Obligatory Turkey Craft

 

Our Thanksgiving Song

Happy Thanksgiving,

I'm happy to be me.

Turkey, turkey, turkey,

Starts with T!

 

 

 Note: Miss Kendra doesn't like googly eyes. She much prefers we make own eyes out of paper so our creatures are infused with unique personalities. We used googly eyes today because we happened to find a bunch in a desk and wanted to use them up.

The Best Bhings in Bife are Bimple

We have learned that the most effective lessons, especially in phonics, are very simple. We wrapped up our study of the letter B with an afternoon of play during which we referred to everyone by their B name. Miss Kendra, for example, became Biss Bendra. It worked brilliantly!

 

We also made these simple B posters. We enjoyed tracing cans to make the circles (a little green circle is glued on top of the big yellow circle so we don't have to cut out a hole, which is hard.) As you can see, broom, bus, boat, bear, bee, and bird are our vocabulary words beginning with B.

 

Running for Hope

The Green Group participated in this year's Terry Fox Run!

 

We watched footage of Terry Fox running in the original Marathon of Hope. We drew pictures of ourselves wearing T-shirts just like his:

Our school and JBS High School came together for the run. We made hundreds of dollars to combat cancer and we ran a LOT. Some children in our class circumnavigated the field nine times! Miss Kendra was very proud of our dedication and conduct.

What All the Buzz is About

We have been spending a lot of time on the letter "B". We play a game where we sort plastic toys (a cat, a boat, a beaver, a snake, a banana, etc.) into our "starts with b" bin and our "no b" bin. Plus, every time we learn a new word we say it out loud and check to see if it contains that beautiful "buh buh buh" sound.

 

Quote of the Week

On the playground, one Kindergartener was screaming because she saw "a bee! a bee!" Then, suddenly, her look of terror turned to pride and joy. "Teacher!" she added, still screaming, "'Bee starts with 'b'!"

 

Inspired by her discovery, we made big bumble bees today. They look beautiful! They also look a little like fish. Maybe we can use the same craft when we get to "F".

 



Assessment by Number

I would recommend Paint-by-Numbers as an assessment of students' development to any teacher working with three to six year olds. We're studying the B sound right now so we tried one showing a bear and a ball:

 

Some children, include most of the youngest ones in Kindergarten, get so excited by playing with paint that they can't attend to the complex process required to make a picture:

Children who can complete the task conclusively demonstrate maturity, colour knowledge, attention to detail, and the ability to understand symbols:

 That's a lot to learn from a quick art activity!

With Me and You and My Dog Blue / We Can Do An-y-thing that We Wanna Do!

Because the two groups of Kindergarteners come every second day, Monday and Tuesday are alike and Thursday and Friday are alike. Wednesdays, though, are very special. Wednesdays are Blue's Clues days! We do games and art in the morning and then, to the childrens' surprise, watch an episode of Blue's Clues in the afternoon in which Steve and Blue do the very same activities.

Here, for example, is the school bus we built as a class:

 

And here is Steve driving his cardboard bus:

 

The best part of the day was making self-portraits. We used paint to make our faces, legs, and arms. We coloured our clothes with crayons:

 

 

The students learned to put just the tiniest little bit of paint on their brushes. Miss Kendra was very impressed how well they listened to that instruction.

Steve painted a self-portrait, too!

Blue's Clues is the best researched, most interactive educational television programme ever screened for Kindergarteners. The class was so excited to yell at the screen whenever they saw "A clue! A clue!"

The Green Group's First Day

Today the Green group began their year. Unlike the Orange group, most of the Green group had never ever been to school before. Everything was completely new! We did many of the same activities that the Orange group did yesterday but they went even more smoothly because of the arrival of our wonderful TA, Allan.

Here is a picture from today showing a herd of wild horses and a quad going by our playground: very Fox Lake! Notice how the leaves are changing colour for Fall.