. Pearson—he taught us that we can use “Do you want to play with me?” and “Can I play with you?”

*had a mini field trip over to our Elementary Library!  We met Ms. Cuthbert the librarian and took out some books for our classroom library.  The kiddos are really helping to make it their own and picked out some wonderful books that they are really interested in! (Of course Frozen and lego books made it in!)

*have continued talking about identity and our families.  Some of the students showed us their family pictures and talked about who is in the picture and what was happening at that time. (the other students will continue with this next week.)  We have had the pictures out but this is the first time that the cuties came to talk in front of the class and they did amazing!  If you haven’t sent in a family photo, please send one in!!!  We really want to have all of our families on the wall to refer to!

*I shared something about my family that led us off into an amazing project! I told the students about one of my favorite memories as a child about growing up in a Ukrainian Canadian family and seeing the stained glass windows when we went to church. Each different piece told a different story.  The students were asking about what stained glass windows looked like, so we found pictures together on the computer and in books. Liam said they look like pictures his family has—a few of the pictures were mosaics and the kids were enthralled by the stained glass and different mosaic pictures. They wanted to make one to tell a story—together we started hunting around the classroom and the ECC for things we could make our own mosaics.  See the next blog post for more. J

*the students wanted to continue to look at S, so they cut out snakes and made SLIME!!! (Don’t worry-it easily comes out of clothes!)

*we explored shapes with pattern blocks and rubber bands and geoboards, as well as with shape stickers.

*we used beads and pipe cleaners for fine motor skills—the kiddos want to decorate the classroom!

*I have been doing beginning of the year assessments on the cuties and will continue next week.

PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES

I look forward to meeting with all of you to discuss your child’s progress. The pre-K teachers will be holding Parent Teacher Conferences on October 15^th and 16^th. During conferences we will discuss your child’s strengths as well as goals for the year. You should be getting an e-mail from the office at some point over the next couple of weeks to sign up for a time.

UN DAY and BEING A PART OF OUR CLASSROOM

UN Day will be held on October 9^th—we will attend an Elementary School Assembly in the High School Gym.  As part of this celebration, students are invited to dress in the native costume of their home country, a costume representing their heritage or even a costume of a country in which they have lived or visited. 

A big part of our learning at school revolves around identity, our family, our community and special celebrations.  UN day is a part of that, but in addition to the things we are doing in the classroom, we would like to invite parents to be a part of this over the next few weeks.  We would love you to come in and share about your family, your culture, your traditions or celebrations…the list is endless! The cuties LOVE to cook, you could come in to teach us how to cook something (anything from something cultural to your family’s favorite sandwich on the weekends,) you could read us a story (we have already had a couple of parent readers in and the kiddos are very enthusiastic,) you could show us flags, decorate some artwork special to you or your culture, celebrate a tradition with us….really anything you would like to do!  The best time for us is between 8:20 and 9:15. (You do NOT need to do something that entire time though!) You could do something with the entire class, or just a small group of students (we would make sure that the kids rotated so everyone had a chance with you of course.)  Please let me know a date that would work for you. J

REMINDERS/IMPORTANT DATES

Thursday September 24^th:  NO SCHOOL-HARI RAYA HAJI

Friday September 25^th:  Faculty Inservice—NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS

Friday, October 9^th :  UN DAY—wear clothes from home country

Thursday/Friday October 15^th/16^th :  Parent-Teacher Conferences

*Return red library bag and book on Monday

*Please return Identity/Family Banners when they are finished.

*Let me know if you would like to share something about your home country for UN Week, and what date and time you would like to come in.

Thank you!!!  Have a wonderful weekend!  Lynsey

An extra look into our week

Some of our students were very interested in the unifix cube blocks this week.  There was a lot of discussion going on as the kiddos interacted with them.

"I can make a pattern just like the book Ms. Lynsey read! Orange, orange, red, red, orange, orange, red, red!"  -Aria

"I can make mine so long that it will be taller than me.  Maybe tomorrow I can lay down on the floor to see if it works."  -Katarina

"I made one small, one medium and one tall tower."  -Jasper

"I made three different patterns and then stuck them all together."  -Map

We also had some intrigued scientists who were looking at the skeleton of a snake.  They observed with their sense of sight and then recorded their observations down on paper with pictures.

"It is really white and yellow.  Do our bones look the same color?"  -Daniel

"I think our bones are white.  I see so many little bones and one long big bone."   -Liam

"I think our back looks like the snake.  After we draw this, can someone feel the bones in my back?"  -Rania

"I wonder if there are too many bones to count.  I am going to try though!"  

-Ella

We also had some more construction and building going on--this time it was less concrete than the legos and magnatiles--the students were using wood pieces!  An imaginative storyline came along with the building.

"I made a castle with a bridge!  A train could go on it!"  -Dylan

"Will the train go near our princess castle? It is really strong."  -Malia and 

Si-Yoon

We also had some dress up.  I overhead the students planning their meal as a family.

"I'm the dad and I'm heading to work."  -Shayne

"I am going to take the babies to the party."  -Rania