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....".

Important Dates

Dear families,

Here is a reminder of upcoming important dates:

• Thursday, March 12th 

Registration for Student Learning Conferences is now open!
To register:
- login to your MyCBE account
- select conferences
- select the time that works best for you

To ensure you get the best time for you, please make sure you register as soon as possible. 

• Friday, March 13

AM Kindergarten - HAVE SCHOOL from 8:00 am until 12:00 pm. We will see you there!
PM Kindergarten - have NO SCHOOL. We will see you on Monday!

• Thursday, March 19 and Friday, March 20

Student Learning Conferences- No classes for kindergarten.

• Monday, March 23 to Friday, March 27

Spring Break - No classes

• Monday, March 30th

Back to school!

Melting and Sneezy the Snowman

Last week after playing outside, we brought some of the snow into the classroom so we could play with it there... unfortunately, when we got to school the next day it was gone! 

Together we decided, that the snow melted and turned into water! But how did it happen?

Students had lots of ideas how the snow melted. Here are a few of their ideas:
"You put the blanket.. it's so hot!" -Divjot

"The snow melt because if it's cold the snow will stay but if it's hot it will melt." -Nyada

" It melt from the heat.. it's get warm turned to water." - Momna 

"he put coffee inside.. (it melted) because coffee is hot." - Mariam 

"the snow melt the water the lights melt the snow and the water comes." - Mahtab

" the classroom was really really really warm when people bring snow inside houses it melts into water." - Usmaan

This idea of "melting" led our curiousity as we continued to explore and deepen our understanding of what the term means.

We read the story, "Sneezy the Snowman" and learned that when things were too hot they caused Sneezy to melt. First, he drank hot cocoa, then he went into a hot tub, and then he stood by a camp fire. All these reasons caused Sneezy to melt. 

After reading the story, we started discussing other things that were hot, some students even began making connections to places that were too hot. 

Next, we got the opportunity to get messy and have some fun as we made our own melted snowmen! Students were happy and excited to mix around some snow goop (shaving cream and glue) and create a melty, droopy snowman!

 

 


 

In science, we learn that we can use our five senses to make observations and share ideas. Students used their sense of sight, smell and touch to share about their melted snowman experience:

"I think it felt like a raindrop from a cloud." - Aradia

" Looks like ice cream." - Qayinat 

" it smells like lotion." - Ahmad

" it looked like whipped cream. " - Avalynn

Finally, we had a chance to draw a picture and write a story to explain how our snowmen melted. 

 

 

Here are some of our stories:

"My snowman went close to the lava and then he melted.. because the lava is hot!" - Muhammad H.

"Once upon a time he had a blowdryer because he was getting ready for a party and he melted  because it's too hot!" - Keeratdeep

"Once upon a time my snowmen went to a desert and he melted because it's so hot and sunny." - Jessie