What a busy and exciting month we’ve had in the Kindergarten room! On Monday we released our butterflies into the wild. It was great to see all the parents and siblings come out to watch. We’ve also had a few field trips in the last little while. We had a blast at Marian Gymnastics and the Forestry Farm. Highlights include the giant foam pit and the grizzly bear. We also traveled to the city to take part in the Children’s Festival. We enjoyed Flying Bob Palmer’s act and all the activities there. Thanks to all the parent volunteers who came on these trips! We’ve had many animal visitors to our classroom lately! Students have been bringing pets for sharing! It’s been fun cuddling these fuzzy and cute little creatures! In Math we will wrap up the year studying 3-D shapes and we will continue doing our literacy groups with Mrs. McGregor and Ms. Thompson. We look forward to the Father’s Day t-ball game on the 21st. I’ve had a great year with these kids and look forward to teaching them again next year! Have a great summer holiday!

What an exciting month we’ve had!  Thanks to all the moms for attending our Mother’s Day Spa! We hope you feel pampered and refreshed! Thanks to Carissa Haaland for donating tubs and Arbonne products to the event. Our visit to Brightwater Greenhouse was lots of fun! We got to pot plants, look at fish, and see all the beautiful plants and flowers. Thanks to the parent volunteers for coming with us. Our hot dog sale was a success! We’ve raised funds to cover some of the costs of our upcoming field trip. Thanks again to the parent volunteers who came and helped prepare the food. We are just wrapping up the five senses in our discovery center. The students have made solid-state slime, cooked popcorn, had a blind-folded smell test and have listened to beautiful sounds! The students have been focusing on writing lately. Sometimes they try to spell the words by listening to the sounds and other times we brainstorm words on the board together. We’ve also started to build sentences by using words like I, the, a and finishing it off with a period. Please watch for permission forms coming home in your child’s planner for all of our upcoming field trips and events! Have a fantastic long weekend!

The Kindergarten room has undergone some changes this month! The class had to move upstairs to the art room for three days while our room received a fresh coat of paint. It looks clean and fresh and inspired us to change our room around a bit. We’ve pulled out the dinosaur toys, sorted through our dishes, and brought out more discovery objects. The class has also worked together to create a beautiful Easter bulletin board! The class continues to work on their literacy games (rhyming, recognizing beginning sounds, colour words, month words, reading online stories). During play the students will be asked to write about what they’re doing. This will be very informal and spontaneous. If they create or discover something exciting that day, they will be encouraged to ‘write about it’ in their centre journals. We will be encouraging them to try and spell words on their own and to illustrate the event. In math we are discussing ordinal numbers and when we use them (calendar, competitions). The Kindergarten curriculum encourages student-directed learning. The students were inspired by a skeleton from a Grade 5 Care Partner. We have been discussing what we know about bones and have participated in a bone research session in the library with Ms. Bishop-Moisan. The students came up with their own questions and have done their own research! I am so impressed with the growth and development I have seen in this group of students since the beginning of the year! Thanks to all the Kindergarten families for the work you do at home and the support you give to your child. I am so proud of these children!

The Kindergarten students have been working hard this month in preparation for report cards and interviews. I am so impressed with the progress I’m seeing! Way to go! Don’t forget to sign and return the report cards in your child’s folder. This week we spent time with our Grade 5/6 Care Partners and built our leprechaun traps! There were some very clever and creative creations! Hopefully somebody can catch a leprechaun and convince him to tell us where the gold is! We continue with numbers in math, but are also learning about time (days of the weeks, months, seasons). Please practice these with your children at home. We are excited about the Winter Carnival this Friday! Don’t forget to dress warm! In Art we are using our sketch pads to learn how to draw different things. We are starting with people and are trying to draw realistic people with fingers, shoes, hair, etc. Next we will be drawing buildings and animals. I look forward to seeing everyone at interviews next week!