Halloween party #2!!

Today we celebrated Halloween! We have been very lucky to have 2 Halloween parties this week. The children bought special treats to share with their friends. Our treat bags were full!
We did a spooky Halloween dance, played musical Halloween chairs, carved a pumpkin and even had a candy hunt! Happy Halloween everyone :)

Happy Halloween!

Today we had our first Halloween celebration for the week. All of the children dressed up in their spectacular costumes and took turns explaining their costume and showing off anything special that it did, such as light up! Next, we had a huge candy hunt for lollipops, and the children counted how many were found in total. After our special Halloween snack, we decided to carve the school pumpkin into a Jack-O-Lantern! First we hypothesized what would be inside of the pumpkin. All of the children got a chance to look inside and take some of the seeds out. We all decided together on what type of face to carve out, and we can't wait to see it all lit up on Halloween!

Jr Pre K Pre Writing

The Junior Pre K class has been working on their pre-writing skills. This week we have been focusing on making straight lines from the left to the right side of our page. Pre-writing emphasizes the use of fine motor skills as well as practicing how to hold their crayon using the tripod grasp. The children have also been improving their hand-eye coordination as they follow the dotted lines across their page. All of the Pre-K's did a great job!

 

Junior Pre K Ballet

This week we have been practicing some basic ballet positions. The children are beginning to learn how to put their feet into first position, with their heels together and their feet apart. Next, we practiced plies, which is bending of the knees, as well as rises which is going on our tiptoes. Before we practiced as a class, one child at a time held Ms. Chrisa's hands in order to feel comfortable and to get more practice. During dance class, we also practice our listening skills as we all stand on our stars and listen for the next dance steps and follow direction. We all had a fun dance class!

JK Maths

In our JK classroom we have been learning about patterning. The children have been creating patterns out of different concrete materials and experimenting with solving Ms Lauren's challenging patterns! As a group we discussed what we knew about patterning and how patterns are made. The children had a chance to create patterns individually as well as in small groups. We used out number blocks to create A, B, A, B repetition patterns and then we used our bodies!! Look at our pictures to see what we have been up to!

Junior Pre K's New Friends

This week we have 3 new friends joining the Junior Pre K classroom! All of the children had a great time playing with new friends and getting to know one another. During outdoor play, the Pre K's were playing in the sandbox together and practiced throwing and kicking the balls. We also showed the children one of our favourite games which is racing! Afterwards, we had a fun circle and sang different songs while learning each others names. We are all excited and looking forward to playing and learning at school!

 

Academic Learning

Today was a busy day for our Kindergarten class! We practiced our phonics using the Cat in the Hat flash cards and did some very fast rocket reading! The children then each had a turn reading a Level 1 beginner reader. We worked together to sound out the phonics and join the sounds together to make words. We looked for patterns in the text and used the punctuation as tools to help us read. We used picture cues to give us hints about tricky words and to use for a picture walk.

We also played a new game in our math class where we played crocodile snap. Each child had to snap the number that was called out. This is helping us to recognise our numbers and have a lot of fun!

Language

Today we read a special book that one of our friends brought from home. It was all about friendship and how to be a good friend. This was the perfect story for us to read together. Everyone in the class got to share one nice thing that they have done for their friends. We learnt a lot from each other and the story about how to be kind and respectful to our friends. Thank you for bringing in the book!

JK Literacy

This week the children have been very interested in Halloween. We have discussed what we know about Halloween and things we would like to learn more about. As a group we read a spooky story about a ghost and decided to write our own story. As a group we worked out what we would like to say then took turns writing a sentence each. We sounded out the letters to make individual words then created a sentence. During this we were practicing our phonics, letter recognition, handwriting, punctuation and grammar. You can see our story hanging up on the main window!

Touch n' Feel Fall Scene

This week the children have been creating a fall scene. While we play outside, we always see colourful leaves falling from the trees! The children have been learning that the leaves change colours because it is getting colder, and we are now in the Fall season! Together, we gathered different textured materials to create our fall scene. While we were using the different materials, we talked about how they felt (bumpy, smooth, soft).We decided to use cotton balls for the puffy clouds, and we crumpled yellow, red and orange tissue paper for the leaves. We also painted our trees and branches brown and our background blue!

Pre K Halloween Art

This week the Pre K's have been getting ready for Halloween! We have been reading different books about Halloween and talking about different Halloween themed things such as pumpkins and costumes! In art class, we decorated and painted one of our Halloween crafts. All of the children are excited for more crafts to come!

Window Art!

This week we used special window paints to decorate the theatre room. The children shared something that they wanted to draw on the window for the whole neighbourhood to see. We took turns creating our drawings and signing our names to our work. We used all of the colours to draw attention to the windows and made sure to look at the windows from outside on the playground. We’re all excited to re-decorate the window in a couple weeks!

Getting ready for Halloween...

Today we started getting our Halloween decorations ready! The children chose what colour paint they wanted to use as Halloween colours then tinted and toned them. We used flat brushes to paint our Halloween boxes. Once they dry we are going to brainstorm different ideas to make them 3D. We can't wait for Halloween!

Pre K

This week we have been practicing the letter 'A'. The children are beginning to recognize the letter 'A' and have been practicing the short a sound. We have been looking at different words that begin with 'a' such as animal, apple and alligator. Together, we practiced saying a-a-apple while recognizing that it begins with the sound 'a'.

Since Thanksgiving is just around the corner, we have been learning about the meaning of 'thank you' and what we are thankful for. We decided to show everyone by making out own sunflowers! On each petal we wrote down what we are thankful for! We were all thankful for our mommies and daddies! Some of the children are thankful for their favourite toys, their siblings and food!

Pumpkin time!

This week we have been learning about Thanksgiving and everything that has to do with the celebration. The children have been very interested in pumpkins and harvesting crops so we decided to make our very own pumpkins. We discussed what shape pumpkins were and what colour. The children designed their very own pumpkins complete with different facial expressions. We had a great time :)

Leo's Birthday!

Today we celebrated Leo’s 4^th Birthday! We all gathered around to sing Happy Birthday and take a picture with all of our friends. Leo brought in a special treat to share with the class- cupcakes! After we finished our cupcakes we played a few games to celebrate! We played musical chairs, had a small dance party, and ended the day with a great big Happy Birthday Hug!