Last Week

The children were super busy this week.  The first busy day was SPORTS DAY!  All the different events were fun.  Most of them enjoyed bowling and the fencing the best.

Our last day party was enjoyed by most.  Playing some minute to win it games.  Blowing the marshmallow off the table, moving the paper fish and put the pencil in the bottle (morning) or pin the sandcastle on the beach (afternoon).  They were also so very full with all the great snacks that were went in.

I want to say a big Thank you to all those parent volunteers throughout the year.  With out your help the year would not have gone so smoothly.  Every little bit counted a ton if it was coming on field trips, going swimming or sending in playdough for us to use.

Have a great summer everyone.

World Refugee Day

Please wear blue in support of World Refugee Day on Monday.

Inglewood Bird Sanctuary

The students had a good time at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary.  We learnt about all the different things that animals/insects need to survive. (Food, Water, Shelter, Space).  We also learnt about the different parts a of a ladybug.  Did you know that red things on the outside are not wings?  They are actually called elytra.  Also, sadly we found out that the number of spots on a ladybug does not tell us how old the ladybug is but rather what species it is.  In Alberta the seven spotted ladybug was just introduced.

During the nature walk the first group was so lucky and were able to see a deer.  Sadly the students were a little too loud and scared it away.  The second group was able to see baby Canadian geese.

Today in AM Kindergarten

We had an interesting discussion today about safety in the car. It started because one of our friends told us that they get to ride in the front seat on their parents lap.  We decided that was not a safe choice.  The safe thing to do in the car is . . . . We need to sit in a car seat or booster, in the back seat. There are air bags. They are not balloons.  They are hard like a rock.  We might bleed if we get hit. We might have to go to the hospital.  We also said you should never crawl into the front seat while the car is moving.  We need to make sure we wear out seatbelt.  Stay sitting on your bum and don't turn around.  We also decide we should also try to be quiet in the car, you can talk but not yell.  It will distract the driver.

Kindergarten Concert

I am so proud of all the children.  They did an amazing job last night at the concert.  They sang nice and loud.  I hope the parents had as much fun as the kids did.  Sorry for the crouch down part.

In Kindie Land this Week

We have been working very hard to get some items ready for our Kindergarten concert this week.  We first read a book called "The Best Part of me".  The afternoon class got some help finishing this with our buddies from Mr. K's class.  Today we worked on different feelings.  You will have to try and guess your child's feeling.  Don't let them tell you.

There were a lot of papers sent home again today.  The most important paper is the field trip paper. Please make sure to send it back as soon as possible.  We are also still looking for volunteers to come with us.

There is one final scholastic form as well.  It makes great end of the year gifts or good summer activities for long road trips.

Book Fair and Field Trip

Hello all,

The book fair was planned for next week but unfortunately we have had to post pone this amazing event.  I will send home June Scholastic Flyers for you to purchase summer books from.  Please keep in mind that the bonus coupons earned off these purchases help to supplement the classrooms.  However the Kindergarten concert is still on and I hope to see you all there.

The field trip forms will also be coming back this week if you could please fill them out as soon as possible and return them that would be greatly appreciated.

Non Standard Units of Measurement

Most of us know how to use a ruler or a tape measure to figure out how long or tall something is.  In Kindergarten those things are a little trickier to use so we measure things with . . . . . other things. This week we used our pattern cubes to measure different things around the classroom.  We started out with small things and then went to the really big.

I measured a car.  It is three cubes.  Can you write that?

I measured this car.  It is big.

I am measuring this doll.  Can I have one of your cubes?

Hold still.  We need to count how tall you are.

How big is the water table?

Okay! We want to measure you Ms. Groneberg lay down.  

Something to Sign up For

Are you looking for some free sports day instructions?  Is your child 6 to 12 years of age?  One of my amazing co-workers found this site.  It is on June 18th and you have to be signed up by June 12th.  If you are interested please follow the link below.

https://allsportoneday.ca/pages/home

Pumpkin Planting

Thank you to some amazing parent volunteers.  The children had a great deal of fun today planting our pumpkins in the garden.  We were able to dig and play in the dirt.  I can't wait to see how they grow.  Steps we had to do to plant our pumpkins.  Step 1: Make a hill of dirt.  Step 2: Make a hole in the middle of the hill of dirt.  Step 3: Put in your plant.  Step 4: Cover up your plant to the first set of leaves (so it doesn't blow over).  Step 5: Water your plant.  Yipee!  We had so much fun.

Run Bowness

I challenge all my students to join the Run Bowness Run.  I currently have one student signed up.  If there are 6 students from the morning and afternoon class. I will also run. Let's go Kindergarten we can do it.

Bowness Run Kids Mile

This Weeks Home Reading

So, this weeks home reading will be very similar to every other week.  The one thing that is a little different is there is a paper in the home reading bag with the word ______'s sight words.  There were a few kids that were talking in the afternoon class about keeping track of all the words they know and the new ones they want to learn.  So I found something that might work.  You do not have to use it if you don't want to.  The idea is they either place a sticker or colour in the square when they can read that word on their own in lots of different places.  You can have them cut it out and staple to corner together.  If you don't want to use it please go ahead and recycle it.  If I see it in the home reading bag each week I will add a new one or two lists each week.  A lot of these words will be words that are in their home reading books.  Enjoy and I hope you all have an amazing weekend.

Updates from the School

Why does my child not have a library book?  Do I have one hiding in the house somewhere?  No, you might not.  We have missed a couple of library visits due to the fact that they are painting and rearranging in there and it is not safe for all of us in there.

Gym?  We have been doing gym in the classroom lately as it has been a little difficult to get through the hallways with all the painting going on.  I am hoping to do gym outside next week.  Please dress your child for snow, rain or shine.  It does not matter what the weather is, we will be going out. Thank you for understanding.

Tomorrow is the pm kindergarten students turn for early dismissal.  Everyone else have a great weekend.

Butterfield Acres Farm Trip

A big thank you to all the volunteers that came out on Friday to make our field trip a success.  The children had so much fun.  I can't put it in to words so I will just add a great deal of pictures.

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope you have all enjoyed your weekend and most importantly the Mother's Day gifts that your children worked very hard to make.  The kids were able to make a choice between muffins and making you a wreath to hang.  No matter which one they picked they worked hard all week to get everything just right.  I hope you enjoyed them.

Butterfield Acres

I will be sending home a reminder of everything the children need to bring for the field trip on Friday. I do however still need a few volunteers to join us on the trip.  If you have not already volunteered and can come with us please let me know as soon as possible.  Thank you.

The "at" Family

We have been working on the "at" word family.  We sounded out real and 'fun' words that have "at" in them.  To work on this we have also made them out of playdough, written them on white boards and looked for them in books on the shelves.  The one that a lot of the kids liked was sorting the words in two different piles "at" words and "not at" words.

Our Pumpkins

The kids are so excited to watch our pumpkins grow.  They run over to the plants every time they come in the room.  They have watched as the stalk and leaves pushed up through the soil.  They look every day to see if there are more out.  They were also really excited when the one stalk and leaves popped up and the outer shell of the seed came out with it.

Field Trip to Butterfield Acres Farm

Next Friday, May 6th we will be going to Butterfield Acres.  Again I will need some volunteers.  The field trip forms will be coming home tomorrow.  Please fill them out and return them as soon as possible.  They will need to bring a lunch to eat there.

Safety City

Wow!  Our field trip was wonderful.  We could not have done it without all of our amazing volunteers (I hope you all enjoyed yourself as well).  We learnt about different traffic signs.

This is a yield sign.  It is for cars and bikes not walking people.

Crosswalk.  Stay in between the white lines.  Look left, right then left again.

They had a tiny city for us to practice in.  One side was the city with lots of little city building and the other side was country and had a bunch of country buildings.  We all had a chance to be drivers and pedestrians.  I think it is safe to say none of us should be driving any time soon as we had a lot of trouble staying on our side of the road.  Ha ha!

Here I come.  Wait what side am I supposed to be on? 

Rules?  Who needs rules?

Here comes trouble.  We are not really following the rules. 

I did it.  I stopped before the line.

Oops!  Someone is crossing.

After a great deal of fun practicing our driving skills.  For some of the children they found the tricycle difficult as they have been riding two wheel bikes for a while now.  It was time for our group photo and snack.  Here we go!  Everyone say cheese.  Wait can you even see the sun is so bright?

Tomorrow's Field Trip

Thursday is our trip to Safety City.  The children are very excited.  Please remember that they will be coming in for the full day.  We will be at Safety City from 9:00 am until 11:40 am and then will return to school for lunch and some afternoon activities.  I will be sending a paper list of things to remember for the trip but they are also listed below.

Please make sure your child has:

• Sun Hat
• Bike Helmet 
• Water Bottle with water in it
• Snack
• Lunch (if you have not already ordered pizza)

It is supposed be very warm out tomorrow.  Please put sunscreen on your child before they come to school.  If you would like it to be reapplied, you may send it in there backpack and I will help them to put it on.

Making Trees with Our Buddies

Today we also had fun making paper bag trees.  Our buddy class came down to the Kindergarten class and helped us make paper bag trees.

Working with Letters

WE have done it.  We made it through the entire alphabet.  We will continue to practice are letters and letter sounds but will no longer be focusing on one letter a week.  This week was the letter was "Y".  It has four different sounds.  Ask your child about it.

We have also started to focus on reading strategies.  One of them was sounding out many different words.  We also talked about skipping over the word you don't know reading the others and filling it in with what makes sense (I have been doing this during read alouds) as well looking at the picture to try and figure out the word.  Today we played a game with pictures where we knew what the picture was and tried to figure out what the beginning and ending sounds of the words were. 

Planting Pumpkins

It is a very exciting time of year.  The Kindergarten children were very excited that they are going to be able to plant something in the big garden out front of the school.  We started our pumpkins the classroom.  A set of lovely volunteers brought in all of the things we needed and even drew us picture step by step instructions to follow.

Field Trip and Pizza Day

Many of you have asked.  What about pizza day?  It is on the same day as the field trip.  I have double checked with the wonderful organizer of the pizza days has said that we can also have the pizza in Kindergarten.  If you are still interested in the pizza lunch please send in your forms as soon as possible.

Your child will still need a water bottle and a snack that day if you order their lunch.

Field Trip

Next week is our field trip and there are still some people that have not handed in their field trip forms.  I also need to send a few back as there was a medical form on the back of the forms that needs to be filled out and some of us overlooked that piece.  If your child does not have a bike helmet please let me know as this is a very important thing to have for this field trip.

Thank you and I will soon be sending home the forms for Butterfield Acres.

Looking for Some Fun things to Do?

I have been hearing of some fun things that you might want to do with your children.

The first one is FREE.  Thank you to one of my morning parents I found out that you can take you and your family to the Glenbow museum downtown for free the first Thursday of every month from 5 to 9 pm.

The Saturday Morning All You Can Eat Cereal Cartoon Party (April 16th).  I have been to this one the last couple of years.  It is put on by the Calgary Underground Film Festival.  They have some really old cartoons and funny commercials of old toys.  The tickets are $6 for children and $12 for adults.  Yes! The cereal for the most part is sugary but it is only one morning and many of the kids I have seen wear pajamas.  They do also have different types of milk for those people who are lactose intolerant.  

A bit of a healthier option would be to register for the Bowness Run.  I hear that there is a competition to see which school in the Bowness area will have the most participants.  Let's work together to make it Belvedere Parkway.  Early Registration has started.

There is also another outdoor one that looks like a great deal of fun called Slide the City.  This is an event where there is going to be one very large slip and slide.

If you hear of an event that you and your family are going to and would like me to tell other families please email me.

Have a great weekend!

2 D and 3 D shape

The children have been working so hard at looking at and learning the name of different shapes.  We made different shapes using marshmallows and toothpicks.  The children were given very little instruction on how to make the 2 and 3 dimensional shapes.  We also had a talk about how it might be hard to make cones, spheres and cylinders as there is no way to bend the toothpicks.  This did not stop them from trying.

I made a rectangle using 6 marshmallows and 6 toothpicks. 

I tried to make a sphere.

I made two squares.

Artist in Residence

We had our first turn with the artist in residence today.  Thank you all for not wearing your best clothes.  Our next day for the artist in residence will be next Friday the 15th.  Again please do not send your child in brand new clothes.  If there are other dates that we will be doing this I will let you know.

This Friday is early dismissal.  It is the morning kindergarten children that will be in that day.

Today in Kindergarten

Many of us had fun painting with the artist in residence.  We painted inside a square of our very own. There were three circles inside the square and then the background.  We were able to choose our very own colours.

We are also currently working on 3 D shapes.  They like to sing the song  the 3 D shape rap here is a link to the Song.  We are pretty good at identifying a sphere, cone, cylinder, cube and a pyramid.  The new shape we learnt today is called a rectangular prism.  It is tricky to say.  Today we worked on deciding which 3 D shapes rolled, stacked and were able to slide.

We started to build with different shapes and talk about them.

My tower has 4 rectangular prisms, 1 cylinder, 2 cubes and a pyramid. said by L 

Look at the flower we made.

Look at my sun.

It is easy to make a duck.

We found that juice boxes are rectangular prisms and that a lot of are snack containers are cylinders.  The homework for this week is to try and find a 3 D shape somewhere in your home and be able to tell me what it is and what shape it is.  Have fun finding all the different shapes.