Friday Update - November 14th, 2014

Hi everyone!

Happy Friday! I thank you for your patience on waiting for a new blog entry. Parent Observations make for a busy week, but I'm glad I can finally share with you what we've been doing over the past week in room 110 :)

Parent Observations

I'm so glad that the majority of you were able to come in and see your child in action. They LOVE having you in and showing you what they do in our room :) They are a great group and I'm so proud of their achievements so far. I hope I was able to answer any questions you had and didn't leave you hanging. If you ever want to chat, just send me a message and I'll call you :) Just like you, I want the best for your child, so please keep communicating with me!

Baby Pictures!

Mrs. Tortola has shared some pictures with us of her new baby girl. What a sweetheart she is :)

Literacy Update -Vowel Sounds & Names

We have finished learning about the 2 sounds that each vowel can make. This is very important to know, as it's the next reading strategy we will learn about. Here is a couple of examples we looked at during our literacy lessons.

Popcorn Words: Round Two

I introduce the popcorn words in different rounds. The first round includes the popcorn words we can sound out using our "Letter Factory" sounds, such as 'it' and 'big'. This round, we are learning about popcorn words we can sound out using Vowel Names. At the end of each of these words, you can hear the vowel name. So I make up a rhyme to help them: all it is is, "M and Y make 'my'" or, "H and E make 'he'. Until we can memorize the popcorn words by sight, it's beneficial for students to know they can sound these words out using the other vowel sound.

The 6 words we introduced are: he, me, we, my, go, no

DRA Update

I have started retesting our SKs to see if they have gone up a reading level since our initial assessments in September. Remember that your child needs to be able to read the entire book independently without any errors/self correct all errors in order to move up to the next level. You can read the first page to them so they can pick up the pattern. I am required to administer DRA for SKs in September, January, and May. However, I know how hard some students have been working and I am eager to see if they've moved :) I hope to start JK DRAs soon as well. Keep practicing that reading every night!!

Raz-Kids Glitches

Some of you have informed me that Raz-Kids has been giving you some issues, especially with the quizzes. I will look into this issue further on the weekend. I apologize for any frustration this may cause you (darn computers!). 

Learning at the Science Centre

This week during learning centres, we had some new learning going on that we were super excited about. Miss Smith found an abandoned birds nest near her house that she brought in to put in our Science and Discovery centre. Students began investigating it and here are what some students answered to the question, "I wonder who lives in the nest? How do you know?"

Milorad: "A bird because she put the dirt in her nest".

Owen: "Bunnies because bunny nests have bigger holes that mouse nests".

Hailey: "A bunny".

Lara: "A bird, a robin maybe".

Nevaeha: "A bird".

Alma: "A bird because I saw a bird flying and it went back to the nest".

Gurshan: "A bird sleeps in here".

Daryl: "A bird because birds live in nests".

Malik:" A bird because a nest is their home".

Alex: "A bird because I saw a bird in a red tree once". 

It's interesting to see the different perceptions students have on whom the nest belongs to. This was a great way to spark some interest and inquire about nature. 

Writing at Learning Centres

This week we saw a lot of students take initiative in writing during learning centres. We loved seeing this! We want students to naturally want to write and express their ideas on paper, so we're so glad the interest is there. We also tried to encourage students to incorporate writing during their play. For example, some of the boys wrote the name of their race car on a post-it note and attached it to their car. I love using writing in authentic ways like this that are of interest to students :)

Patterning Fun

This week we looked at patterns in a bit more detail. Patterning can be a hard concept for students to grasp. A pattern is when certain objects repeat itself. We call this the "core". When the core repeats itself over and over again, it then becomes a pattern. We used our word wands to try to find the core! Students explored different patterns such as basic ones like A, B, A, B and A,A,B. Try patterning some objects you find around the house!

Winter Clothing Reminder

Cold weather is upon us, and with that comes lots of extra outerwear! Please make sure your child is coming to school dressed appropriately with a warm jacket, mittens, hat, etc. Now would be a great time to start practicing getting all of those things on independently! What goes on first? What goes on last?

Updates/Reminders

• Picture retake day is Tuesday, November 18th. Please send a note in to let us know if your child is having their pictures retaken, or else we won't know- thanks!
• Friday, November 21st is a PA Day. No school!
• Next week we will start our new Character Education program, "All Aboard the Friend Ship!" Mr. Giggles is the captain of the ship, and he will teach us how to be a good friend :)
• Please remember to bring in your $2.00 for Crockadoodle ASAP. Thanks!
• We have a drama crew coming in on Thursday November 20th to perform a short play of "The Princess and the Frog" for our primary students. 
• Please remember that if you are picking up your child, you MUST go to the office and sign in and wait for your child outside of our classroom inside the school. We can not have parents/guardians coming in through the Kindergarten pen during nutrition breaks. If I'm not on duty, other teachers won't know who you are. Please understand this is simply and solely for safety reasons. Thank you for your understanding. You must also sign your child out at the office if you are picking them up early, especially if they take the bus. The bus will not leave if students who are apparently at school are not waiting for the bus, and if you don't sign them out, then the secretaries will not know they are gone.

I thank you for your continued support of our program. Without you it just couldn't be done! Here is a really neat creation that one of our students made when we did the leaf craft. Beautiful!

Have a fantastic weekend :)

~ Miss Pliura