Important Announcement: Monday, Oct 1st is "Orange Shirt Day/Every Child Matters" at Hawkwood School! This is a day for all people to come together in the spirit of reconciliation, as it recognizes the time of year when young children were taken from home and sent to residential schools. It is a time when schools can promote an on-going support and expectation around acceptance, caring, respect and inclusion for all! Since 2013, Orange Shirt Day falls on September 30th, but as it is a Sunday this year, our school chose to acknowledge our commitment to on-going reconciliation on October 1st.
This is very different from Kindergarten's Orange Day coming up in October, when we will focus on the "colour orange" in our classroom literacy, art and science explorations! Kindergarten students continue with classroom and school routines, colour day celebrations connected to curriculum work in science and language arts, and listening carefully for both specific instructions, as well as letter names and sounds. Students practice book handling skills, tracking print left to right and library skills, like using a browsing stick. We listen to stories every day and practice making predictions about and connections to text. Students interact socially during snack and centre time, and take opportunities to connect numbers to a meaning whenever possible, such as on our class calendar. Moving forward, students will continue with this work, as we gear up for our Fall Community Walk on Friday, Oct 5th. Students will have a chance to explore centres and learning opportunities in the classroom related to seasonal changes, colours, building and creating, just to name a few. We are starting to build a "Fall Pumpkin Patch" in our classroom as more pumpkins keep showing up! Thank you everyone! Letters and Sounds: Although we are learning all the letters and all the sounds all the time, our afternoon class has taken the time to focus in on the letters "Ll", "Ww", and "Yy" so far. You could review and ask about those letters and sounds at home, as you explore a variety of literature together. Students practice printing upper and lower case letters at school and they practice producing the letter sound and identifying words that start with that same sound. For printing, we are focusing on individual student names, as well as all the "zoom" letters to start! (check out "RESOURCES" above to see a copy of some great letter groupings!) Students are invited to come with parents and participate in the school Terry Fox Run tomorrow morning at 10:00 (assembly in the gym first!)
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This week in Kindergarten we continued to develop our fine motor skills. Students did leaf rubbings; we talked about rubbings as a type of art, and the proper way to hold a crayon while rubbing. Rubbing materials were added to centre time activities for students to experiment with on their own.
“Experiments with a variety of art materials” and “begins to select from familiar media, tools or materials” are both part of Kindergarten's Creative Expression portion of the curriculum. Next week both PM Kindergarten classes will be spending time with their buddy class! “Buddies” is when an older and younger grade come together within Hawkwood School to bond and build relationships. Buddy class activities can include reading, art, games, or any variety of community building events. Buddy time is a meaningful way for classes to connect with each other across grades, build good citizenship skills, and strengthen our school community.
Students were asked some very important questions: “why do we need to learn our letters” and “what are letters for.” Students were then asked to experiment with both letters they know, and some they see in the classroom environment. Letter recognition, and letter sound knowledge is a large part of our ongoing Kindergarten learning.
A few people have requested an afternoon Kindergarten class list. Please see below for our current list of students.
In Kindergarten we have started to learn about colours, for example blue is cold colour that can make us feel cool.
We are also working on fine motor skills such as cutting, painting, gluing, and drawing. These activates help build strong hands and are a part of our Physical Skills and Well-Being outcome: “The child develops fine motor skills involving finger speed, arm steadiness, arm and hand precision, finger and hand dexterity, and the manipulations of small materials.” - Alberta Education Kindergarten students are getting to know our school, staff and their classroom. We are settling in with routines and Kindergarten expectations. We are learning to follow instructions. We are making new friends. We are taking on new responsibilities, like cleaning up after ourselves, and cooperating with others.
We like to learn about colours in kindergarten! Learning about colours lends itself to great science connections as we learn how to identify and maybe even mix and create different colours. We will also check out seasonal colour changes in plants and animals. Literacy connections are many as we learn to recognize colour words, listen for beginning sounds, and print beginning letters (and maybe even try printing the whole colour word).
The following is a list of "Colour Days". On these special days, students have the option of dressing in that special colour as well as bringing a snack of that colour. You can help by supporting your child's participation, helping him/her to choose his/her coloured clothing and coloured snacks. At the end of the morning, ask your child what colour activities he/she participated in, find that special colour in your home or your community, and maybe even read some books at home or the public library that might have colour words in them. Thank you in advance for your enthusiastic participation, and happy colouring! Colour Day Dates: Sept 13-Blue Sept 18-Red Sept 26-Yellow Oct 3-Brown Oct 17-Purple Oct 25-Orange Nov 5-Green |