LAST WEEK OF KINDERGARTEN Agenda!

Weekly Agenda June 15-19

Here is a look at our weekly agenda for June 15-19

Weekly Agenda June 8-12

Here is a look at our weekly agenda for June 8-12. Have a great week!

Weekly Agenda June 1-5

Here is a look at our weekly schedule for June 1-5. I can't wait to see your beautiful projects!

Weekly Agenda May 25-29

Weekly Agenda May 18-22

Dear families, 

Here is a look at our schedule for May 18th to 22nd. 

Enjoy the long weekend!

May 11-15 Agenda

Dear students and families,

Here is a look at our classroom agenda for May 11th to the 15th.

Please remember that Office Hours are on Tuesdays from 10:30-11:00 am and 1:30-2:00pm.

Classroom meetings are on Thursdays- Morning kindergarten meets at 10:00 am and afternoon kindergarten meets at 11:00am.

Have a great week!

May 4 to May 8 Agenda

Dear students and families, 

Here is a look at the activities and assignments for next week. 

Have a great weekend,
Mrs. Beaton

April 27th to May 1st Agenda

Here is a look at the activities for next week:

Have a great weekend!

Online Learning April 20-24

Dear families and students, 

It is hard to believe we are already on our 3rd week of Online Learning! I miss the boys and girls so much but I have absolutely loved seeing pictures of their beautiful work in our Google Classroom. 

Moving forward, please remember that these activities are meant to strengthen students' early literacy and numeracy skills. I do not expect them to be able to write all of the sounds they hear in words, write full sentences or always count properly. I encourage you to please let them do and submit their own work and you can show them how you would do it after they are done.

After listening to feedback, I have tried to create less assignments and more engaging activities for the students to do at home. As always, if you have any questions or need support in any way, please email me at tlbenison@cbe.ab.ca.

Here is a look at next weeks activties:

Dear students and families,

I hope you are all enjoying your long weekend. Here is a look at our schedule for next week (April 13th- 17th). 

You will notice that all of our activities next week are listed as "Assignments" in the "Classwork" section of our Google Classroom. I made the change to assignments so that it would be easier to organize our work and for me to look at your beautiful pictures! 

Please note that although they are listed as assignments there is no grade attached and uploading pictures is completely optional - although I love looking at student work and giving them feedback.

You are welcome to continue posting pictures and messages in our "Stream" section of the our Google Classroom as long as they are kind and helpful. I know that it is a great place for children to go and look for news from their peers.

Mrs. Beaton

A brief look at Monday

Hi there students and families,

Here is a brief look at the activities we have planned for next week.

Remember, we are all learning how to use Google Classroom together. Next week, I encourage you to explore the classroom and ease back into learning activities. There is no pressure to complete every activity. 

There are also some templates provided in the classroom that you can print off. However, if you do not a printer, that's ok! You can complete them on a piece of paper found at home. 

Here is link to CBE help pages with log in instructions and student/parents help if you are still have trouble accessing your account. You can also email me directly at tlbenison@cbe.ab.ca

: https://www.cbe.ab.ca/support/Pages/Google-Apps-Gmail.aspx 

Have a great weekend and I look forward to starting classes on Monday!
Mrs. Beaton

Using our Google Classroom

Dear families and students,

Thank you for all your cooperation this week as we set up our Google Classroom! 

I wanted to share with you a quick look at how to navigate the classroom and get to some of those fun activities, videos and more!

After logging in, you will see an image that looks like one of the following:

PM Kindergarten:

Or AM Kindergarten:













Above these images, you will see a toolbar that looks like this:

If you click on the "Classwork" tab

It will bring you a list of topics:

Feel free to click on and explore some of the items and links in the different topics.

For example, if you click on the "Whole Body Movement" topic it will bring you here:

If you click on "Cosmic Kids" it will bring you to a youtube channel full of fun yoga videos for kids!

You can even find a "Frozen" Yoga Story!

On Monday, our weekly activities will be posted in the "Weekly Lessons" topic. 

Please email me if you have any questions!

Missing home reading?

Are you missing getting your weekly home reading books? Me too! 

Luckily, we have access to a great site where you can go for books that are leveled for young readers as well as more detailed books with voice audio!

Here's how to access Epic! Books: 

Once you're logged on, each student will have their own picture and name. Simply click on the name (not the picture) to get into your account!

Finding leveled books: To find books that are appropriate for kindergarten reading, click on the F&P icon close to the top of the page. It looks like this:

Once there, you can start by going through some of the the Level "A" books located in the row that looks like this:

For example, you may find a book that looks like this:

That has familiar pattern sentences like this:

If some of these books seem a little challenging, that's ok! Just like when we had our home reading, try to find 2 books that you can re-read over several days and keep practicing. 

Remember some of our home reading strategies:

1. Read by memory

2. Read the pictures

3. Identify the letters

4. Recognize sight words

5. Read words.

If those books seem a little easy for your reader, you can move on to the next row. I always like to give students one book that is a little easier and one that is a little challenging! 

Looking for more? After practicing your home reading, why not explore some of the other great features. For example, if you click on the "Read to Me" icon or the "Videos" icon you can find stories with more details that can be read to you!

Listening and Writing Challenge

Hello families,

Although we are not in school today, I thought it would be fun to share a little listening and drawing challenge! This challenge is optional, but it gives boys and girls a good chance to practice some of our early literacy skills from class!

Our listening challenge: listen to the story Felicity Floo.

You can find this story on tumblebooks by:

 copying and pasting this link in to your browser

https://calgarylibrary.ca/read-learn-and-explore/digital-library/tumblebook-library/

click on "Access TumbleBook Library" (close to the bottom):

then search for "Felicity Floo Visits the Zoo"

Have your child listen to the story. Listening more than once is ok too!

Ask your child these questions:

1. Who works at the zoo?

2. Why is he so worried?

3. How did the animals get sick?

4. What can you do so that you do not get sick like Felicity Floo? (You can even practice washing your hands together!)

After discussing the story, ask:

"What was your favourite part?"

- brainstorm together some of the different parts of the story

- rewatch and name some of the animals

- pick 1 part that is your favourite.

Draw:

Have your child draw their favourite part of the story. In Kindergarten, we always remember to use shapes (such as circles, squares, rectangles, semi-circles, ovals, etc) when drawing.

Here are a few examples of how I would use shapes to draw some of the animals/characters:

Here is an example of my favourite part:

After drawing, have your child try to write some words. REMEMBER, in kindergarten, our writing all looks different. Some children are learning how to listen and label their pictures, others are writing the first sound that they hear in a word, others are listening for the beginning and dominant sounds they hear in words, and some are listening for lots of sounds and using finger spaces between their words. 

For example you might see:

My favorit part was wen the zookepr felt confuzd.

or:

Mi favrt pt wz the zkpr flt cd.

or:

Mfpwdzfc.

or

ehteohworwheowho (random letters)

No matter where your child is, it is important to encourage them to try their best. When they are done, they can share their picture and writing with you. You can model for them after how you would write those words. I like to remind the boys and girls that I have been writing for a long time, so I have learned how to listen for lots of sounds and add finger spaces. 

When your child is done, you can even encourage them to reflect on their work. Here is a sample of our writing rubric that helps us know what good writers do. Students can select where they think they are on the target. After congratulating them, you can give them a few pointers on how they could really nail that target next time. For example, "I like how you used colours that make sense for your picture. I see some white spaces, next time lets colour using little little lines." or "You did such a great job listening for sounds, next time you can try and add some finger spaces." 

I hope that you enjoy this listening and writing time with your child! It is one of my favourite times to listen and work with kinders!

Learning through play

“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” 

-Fred Rogers

In our classroom, students engage in purposeful play. Purposeful play means that students are building their math, literacy, language and social skills while engaging in play with their peers that has been directed, in some way, by the teacher. This is because young children learn and make sense of the world around them in different ways than older children. By manipulating a variety of materials and engaging with their senses and their peers, they work through their different thoughts and feelings while building on academic skills.

Last week, we put this practice of purposeful play to good use.

First, students used our donated water bottles to make their own snowman friend. 

 

 

Next, we read a story inspired by our community that used our kindergarten sight words "I", "see", "the", "a".  When reading, we remembered how super readers look at the picture first, then look for words they know. If there is a word we don't know, we try to sound it.

Here is a list of the places we saw in our community:

         

         

After talking about the places in their community, students were asked to build a place in their community while working and playing with a peer in order to make a story for them and their snowman.

 

 

 

 

We also talked about how it is ok to play by ourselves and make our own stories while playing with our toys.

 

 

Lastly, we drew a picture and wrote some words in order to share our story with others. 

 

 

  

Here are some of our stories:

 "we are at MacDonald's eating chicken burgers."- Nyada

 

 "we are going to Saddle Ridge School." - Malik

"we are police officers on patrol." - Aradh 

During their time away from school, please try to find some time for boys and girls to play uninterrupted. Remember, playing is the work of young children! One idea, is to have your child play for 45 minutes and encourage them to build a story. When they are done, they can draw and label a picture of what their story was or they can even try to write a sentence such as, "I played....".