Gingerbread Madness!

We are doing all things gingerbread this week and the kids are having a blast! They are all loving the retelling activities. Ms. Fantuz, our wonderful volunteer decided it would be a great treat and learning experience for the class to make gingerbread cookies. The students had a wonderful time learning about all the ingredients needed to make the cookies, as well as discovering how to read a recipe. I can honeslty say their favourite part was decorating and eating their gingerbead men! Thank you Ms. Fantuz for your generosity and giving of your time to our class!

Dad's Garage!

Dad's Garage! on PhotoPeach

Scientists!

The students have been learning about changes in seasons! So as "Scientist" we went outside to make some observations in our science journals! We also brought bags to colelct artifacts that may help us to understand the change in season. The students really took on the role of the scientist and could be found collecting fallen leaves, pinecones etc. Also many were making sketchs and labelling in their science journals. We returned to the classroom to discuss their findings. We will continue to explore cylces for the next month.

Phonological Awareness-Rhyme Recognition

This is the time of year that I look ahead at the phonological awareness skills sequence to carefully plan my instruction. When I look at what I assess in my first quarter, I am looking to see which of my students can recognize rhyme. We will then move on to completing rhymes, then producing rhymes.


Why is phonological awareness important?


Research states there is a high correlation between phonological awareness and later success in reading and spelling. Students must be able to hear and manipulate sounds before they can relate them to print... so I gotta make sure my kiddos can develop this important skill.

Mrs. Lucier always comes up with fun ways to teach new skills. Below you will find pictures of students practicing their rhyming skills!

Glenhilda Arrives!

Glenhilda arrived on Halloween! on PhotoPeach

Road Trip!

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On Thursday Oct 27 our class travelled to Auto Motion for a ROAD TRIP! It was awesome! The students were able to sit in a smart car, look under the hood of a car, and watch them detail a car in the garage! Thanks again to Gil at auto motion for taking them time to show our students around!

our new dramatic centre

This is how it all began. The children (as you can see in earlier pictures) seem to take an interest during play; making planes with lego, playing with cars on the blocks (ramp), etc. So Mrs. Bos and I decided that this would be a great time to take out the "garage " prop box. 


Eric found a magnetic "watch" and wondered what it was for. I think he found out in our sensory filled with nuts and bolts.


Nayelle found the clipboard and became the accountant in the dramatic centre.



Cameron found the car keys and tried finding the right slot to put them in.


Keenyn found the paint sprayer and attached them together.





Hailey found the windshield wiper and used it back and forth, back and forth as she was sitting in a car.

A New Face!

Mrs. Lucier and I would like to welcome Mrs. Baggio to our classroom. She is a teaching student from the University of Windsor. She will be with us for the next four weeks. Mrs. Baggio will be teaching 25 percent of our day! We will work together to plan the program based on the Ontario Curriculum. Mrs. Baggio will be teaching the shared reading and writing portion of our day for the next 4 weeks! The students are very excited to help Mrs. Baggio learn all about the Early Learning Kindergarten Program. Mrs. Baggio can not wait to start teaching all of your wonderful children. Please make her feel welcome during her stay. We know she will do a FABULOUS job in our class!

My Sister is coming..

If you have heard about my famous sister.. Glenhilda then you are probably wondering what she is all about!! Well she will be arriving on Halloween to come and make her brew with our class. Unfortunately I will be away that morning (wink wink). The kids are nervous and excited to meet her.. its all in good fun. Her visit elicits so many areas of learning. Including, procedural writing when we rewrite her brew, letter writing as they have been writing letters to her as well as reciveing letters from her also they have been trying to persuade her to stay way ( persuasive writing). All of these tasks are rich, real life tasks. They are not writing a letter because they have to, they are writing it because they want to. Children learn so much more when the tasks are real! To them these tasks are very real! I am excited to see how Monday goes!

Number Hunt

The ELK students are so lucky! For the next few weeks we will be using a set of 5 digital cameras that have been loaned to us from the board IT department. After a lesson on how to use the cameras properly and keep them safe we headed out on a number adventure. Since completing our patterning unit in math we have moved on to our unit on Number Sense. The students need to realize that numbers are all around us. We need and use numbers everyday! So we went on a number hunt, to try to capture numbers with our digital cameras.

Bus Safety!

Bus Safety on PhotoPeach

Library Visit

Today we took our second trip to the public library and your child was able to learn how we check out books. Our school library day wil be Mondays. In my class each day a child brings back a library book they are able to check out a new book. Last year I had several students who checked out a new book each day! Occasionally the library is closed for special events- if this happens I will post it on the blog and your child will check out a book the next day. Your child will be responsible for taking the library book out of their backpacks each day. Occasionally we might have a mix up where your child's book is returned, but they didn't bring a new one home (keeping track of 26 students who may or may not bring back library books can get a little confusing). If this happens simply put a note in your child's folder or email me and we will fix the situation immediately. Thanks!

Wednesday is Picture Day!

Off to the Farm!

The day has finally come! We are off to the farm! Our class had a fantastic time at the farm. A BIG THANK YOU to Leon Leclair for generously opening up his farm to our class. The students were able to pet, feed and hold so many different animals. It was a day full of exploration and so much learning! It was a fabulous field trip and great way to end our unit on farms. The students were able to use all of their new knowledge about animals, vegetation and farms during our trip today. It was an amazing culminating activity for our farm unit. The students were able to answer our inquiry questions of "What do animals need to live?", "How do farms and farmers contribute to our world?" and of finally "How do you take care of living things?"! What a great experience! Mrs. Lucier and I were so blessed to be able to experience the WONDER with your children. We hope you enjoy the slide show, and we hope you are able to get a glimpse of the amazement your children experienced today!

This photo slideshow generated with Smilebox

Happy Turkey Day!

Well I hope everyone had a relaxing holiday weekend! I know I did! My family and I took our first trip the Brigden Fair! It was amazing! My own children loved learning about all the farm animals, from cows to chickens and everything inbetween. It is an amazing experience everyone should try and go! We have decided that the Brigden Fair will become a family tradition! We are going to go every Thanksgiving! I wish the fair grounds were closer because I know our JK/SK class would have loved to have gone!



However, this Thursday we will be heading to the farm! The students can hardly wait, they ask about it daily.
So on Thursday here is what you need to bring!
1. Rubber boots or shoes that can get dirty
2. A plastic bag to place your dirty shoes in when we are done
3. A packed lunch (as we will have a picnic at the farm)
4. Farm clothes (no dresses or anything fancy) as we might get dirty!

Can't wait for Thursday!! So very exciting!

LABELS, LABEL, LABELS!!

In writing we are focusing on three different areas
1. Using proper pencil grip
2. Printing our first name ( JK students) and first and last name for (SK students)
3. Labelling (labelling in our writing).
During our buzzbook today we discussed all the things in the classroom we would like to label. Below you will find pictures of the different things the students chose to label. Some are very interesting!!!





HOME CONNECTION: Encourage your child to label things around the house. All you need is a writing tool, such as, a pencil, marker, crayon etc, paper and some tape!!! Enjoy and have fun labelling your home!

A Day in the Life of a Kindergartener!

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Guest Speaker

Today we had a very special guest in our clasroom. Mrs. Cadotte was so kind to come and speak to our students and Mrs. Walker's students about what it is like to live and work on a farm. The students and the teachers learned so much. She brought in pictures of all her animals, and we learned that her animals even have names. The students especially loved that she calls her chickens her "girls"!
The students learned the difference between HAY and STRAW! Ask your child to see if they can remember what each is used for. The students also learned the special way to know if a chicken is going to lay white eggs or brown eggs. We also got to feel the difference between the hair that comes from a goat and the wool from a sheep!
Mrs. Cadotte will also be at the farm when we go to visit next week. She is going to bring her spinning wheel and show how she takes wool and spins it to make sweaters! The students are so very excited for our trip to the farm!

Today the students at St. Joseph's elementary school got a new life lesson in being kind and treating others with respect. Three members of the Canadian Half Pints basketball team made an appearance at the school, drawing many loud joyful cheers from the student body. Their message is simple: 'Bullying is not kool, Keep it out of our school'. A lot of the message that they try to get out is to help stop bullying and teasing. It's not cool. It doesn't matter what colour your skin is, how big you are or how little you are. Every single person in the world is different. The Canadian Half Pints begin each school presentation with their Don't Tease program, followed by a 15-minute question and answer session and then they entertain the students with tricks and a short basketball game with the students and staff. Commonly called Little People, there are those who use the word 'midget' but use of that is frowned upon because it offends many people. "We tell people not to use that word. Calling us by our names is the best thing to do." Beside touring schools, the Canadian Half Pints also star in arena productions which are similar to those of the world famous Harlem Globetrotters. They also perform small skits and comedy routines during each performance. The Half Pints is the only team of its kind in the world, meaning when they do compete it's against fully grown adults. And the team's record is very impressive. Of 10,000 games played, they have lost only 11 times, with the last defeat coming more than 15 years ago. You will find a sneak peak of some of the action that occured today at St. Joes! The students abosultely loved it. Be sure to ask your child about what they experienced today! and continue to encourage "Bullying is not kool. Keep it out of our school!"!!

Library Visit

Today we travelled to the Chatham Kent Public Library! It was such an amazing experience! The children were treated to songs, flannel board stories, a few stories as well as a craft. We will be travelling to the public library every other Friday. The public library is an amazing, and free resource that each child and family can use! We are asking parents if their child already has a library card to please send it in and we will keep it at the school for the remainder of the school year. When the year is done we will send the cards back.
The following is a link to the library's website! Check it out they have so much to offer!
http://ipac.city.chatham-kent.on.ca:8091/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=ckremote#focus

Here's the link!

http://youtu.be/I_lZrnHw3z8

Pete the Cat

Wow after many failed attempts we finally have the video of your wonderful children reading "Pete the Cat". We tried using my flip camera, which decided to stop filming 30 secs in. We tried using Audacity, which is a computer program that tapes audio, however after starting it up it refused to tape our voices. Finally, we used my camera's video feature. Low and behold the camera's video card was full. I just wanted to scream!!!!!! Technology was just not on our side!! However, like PETE we just get walking along and singing our song!! We refused to give up! So after many struggles, we finally have an amazing video of our class reading Pete the Cat! We are so excited to share it with you!! We hope you enjoy!

If you copy and paste the link above you will be able to watch the video! Sadly this was another technology problem, I couldnt get it directly on the blog! No matter, you are still able to watch and enjoy!

Pete the Cat-Continued

Pete the Cat is back and this time, he's rockin' and groovin' in his SCHOOL shoes. Pete discovers the library, the lunchroom, the playground, and lots of other cool places at school. And no matter where he goes, Pete never stops moving and grooving and singing his song . . . because it's all good.

Look What We Did!!

We are so impressed by our Junior and Senior Kindergarten students!!! We have been working in small groups for two weeks now and they students are adapting well to the routines of the classroom!!


This week during centres the students are having a blast. They are extending and creating their own patterns using fall shaped candies. Students love using vegetables from the farm to create their beautiful art work. They are searching through cornmeal searching for letters, and praticing their proper printing sills. Finally, the students have loved making word wall words in the sand using tractors.

MONDAY

Well Monday brings our first professional development day! So enjoy your 4 day weekend! We will see you all on Tuesday!

I Like My....

I Like my..... on PhotoPeach




The students have loved reading the book "Pete the Cat"! This is an amazing story about how a cat stays positive even when faced with many negative events. The students enjoyed this books so much you can hear then singing the catchy toon " I like my white shoes" constantly throughout the classroom!!

Old MacDonald had a farm!!!!

The JK/SK class has really been enjoying all our explorations of farms. They have been learning about animals, vegetation and the enviornment associated with farms. During centres, they have been using tractors in the dirt to spell our word wall words. Also they have been using corn, peppers and potatoes to make beautiful prints! (which can be seen on our classroom walls).
In the next few weeks we will continue our study of the Farm and will even have the opportunity to visit a real Farm! The students are very excited! Please stay tuned for a permission slip. Finally, we are very fortunate to have a guest speaker come in and discuss farms and all the importance it has to offer.

Our First Week

Well our first week is complete and we are on to week two. The students are adjusting well and becoming acustom to our classroom routines. We have been working on our shared reading "Good Morning" and have been learning our new friends names.
In math we are beginning our patterning unit. Be sure to come back this week to check out photos of our great work!