Happy Monday Kindergarten Families!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend in this warm weather we are having right now. I just want to give you a few updates about what is happening in kindergarten. 

This week we will be starting to learn about families. We will talk about our own families as well as other students families in our classroom. We will learn about different things that families like to do together as well as different traditions that families might have. Our poem for the next couple of weeks will focus around family and the different types of families there can be. The general outline for the poem will look like this:

Families

I have_________________.

I have_________________.

I have_________________.

I have_________________.

I have_________________.

I have_________________.

This is my family.

Each day there will be a different family shown through the poem. Our key words will be mom, dad, brother, sister, grandma and grandpa. Students will get to create a different poem each day.

We have also been learning about what a pattern is and that a pattern repeats. We will use different members of a family to create different patterns this week and work on colour patterns as well.

I also wanted to let you know that we are having an online book fair starting today!!! It runs from November 30 - December 13, 2020. The Shopify link below will allow you to browse and place orders. Please know that is a completely optional book fair and you do not have to purchase books. If you do plan to purchase books though please remember to use our class code as well RC190682. 

 

Shopify URL

https://bookfairs-canada.myshopify.com/pages/5153667

 

Featured Books  Check out some of the great new books available this fall.  Your Shopify link will also contain links to Explore the Books & Watch the Trailers. This will be their sneak peak of what’s coming!  Please note that your shoppers won’t be able to see the full selection or the shopping cart until your start date.   If you click on your link mid-fair, you will be able to see a running tally of number of books sold. 

 

Family Night is every Wednesday from 6:00 – 8:00 PM local time – FREE shipping on all orders placed during this time. Share the attached flyer– encourage families to take some time to browse the book selections, share a snack and have a snuggle up and read time at home.

If you have any questions about what we are up to in class or the book fair please email me. I am glad to help!

Thank you,

Seana Blake

smblake@cbe.ab.ca

 

 Hi Families!

I hope you are having a wonderful week! I just wanted to let you know that the November Scholastic digital flyer is out now. I will add the link to the flyer and our class code in case you are looking to add any books to your home library. Have a happy Wednesday!

https://editions.mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=678106&ver=html5

class code: RC190682

Seana Blake

smblake@cbe.ab.ca

 Happy Friday!

Our week of learning about pumpkins has come to an end. Our weekly poem taught us about different sizes of pumpkins and helped us to start recognizing words that repeat. We reviewed the letters Mm, Ss, Aa, Rr, Ll, Tt, Ff, Nn, Ll and Tt. We will not be doing new letters next week but will take the week to continue to review the letters we have talked about so far. We sign the song for each letter and learn an action that goes along with it that helps us remember the sound it makes.

We also talked about the number 1 and the number 2. We write the number, create a group of objects showing that number (2 blocks, 1 pencil, 2, leaves, 1 stick, etc.) show the number in tally marks, show the number in pictures (drawing 2 cars or 1 bear, etc.), what the number looks like on a dice as well as what the number looks like written in a word. 

Next week we will be retiring to look at our names and the letters in our names. We will practice printing our names, making our names with clay, rainbow writing our names and going on a letter hunt around the school. We will do a new weekly poem with the topic of how our names make each of us special and unique. 

The following week we will be discussing and learning about Remembrance Day and what that day means to us. I just wanted to give you a heads up in case you wanted to start talking with your child about the day and what it means. 

Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the nice weather we are supposed to be having!

Seana Blake

smblake@cbe.ab.ca

 Happy Friday Kindergarten Families!

We have had another great week of learning! Learning about trees and their leaves and what changes happen with trees in the fall. we learned another fall poem and enjoyed creating actions to go along with the words. Make sure to ask your child to sing the poem for you. :) 

Next week we will continue to talk about fall as well as talk about pumpkins and their lifecycle just in time for Halloween next weekend. I will also be sending out a email messenger with more information  about what we will be doing for Halloween at the school.

Also make sure to check your email for one from em over the weekend. I will be sending you an email with your students google classroom login as well as their password. Please make sure to login to their google email and get into our kindergarten online classroom. If you have any issues getting in make sure to send me an email and I can try to troubleshoot with you. 

With all the crazy cold weather we are having, make sure to send your students with the correct clothing for the weather. Jacket, snow pants, hats, mittens or gloves and boots are needed Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday if it is cold and there is snow on the ground. 

If you have any questions, please make sure to email me!

Seana Blake

smblake@cbe.ab.ca

 Happy Friday Kindergarten Families!

We have had a wonderful week in kindergarten! We have been reading books about fall and what is happening to the trees and leaves this time of year. Students have worked hard to read our poem this week and and play at different discovery centers. 

Students worked on asking questions about fall and what is happening to our tree. Next week we will start to find the answer to some of these questions. 

On Fridays, we do not do our discovery centers in our classroom. We use that time to go outside onto the land around our school and play and discover in nature. We have chosen a class tree and like to visit our tree and see the changes happening to it. We play different games and sometimes we do a scavenger hunt to look for different nature items. Each student has a sit spot that we use to sit quietly for a couple of minutes and observe what is around us. We look and listen but remain quiet. We talk about what we observed during that time as a group when we are done. 

We are busy and doing lots of great learning in kindergarten!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Ms. Blake

smblake@cbe.ab.ca

 Happy Tuesday!

I hope you all had a lovely and restful long weekend! Last week we took the week to learn about ladybugs and what they are doing in the fall. We talked about the different colors of lady bugs and where we might find them outside. This week we will be continuing about the changing season and what we are noticing outside. What we see with the trees, how the air feels, what the days are like. 

We will have a new class poem the week called Fall. We will work on reading the poem as well as looking for letters we know, words, repeating words, how many words, reading and pointing with our finger going from left to right. Here is the poem below.

Fall

Fall has red leaves.

Fall has yellow leaves.

Fall has orange leaves.

Fall has brown leaves.

Fall has falling leaves.

Feel free to read this poem with your child. You can look for letters they may know and they could draw pictures of the different colour leaves.

Hopefully the weather will hold up so we can go outside and see the different colors of leaves on the trees. 

Have a wonderful week,

Ms. Blake

smblake@cbe.ab.ca

 Here is the link of the scholastic flyer. 

https://cdn.coverstand.com/63079/674017/dd7bc65fdcd64cd388c5a491d48825403c2108ba.pdf

Have a wonderful weekend!

Seana Blake

 Hi Families!

We have had another wonderful week! This week we have have been taking about Orange Shirt Day and how all children matter. We read the book "My Hear Fills With Happiness" and talked about what makes us happy. Students had some lovely ideas about spending time with family, playing together and holding hands. We also created beautiful pictures about what fills each of their hearts with happiness. These pictures will be going up in the hall show we can share our happiness with the rest of the school.

Today kindergarten and the whole school participated in the Terry Fox Run. We read a book about Terry called "Terry Fox and Me" and then went out onto the field to run just like Terry did. We didn't give up and tried our hardest to run the whole time!

I attaching a link to the October Scholastic flyer in case you are looking for some new books for at home. This is optional for you but it is a great way to get new books at a great price. It also helps me to get new books for our classroom as well. If you decide to order, make sure you use our class code which is RC190682. 

October is off to a great start in kindergarten!

Have a wonderful and restful weekend,

Seana Blake

smblake@cbe.ab.ca

 Hi Again,

I forgot to mention in my last post that we will be starting Scholastic Book Clubs in class as well. This is a great way to get new books for you children at good prices as well as give back to our classroom community. If you are interested in purchasing books for you home you can go to http://www.scholastic.ca and use the class code RC190682 when you order. I will also be sending out a letter next week with more information. 

Happy Reading,

Seana Blake

smblake@cbe.ab.ca

 Happy Friday Everyone!

We had another great week in kindergarten! The students are settling in well to the classroom routines and are enjoying getting to know each other better each day. We have recently started talking about our names and what makes us unique. We are looking at the letters in our name and why our names start with a big letter and not a small one. We are also counting the letters and so far the longest name has had 6 letters. I would also like to talk with the students about the significance of their names and where their name game from and why you chose their name. If you could send me a short email answering those questions it would be very helpful in supporting our learning. 

Over the next week, we will be talking about Orange Shirt Day which is on September 30th and Terry Fox as we will be doing our Terry Fox Run on Friday October 2. Students are welcome to wear anything they have that is orange on September 30. If you don't have anything orange please don't feel like you need to go out and buy something as wearing orange is not mandatory. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we will be talking about the meaning of Orange Shirt Day and why we choose to recognize it as a school. For our Terry Fox Run on Friday, please ensure that your child comes to school in appropriate clothing to run in. We will be doing our run on the top field behind our school. 

I am excited about the week ahead and I know the students will have lots to tel you about what we are doing in class.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Seana Blake

smblake@cbe.ab.ca

 Hello Kindergarten Families!!

Well, we made it through the first week of everyone in kindergarten and it was great! It has been so lovely to have all of your children here and have then start to form friendships and relationships with each other. The students are starting to get used to being in the classroom and expectations around being in school. They are getting to know the classroom and the school building as well. It has been a great week getting to know each other and building a classroom community.

There are a few things I want to let you know about that can help your children transition into school:

• please make sure your child has a separate pair f shoes to use while inside the classroom (runners are the best as they can be worn when we go to gym)
• sending a water bottle filled with water would be best as we have carpet in out classroom and if there are spills it could get messy
• students are only here for a short time so sending a small snack works best as we don't have a lot of time to eat and that way food isn't being wasted
• if there is a change in your child's routine after school please. make sure you either email me or call the office so I know who is picking them up. Also anyone picking up your child needs to be on file in the office so we know they are approved by you.
• if you feel your cild may need a change of clothes please send them in a bag in your child's backpack

If you need to contact me you can email me at smblake@cbe.ab.ca or you can call the school at 403-777-8110 and I will get back to you as soon as I can. You can also chat quickly with me at the door as well. :)

Please reach out at any time if you have any questions or concerns.

Hope you are all having a wonderful week!

Seana Blake

Hello Kindergarten Families!

February is almost over and we have had a great month of learning about kindness and sharing it with our school community. The students were excited to become kindness ninjas and share kind actions and words within our classroom and the school as a whole. We took the Kindness Pledge as a class and worked on reading it as our class poem for the first 2 weeks of February. Students had a lot of fun spreading kindness around our school by making posters and decorating them to put them up in the hallways. Students took great pride in coming up with the sayings on the posters themselves!

In literacy, we are continuing to work on building our early literacy skills and working on letters and their sounds everyday. We have talked about syllables and different parts of words and have just started talking about rhyming words and what makes a word rhyme. We are also working on retelling stories and making connections to the stories they have heard. Students are enjoying books out time and sharing their connections with a partner and talking about why they chose to share their page.

In math, we are working with numbers and making groups of given numbers. The students have enjoyed building different numbers with blocks, buttons and other small objects. We have also been working on identifying dot patterns on dice and playing different math number games.

We ended off our month of sharing kindness by recognizing Pink Shirt Day at school. The Kindergarten Kindness Ninjas created a book about kindness and each class at our school will be receiving a book as a gift from our kindergarten classes. The students are so excited to deliver their books next week and to further promote and spread kindness throughout our school!