School Bus information

CLICK HERE to go to a site where you can look up your child's bus stop times.

Clean-up Time

http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.ca/2010/02/clean-up-time-its-not-my-school-its.html

This article contains examples of the philosophy of community that we strive to bring our young learners at "clean-up time".  For example:

"Rather than being an annoying, yet necessary part of our day to hurry through, this act of coming together to care for our school is the single most important community building activity on our daily schedule."

We (the teachers) try  make simple informational statements like, "There's a block on the floor," or "The dolls go in the crib." rather than give commands.

We notice effort with statements "Max is helping clean-up the drama area," "Alex is putting the stuffed animals in the basket,"  rather than thanks - they are not helping us (the teachers) clean our room, they are making the decision to clean their room.

"When children continue to play during clean-up, I give them informational statements like, "This is not playing time, it's clean-up time," or "That's closed. We're cleaning up now." I then follow it up with a directly applicable informational statement like, "The playdough goes in the playdough container."

When a child wants to talk to me during clean-up time, I ask, "Is it about clean-up?" If they say, "No," I answer, "You'll have to save it until circle time because it's clean-up time now. I only want to talk about clean-up." My own desires and opinions are informational statements and during clean-up time I'm a single purpose clean-up machine.

When a child simply retires to a corner with a book, or sits quietly, I generally just let it go. That child will eventually join us, if not today, then in the future.

And finally... in those rare instances when a child steadfastly continues to play in a way the disrupts or impedes the group activity of clean-up, she is given the choice to either join clean-up or "stay out of the way"

Early in the year we teach clean-up strategies specifically through circle games and modelling.  We involve our students in making decisions about how to organize our toys and materials, to deepen their ownership and understanding of where and why we put things away.

Readings for reflection

Why the play-based, student-interest initiated program is so important for kindergarten:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9289480/Starting-school-at-seven-can-boost-pupils-reading-skills.html

Nature walks:  how to deal with sticks
http://creativestarlearning.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/sticks-in-school.html

Another article on the importance of free play:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201206/free-play-is-essential-normal-emotional-development

On sharing as a developmental stage:

http://positiveparentingconnection.net/sharing/

What needs to happen before reading and writing:
http://cindyterebush.blogspot.ca/2012/08/before-they-can-read-write.html

A couple of wonderful stories about the empowering effects of allowing children to manage their conflicts.
http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.ca/2012/09/game-over.html
http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.ca/2011/07/thats-hard-thing-to-do-and-he-did-it.html

Class of 2012

Bye-bye junior kindergarten class of 2011/2012!  Have fun in senior kindergarten!

At the Farm

We went to the farm.

We looked at the cows.

We felt something with our finger and it hurt a little.  It was not real.  It was to see what milking feels like for the cow.

The calf licked Mrs. Haines' jacket!

We fed the calf.

We patted the calf.

These baby lambs were born this morning!

We patted the lamb.

This lamb is standing up because he wants to eat.

We are combing wool from a sheep. It was hard to get off.

This is a rabbit named Oreo.

We were petting it with the guide.

Next we saw some pigs and piglets.

Here is a big pig.

A chick is a baby chicken.

We patted the chick.

Photos by Mrs. Hall 

Text by the JK students

Storyteller centre

We have been expanding our story centre, where the students can use props to re-tell stories we have read.  Here is what it looked like to start:

We arranged the materials so they were more visible to the students,

and made new storyteller cards. 

Favourite books were presented for consideration. We read them together, and the children offered reasons why they would or wouldn't work as a re-tell.

Barny the Dinosaur, Franklin's Class Trip, and our Little Monster's book all take place in a museum.  So when we evaluated Baby Einstein - Places to Play, it was not a good choice because:

     "It's not about a museum!"

     "A piece of it is missing." (part of the book is gone)

     and "Not so much is happening"

The teachers suggested Over in the Meadow.  Our evaluation was sidetracked by one of the illustrations, and our discussion time was spent deciding if it was an eagle or an owl.  The observation that, "It must be an owl because it's night time" was impressive!

Finally, we read The Three Little Pigs.  The children thought of reasons both for and against using it for storytelling:

"I think it's good because they have a lot of characters." (exciting - spontaneous use of new vocabulary learned through our discussions)

"I think it's good because we can use our house (we have a playhouse in the classroom) for the brick one."

"We can use playdough to make rocks."

"The pigs make music!"

And from the dissenters:

"I don't love it."

"I like Cinderella better."

 The different stories are much easier to see and access now!

There's a lot of huffing and puffing going on in here lately...

Baby Hospital

The students brainstormed a list of possibilities for their dramatic play centre. They voted on their choices and a bar graph was created which clearly shows class preferences.

Next they brainstormed a list of items (blue) their selection might need, and looked around their classroom (while their teachers checked in storage) for materials that could be used, real, created, toy, or "pretend".

After a few days the collection of supplies was reviewed, and the list was edited (black).

The centre was tested and the children dictated a list of four actions necessary for our babies:

Collected the rest of the supplies

  

Back to the list:

The Baby Hospital is now open!

Nature walks