What's Happening in February?

Themes - Valentine's Day, finishing Winter and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom,

Personal and Social Responsibility - continue to work on following classroom routines and behaviour expectations and exploring more of Leader in Me and Kindness Counts actvities

Our Classroom Mission Statement:

We come to kindergarten to be happy, helpful and respectful Bucket Fillers that play with lots of new friends.

School Goal

- We are tracking 100 Acts of Kindness and handing them into the Student Kindness Counts Team.

Early Literacy - We continue to practice name printing focusing on beginning our name with a capital and the rest of the letters are lowercase. 

-We have introduced all letters with Jolly Phonics program. We will continue to practice sounds but with a focus on the sounds in words (first beginning sounds, then ending sounds, lastly the sounds in the middle of the words). 

-We are practicing rhyming words by thinking of a new word that rhymes. 

-We are listening attentively to stories, and participate in class discussions. We are beginning to talk about characters and trying to remember 3 things that happened in the story. We are going to finish The Mitten by Jan Brett.

Early Numeracy

- We continue to focus on numbers 1-5, understanding the numerals and representing them in different ways. We have started to subitize Dot Collections by making the cards and talking about how we saw the dots quickly. The goal when subitizing is to see groups of dots and to not count the dots 1 by 1. 

-We continue to talk about 3D shapes in the environment, folding, sorting, describing and tracing shapes. We are practicing ABB patterns, counting backwards and forwards to 10, and reviewing sorting concepts.

Physical Skills and Well Being in the classroom

- encouraging and strengthening pincer hand grasp (using large tweezers, placing marbles on tees, placing buttons/gems in a line formation), and scissor use.

- identifying healthy choices for morning snack.

-In the gym this month the students had the chance to work on their skipping rope skills, cooperative games and relays. We were very active and used cooperation in a variety of games.  Our next focus in the gym will be climbing wall and more gymnastics. For fun we will also learn some basketball skills. - Mr. Fines

Creative Expression

- dramatic play within our Valentine's and Space themes. Valentine's and Space themed crafts. Daily songs with dances and movement breaks.

- Art is accomplished through letter, Valentine's and Winter themed crafts.

Environment and Community Awareness - participating in a variety of centers to explore properties of materials (such as sand, water, playdough, beans, rice, and many different building toys) and using a them safely and properly. We are even learning about some aspects of Space.  

Citizenship and Identity - We enjoyed Star of the Week presentations from Kaylee, Brielle and Rumaisa.

Technology -We have used the Smart Board all year to show we are here, dress the bear. We are starting to use Google Slides to lead each other in practicing beginning and ending sounds in short words.

What's Happening in March?

Themes - Winter, St. Patrick's Day, Bears

Personal and Social Responsibility

Personal and Social Responsibility - continue to work on following classroom routines and behaviour expectations and exploring more of Leader in Me and Kindness Counts actvities

Our Classroom Mission Statement:

We come to kindergarten to be happy, helpful and respectful Bucket Fillers that play with lots of new friends.
Early Literacy
- We continue to practice beginning sounds and are moving into ending sounds. We will be introduced to Stretchy Snake to slowly sound out the letters.

- We continue to practice name printing focusing on beginning our name with a capital and the rest of the letters are lowercase. 
- We are practicing rhyming words by thinking of a new word that rhymes. We are practicing syllables in words. We are listening attentively to stories, and participate in class discussions. We are beginning to talk about characters and trying to remember 3 things that happened in the story.
-  Our Morning Message routine has changed to identifying the letters at the beginning of words and circling them with the green marker. We will move into identifying the words that we know (Sight Words) in the message.
-During story times, we are taking turns looking at the storybook to make predictions of what might be happening in the story. We our teachers are scribing our sentences we are trying to use character names and our sentences make sense. 

 Early Numeracy
- We continue to focus on numbers 1-5, understanding the numerals and representing them in different ways. We are starting to work with Chunkits. Understanding their shape and they space they use to represent numbers 2-5. We continue to subitize Dot Collections by making the cards and talking about how we saw the dots quickly. The goal when subitizing is to see groups of dots and to progress past counting the dots 1 by 1.
-We are practicing ABB patterns as well as ABC patterns.
-We are continuing to practice counting backwards and forwards to 10.
-We practice sorting through many different activities: paper and SMARTboard.

Physical Skills and Well Being in the classroom
- We are focusing on lowercase letters by looking at the letters that start with a straight line down.
- We are encouraging and strengthening pincer hand grasp (using large tweezers, placing marbles on tees, placing buttons/gems in a line formation), and scissor use
- identifying healthy choices for morning snack.

-In the gym this month the students had the chance to work on their skipping rope skills, cooperative games and relays. We were very active and used cooperation in a variety of games.  Our next focus in the gym will be climbing wall and more gymnastics. For fun we will also learn some basketball skills. - Mr. Fines

Creative Expression
- dramatic play within our Winter, St. Patrick's Day and Bear themed crafts. Daily songs with dances and movement breaks.
- We sing daily with Welcome Songs, songs to help our routine and our learning with literacy and math.
- Art is accomplished through Winter, St. Patrick's Day and Bear themed crafts.

Environment and Community Awareness
- participating in a variety of centers to explore properties of materials (such as sand, water, playdough, beans, rice, and many different building toys) and using a them safely and properly. 

Citizenship and Identity
- We will enjoy Star of the Week presentations by Mako, Aubree, Cole and Daniella Avery. Thank you for your help and your visits. The kids enjoy them so much.

Technology
- We have used the Smart Board all year to show we are here, calendar activities and movement activities. We are starting to use slides to lead each other in practicing sounds in words.

Link to the
Class Monthly Calendar