Our new McDonald's Play Centre has been built...

We brought in some McDonald fry holders for our dramatic play centre and some yellow sponges cut into thin strips to imitate French fries. Then we asked the children what else we would need to open up a McDonalds. We discussed it and came up with all kinds of great ideas. Here is what some of the children constructed with a little bit of guidance:

 We gathered all of the food we need to have at our store and got out some pretend money to play with that looked very realistic!!

 The children used our alphabet books to add words onto our co-created word wall. They chose a word and picture they wanted to copy and made their own.

 In Art Class, we drew castles using white pastels and black construction paper. We also used white tempura paint and square sponges to dab on for the bricks. We found the perfect place to hang them up.

We brought in a white tree with beautiful branches and decided to make it a pattern tree where the children could bead a string using a pattern and hang it up. It has already started to fill itself out.

When the girls were asked to clean up and they were not finished their rainbow pattern, they asked if they could make some signs that said "no touching" so the other children would know that it was work still in progress. We honoured their work by dedicating a shelf to work that is not finished. It was a great idea!

 Ms. B showed us how to make some flowers out of our playdough!

 

Something pretty incredible happened over the past couple of weeks. We have not opened our sand table in a couple of weeks and instead, have been using other sensory bins like the popcorn kernels. One day last week when Mrs. Ansari opened up the table, she noticed something very extraordinary, so she showed the students and asked them what they thought had happened to our sand table. This is what we all saw:

 Plants growing out of the sand!!!

The children did not really know what had happened so we explained. Mrs. Ansari had added some water to the sand to make it a little thicker and over the next couple of days, some of the popcorn kernels must have dropped into the box. The water and sand gave life to the seed and a plant started to form. That is why all of the plants have kernels on the bottom of them.

Since we were having some trouble getting ready for recess, so we decided to make a list of steps that need to be taken in order to successfully ensure we are dressed warmly for the weather. We will see how successful it will be starting next week, now that we have made it visible for the children to see.

 

It's not what you look at that matters. It's what you see. - Henry David Thoreau

We see a lot of capable, competent, and creative kids in our class everyday. This is some of the learning that has taken place this past week.

Puzzle makers:

 We made kings, queens, princesses and princes for our castle with Ms. Buckworth in Art class:

 Our finished crowns.

We made patterns and then drew them out, labelling the colours we used:

"It's a candycane!!"

Look at this ABAB pattern!

 Some cute little bunnies made out of playdough:

Tired out from all the fun we had:

 

Reminder: Monday is the last day for the Book Fair and Thursday is Library Day :)

 

We are working on putting together a Winter Concert between all four Kindergarten classes.

Please stay tuned for more information! We will be sending out the date and time as soon as it is finalized.

 

Have a restful Sunday!

 

Children are not things to be moulded, but people to be unfolded. -Jess Lair

This week we had the opportunity to sit down with the parents of our SK students and discuss their progress. It was an absolute pleasure to get to speak about the children and how they're doing at home and at school.

We want to send out a BIG Thank You to all the parents who took the time to come meet with us. We were so happy to see you and look forward to a continued partnership with you.

In our classroom, we feel that giving children choice is essential. Setting up provocations for learning that are intentional and engaging are what drive our instruction.

Here are some of the centres the children worked at this week:
We are learning about shapes.

We are also learning about patterns. We used these pre-made worksheet to practice.

The continuation of our Castle Inquiry ... 

Here we are making a sign for our Journey board.

  

                          Using stencils to practice printing. 

 

Mrs. Ansari showed the students a picture of a dragon made out of an egg carton, so some of them started to paint them using green paint. We laid them out to dry and will continue working on them next week.

Mrs. Ansari also showed us how to use tin foil to make armour for our knights. 

The children in our class decided that we needed crowns for the kings and princesses, so we used yellow construction paper and decorated our own. Then we assembled them with staples so that they could fit on their heads!

 

This was the finished product! They turned out really beautiful, each one so different.

Working together and finding ways to co-operate is essential in our classroom.

This is our new inquiry board about the journey through all our learning  about castles. 

This is what it looks like, now that we have added some of our documentation to it. 

Mrs. Ansari put some paint, tin foil and salt out for the children to experiment with and this is what they created:  

 

It is represented on our wall, outside of our classroom. We are proud of our students for taking the challenge to try out new things in our classroom!



Have a warm, snuggly weekend! See you on Monday :)