Leadership and Inquiry

Hello Parents!

I'm not even sure where to start this week - we've been busy! We had fire drills, fingerprint missions, and freezies for Friday Spirit Day. We're learning how to sort our garbage into the recycling (and trying to remember that mom and dad probably don't want it to come home), and we're learning how to be good friends. We opened the sand centre (HA is on a building site), the paint centre, the writing centre (KA is practicing her numbers) and the Bible centre (GR is making plants that God made on Day 3). 

                              

We also had questions come up about building and balancing? How far off the table can we push it before it falls? What if a train goes on it? What if there is an earthquake (shake the table)?

                                

The next day, CA came back with KI and JA and
made a solution for the earthquake and balancing.

One of our biggest learnings this week was on student responsibility in the classroom - student jobs, our mission statement, and our classroom agreement (these take the place of teacher-directed class rules. The students created these so they are doubly responsible to uphold them).

Their names are on those stickers and they could choose two jobs to be interviewed for.    

Students put their thumbprint/handprint on these documents after saying yes, they were going to try to do this. We talked about how using habits and being a good leader takes practice, no matter who you are. So when we make a mistake, it will be an opportunity for us to learn. Part of being a leader is using what you are good at to help the people around you. After students decided what jobs to apply for, they had an interview with me (spread over a few days whenever we had a few spare moments). Students came and sat at a table with me and told me why they wanted that job and why they would be good at it. I will send a copy of these home once the jobs are trained and finalized. They will have these jobs for the term.

You may have noticed that not a lot of paper came home this week. We are hands-on learning!

Practicing the letter T with loose parts like buttons and wood slices.  

              

Setting the foundation for data management skills later in life - sorting. First with the colour rule, then size. Some also decided to sort by shape or feel.

             

                

This age group is full of curiousity and the desire to use their five senses to explore - so when we learn in Kindergarten, including our letters and numbers, we do so in a very tactile way. Plus it's lots of fun!

I'll end with some info on inquiry - I'll use that term a lot this year. It means that if students show a particular interest, we encourage their exploration, their wonderings, and discovery, and ask lots of questions about how God made the world. The pictures below are two student directed activities - it's leadership in their own learning.

1. Several of the students became involved in a theatre play - they made tickets, decided where the movie screen was, set up seating, drew boxes of popcorn, and played it out. There was so much interest that I gave them a bin and an option to make it a centre for learning play time - KA made a sign and made it official. This centre has been rich in social learning for our class - having fun with new friends and negotiating disagreements and norms.

2. Finally, a heads up for next week - be prepared to hear about snails!!! We found a baby in our aquarium, and discussed it as a class - we want to learn about snails. We will ask questions together and search out the answer. Below is a sneak peak at the learning space that students will see on Monday. The bowls will be home to some snails for us to observe.

This post was long - thanks for reading through it! Have a wonderful weekend!

From your kids:

Fingerprints and Tickle Feathers

What a fun week we've had in Kindergarten! From going to look for things we can count, armed with tickle feathers to help us keep a one - to - one ratio (not counting anything twice or missing an item) to going on a walk outside to look for what God has done, it was a full week with lots to do. 

One of our math lessons this week was on was focused on counting (I should say more focused - we count everyday). We talked about how we can count anything. Math is everywhere! KA is showing me her tickle feather that she used to count the items on my desk. "Miss K, did you know you have 30 things on your desk?" This sort of activity is hands on, engaging, and lets students count at their own pace with the numbers that they know. It's also lots of fun!

KI, ET and CA look for God's fingerprints by the tire. They found water and bugs in the water (they're trying to collect the bugs with a stick for a closer look).

SA, KA, CA, and ET find fingerprints that God left on the treeline floor.

GR, LE, KA, ET, SA, and HA exploring for God's fingerprints. LE has found a flower.

One of my favourite parts of Kindergarten is the learning centres (which the students think of as play time). During our centres, students can make choices for where to go, they can build relationships with friends old and new, and they can grow their skills that we've worked on in whole-class lessons.

KA and JA play in our new Bible centre. They are making things that God created: KA - plants for day three, and JA - sun, moon, and stars for day four.

JE, JA, and CA play at the building centre. While they build with lego, they are building their oral communication skills, problem solving skills, fine motor skills, and spatial sense skills, and exercising their imagination.

MA, HO, and CA play at the building centre. MA is looking for a particular block that she has in mind for something.

LE and HO use watercolours to make backgrounds for our upcoming word wall. The next time we did this, I overheard conversations between ET and SA, who were sharing a paint set, and HO and HA who were sharing. They were talking about which paints were juicy (my term for using water to wet the paint) and which ones were 'slimy,' 'goopy,' 'soupy,' etc. This sort of discussion grows their observation skills and their vocabulary as they talk with their friends.

GR puts on a puppet show for some of his friends.

HO, LE, and HA play at the nature centre. They can use their imagination to make up a story with the animals, build with the branch sections, or work with the shells. During this particular time, they were using all three items to make a story in the jungle.

KI and LE play in the house centre (communication, imagination, getting along, connections to real life).

Every morning, students have the same routine. Shoes by their hook, bring Miss K their envelope, put indoor shoes on, and go to table centres. At this table centre, LA is developing his fine motor skills by threading wooden beads. This morning, I came to ask him questions about what he was doing (building oral communication and explanation skills) and he showed me that he made a pattern. "Red yellow red yellow red yellow." Miss K - "What do you need next?" LA - "Red!"

A few more special notes from this week: rotation has started, which means that twice a week the Kindies have physical education with Miss R while I teach Gr. 1/2 Music. I'm told they love 'What time is it, Mr. Wolf," and are doing well in following the gym routines. We also had special times like our first Show and Tell on Friday, where students shared about their families. If you did not send in a family photo for Friday, please feel free to send one in as early as possible next week and we will have a time to share.

Lastly, we started discussion on our mission statement and classroom agreement.

Mission Statement Ideas: These were responses to my question of what is our mission, our job, what we want to be like this year. "We need to learn!" What kinds of things? "How to hold a pencil, our letters, our numbers, how to be nice..." Wonderful! They also said that we will be good friends, and we will love Jesus. Another student said that if we love Jesus we need to listen and obey him, so that will be part of our mission too! What an excellent brainstorming session!

Classroom Agreement: A classroom agreement replaces teacher-made rules. I still have procedures and routines for how we sit on carpet, how many students at a centre, etc., but this student-made agreement contains the rules we all agree to follow in everything. Our list - Be Proactive and Listen, Help People, Have Fun, and Be Nice with our Body and our Words.

We will discuss this once more and make it official by putting our hand print on them. Pictures will come on next week's blog. I love the ownership that this gives the students over their year - they are deciding in the second week of school what kind of choices we have to make to be an awesome kindergarten class!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Miss K

Highlights as told by the students in our Friday end-of-day circle:

Kindergarten Rocks!

That was one of the first picture books that our BCS Kindergarten class read together - Kindergarten Rocks! By the end of day two, even our most nervous Kindergarteners were cheering with us - kindergarten rocks! In fact, GR told me that "this is the 'rock'n'est' school ever!"

This week has been all about getting to know the school. For those who were here last year, it has been rediscovering routines and finding changes in the classroom and each other since we are now one year older, and being good leaders and helpers for the Junior K's to follow. For the students brand new to BCS, it has been learning about all of these things, especially the names of our new friends and teacher.

As a special centre, students came to work one on one with me to trace or print their name.

An especially fun activity this week was learning that everyone in our class can read some words! Environmental print is a term you will become familiar with - it is like the word 'stop' on a stop sign or Macdonalds with the big M. Students know these already and these words are a great confidence builder as our young learners work on their letters and sounds.

GR practices his letters with magnets during our morning table centre time.

KI practices reading by finding words he knows and looking for clues in the pictures. Right after this, he got up on a bench and was the "teacher," reading to MA and another student.

CA reads in the library.

We learn letters and numbers every day, many times a day, in focused times all together and in our play centres. Each student has something to contribute to our book talks and story times, and we love to connect what is in our books or number examples to things we know from home (ie. That's the number four! Who is four? Show me four fingers. How many have four in their family?)

Socially, our class is getting along well. I have seen our most shy students ask someone else if they can join their play and I've seen those students say yes. I've seen students use Habit 4 Think Win-Win and Habit 6 Synergize to resolve differences and work together to problem solve.

KI, GR, LE, HO and others not pictured make backgrounds with watercolour for our environmental word wall that we will make together.
Ministry of Education Learning Outcomes - "Students have an innate openness to artistic activities."

LA and JA use oral communication skills, Habit 6 Synergize, and build their knowledge of structures as they make a city.

KA and HA use oral communication skills and connect their knowledge of their world as they work together to do the laundry in our dramatic play centre.

GR, ET, and KA explore God's world in this centre, as they build and examine products of the natural world. These students and others also went hunting for God's fingerprints. Some of the things they found - the plants on Miss K's desk (the leaves felt smooth), the fish in our aquarium, and the kind acts of our classmates.

We are learning that we are leaders already; God created us and loves us. We use the habits to be good leaders for Him. I can already see the unique gifts in these kindergarteners, and I'm so excited for us to learn and grow together.

These were some of the 'favourite things' of this week as told by your children...

Bonus pictures - we are problem-solving!

GR - "My last one fell so I'm gonna make this one better."

SA - "I'm holding it a new way!"

CA - "I'm trying to find one (bolt) that fits in this one."

HA - "I'm making a floor."

*all student pictures used with parental permission