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.
 

The Orange Group's First Day

Today was the first day of the school year for half of our class, the Orange group. We learned to walk in a line just like elephants walk in a line in nature. This is a mural in our classroom of elephants walking in a line:

In the afternoon we made art projects that looks like just the mural. We cut and glued together strips of construction paper. Then we stuck on star stickers and used a carved potato as an elephant stamp.

 

Quote of the Day

Said by a Kindergartener colouring an anteater's eyes red, "Look, teacher, I'm making him angry!"