Mrs. Wacker's Kindergarten Class

 Hello AM Kindergarten families, What's New: During our short week we thought about farm environments. We thought about "things" or parts of a farm and whether they were living or non-living.  We noticed the non-living components were often things the farm environment needed.  We sorted farm toys as a group, then drew pictures in our learning journal.  We also added some harvested "crops" to our nature centre.  We did a: "What is in the box" guessing game, to discover a pumpkin was in my mystery box.  The children asked questions such as, "Is it big?" "Is if fluffy?" "Is it heavy?".  We asked 10 questions, after which, all the students were pretty certain it was a pumpkin.  Good job! At centres, many students worked on making a huge airport with the big blocks.  There was great collaboration.  Everyone one in the class helped clean it up each day, working hard to sort the blocks by size and shape.  Airport under constructi...

 Oki AM Kindergarten parents, What's New: The big excitement this week was opening up a doctor's office in place of the house centre.  The children did a lot of thinking about "who" works at a doctor's office and who would visit and why.     We also started thinking about white glue!  We started a"glue table", where kids collaboratively worked on building with stryofoam and cardboard pieces.  Using white glue is tricky for little hands.  Twisting the top open, tipping and shaking it upside down and putting the "right amount" to do the job.   We also used white glue to help us make leaf creatures after reading Leaf Man by Lois Elhert.  Thinking carefully about the different sizes and shapes of letters, the kids made a whole menagerie of leaf creatures including a leaf moose, leaf deer, leaf bunny, left and leaf birds! Literacy:  Focus Letters: This week we reviewed letters Aa and Mm and explored the letter Ss and Tt.  Plea...

Oki AM Kindergarten families,  During our short week, we thought deeply about caring for each other.  We started the week by reading You Hold Me Up , by Indigenous author, Monique Grey Smith. We talked about how there are many ways of knowing and learning and that we learn with many First Nations ways of knowing including our Circle of Courage and Land Based thinking.  We briefly touched on the roots of the "orange shirt" of Orange Shirt Day and Phyllis Webstad's story of her residential school experience.  This story treads lightly on such a deep and difficult history, focusing on the importance of family and respecting each person's right to be who they are.  Thinking of all the people that matter, while filling our orange heart. We also learned about land acknowledgements and practiced one taught by the Calgary Public Library.  It can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-z-CJwNa4w The CBE short describing the word "indigenous" in an easy t...