WIGS and Basketballs and Patterns

This week in Kindergarten:

On Wednesday, we had the Remembrance Day Assembly, led by the Grade 7/8's, who led with grace and respect for the people who have protected, do protect, and will continue to protect our peace. Our students had wonderful responses: "We need to always remember to be thankful;" "I feel filled up with love;" "I feel quiet inside;" "I feel kind of sad and kind of glad at the same time;" "I feel peace."

We are extremely excited for Student Led Conferences! Every morning at our morning meeting we count down the days left until our "meetings." Students had lots of previous knowledge of what a meeting was like by hearing about mom and dad going to meetings and dressing in nice clothes and talking about important things. They are realizing that their learning is important and are excited to lead their own meetings. 

In math this week we looked at patterns. First, simple ones - ABAB on our clothes, in our line ups, and finally with blocks and stamps. We then looked how to create more complex patterns. 

                                                 Create and Extend

We also started an exploration of bouncing and rolling, starting with what is a ball and moving on to how we can test which one is the best. As will everything, these explorations are designed to teach students new concepts about the way the world works, and even more important than that, processes of learning. In this instance, we are learning about true tests and measuring.

Learning how to test and measure which ball rolls the best.

Comparing the balls at the Bounce and Roll Centre

In literacy, we have continued working in our big beautiful books, and have learned about making connections with the things we read. This is a comprehension skill taught up through the grades - to Kindergarten students, it seems to come naturally! They love to tell stories - for example, if you read "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" to our class, you are likely to have several, if not all students, volunteer stories about seeing a mouse, touching a mouse, reading a book about a mouse, or watching a movie about a mouse. This strategy of connecting to self helps students understand and remember what they've read. We also worked on more letters this week, making them out of loose parts that allow us to create curve and shape while enhancing our fine motor abilities.

Finally, some of your students may have mentioned WIGS to you. Wildly Important Goals. For example, mine was to eat breakfast every morning (a habit I have tried several times to learn in the past). A WIG needs to be very important - it needs to be a game changer, have an impact on your life, and an impact that goes beyond the month or two that the Wildly Important Goal is set for. I had not planned to start student WIGS so soon, but our class is enthusiastic, so the ones who had a goal that was wildly important to them have come to have meetings with me to set it up. An example of a student WIG is the one that belongs to JA. He came to me and said he wanted to learn all his letters so that he could read. Reading is Wildly Important so letters are Wildly Important. And every morning this week he has practiced at morning table time. How exciting to have students engaging in, taking responsibility for, and initiating their own learning, not to mention verbalizing their understanding of why different learning is important!

 

I look forward to seeing you for Student-Led Conferences!