Happy Last Day of September!

We had a wonderful 'Orange Shirt Day' turnout this week!

Thank you to all the parents who supported us in trying to wear the colour orange. Normally this day would fall on September 30th, but because day is today (Sunday), our school board chose to recognize it on Friday September 28th instead. This movement started in 2013 to highlight the pain and suffering of thousands of Indigenous children who were sent to residential school throughout he last century. The colour of the shirt is connected to the experience of Phyllis Webstad who was sent to Cariboo Residential School in B.C. in 1973. 

When Phyllis was six years old, she wore a new bright orange shirt to school, which was stripped off her and replaced with an institutional uniform.
The shirt has since become a symbol of resiliency and bravery of the survivors.

This week we brought in a new learning/exploration area. Our intention was to have as much sensory experience within our classroom as possible, which was made hard by restricting our sand/water table to only have one or the other. So we decided to have both.

Here is some of the imaginative play that was made visible here this week:

Some of our friends made us 'Please do not break' signs for our buildings:

Hope you are enjoying this last day of September!

I love Fall most of all!

It is officially Fall and the weather has finally cooled down. We had a few uncomfortably hot days this week in our classroom and are thankful for this fresh, crisp air and most of all - for this New Season!

We introduced a new learning area towards the end of this week.
We took the sand out of our table and filled it with water, then added bubble bath to it to create lots of bubbles!
We have found that water play offers many opportunities for learning to happen. Children develop a stronger understanding of concepts such as "more than" "less than," while experimenting with capacity, filling up bottles and pouring into something smaller or bigger. This area promotes sensory development while improving vocabulary through role play and general conversation.
Playing with water and sand can be very soothing for children which is why we like to offer it as an area of exploration as often as we can!

We also made our own Bird Feeders. Thank you to all of the parents who sent us in rolls!

We realized the next day that many of the seeds were falling off, so we apologize in advance. We had expected a different turn out, but the children were very excited and proud so we sent them home and asked them to hang it on a tree either at home or at the park and to let us know if they see any birds. 

We also explored some new classroom materials and did some colour mixing with our hands!

It's amazing what a little bit of documentation can do. Some of our SK's this week asked us if they could take out their binders and look at them. It goes to show how powerful it is to represent their learning and honour their hard work. They love to see the progress from when they first started JK up until now. We will often hear them at things like, "Oh, I remember doing this," or "look what I did!" while sharing them with their friends. 

This reminds me that it really is important to try to capture and save lasting memories because they reflect a strong appreciation for it at times like these. 

Hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend! 

See you on Tuesday :)

The best part of me is...

This week we talked about our qualities and what we loved most about ourselves. Here is a sneak peek into some of the answers we got from the children. The second piece will be their writing that we will display in our hallway.

We also started to practice counting and writing our numbers from 1 to 10:

We were so impressed with some of our JK's! Especially the ones who took the initiative to try something new and who wanted to practice even more!

We also represented our numbers in different ways and through different pictures:

Here is some of the fun we had this week:

Can't wait to see more creative minds at work!

 Hope you have a lovely weekend! See you tomorrow!