Pictures

More fine motor fun: we practiced writing vertical/horizontal/circle lines in sand trays. Then we wrote our names and then had free reign - any lines, letters, or pictures we wanted.
Dress-up clothes was added to centers this week. It was very popular.
We introduced spacemen to help us use spaces between our words.
Here is our Creation collage we have been adding to during Bible. (Each child added a cloud, a star, drew a bird/fish, and drew a plant and animal to cut out and glue on)
We LOVE the new gym for afternoon recess!

Writing

This week we had a fun writing activity with the first letter of our names. At the beginning of Kindergarten, writing time includes a lot of fine motor activities (such as fingerpainting) to build up necessary hand muscles. Also, it took a while, which meant that we used up part of our lunch recess time, which was good since it was too hot to be outside for very long anyway.


It's good to get a little messy sometimes :)Later in the week we had another fun fine motor center (got this idea from another Kindergarten blog this summer) involving beads, pipe cleaners and a colander. I told my class they were doing this to make their hand muscles stronger; they might as well know the rationale, although I think they were more into the activity because it looked like a 'robot helmet'.

Reading

Today we were reading some environmental print. I chose some very familiar packages (and threw in a little culture with Canadian Smarties) and everyone could read these words today! The wonderful things about environmental print are that it is everywhere, and that it boosts children's confidence in their reading ability.And can I just say that my class this year loves to feed the trash monster? It borders on obsession. "Miss Vis, can I feed the trash monster?" "Miss Vis, the trash monster almost ate my arm!" "Miss Vis, do you feed the trash monster at night?". . . Last year's class didn't really care, but this year, they are really into it. I'm happy as long as the trash ends up where it belongs. He gets pretty full.

Science!

Science spilled out of our seats and around the room. Today in Bible we learned that on Day 2 God made the sea and the sky. During science class we learned more about the sky/air that God made. We did a few experiments to discover what air can do. Ask your child what they learned about air.

Here is experiment #2: trying to keep a feather in the air by blowing through a straw.
Hopefully the video clips work and you can see how our experiments work :)

Kindergarten Rules

Last week we made a list of Our Promises (rules). I helped them write them in a positive way, so if someone suggested "Don't kick people." I asked what we would do instead of hurting people. Here are the results:

Help people.
Share toys.
Keep your hands to yourself.
Sit on your chair properly.
Stay off the table.
Be nice.
Care for people.

When we finished, everyone signed the paper and we put it on the wall where we can all see it every day.

First Day

We had a great first day!

Welcome to Kindergarten!

Welcome to Kindergarten! Here are a few pictures of our room, which is pretty much ready for you! Here are our new cubbies and beyond them our art drying rack.
Here are the tables.
We have lots of books!
Also many puzzles and games.
Here is our Lego table and very cool treehouse.
Here is our house center.I hope you can all make it to Open House on Monday. I look forward to seeing you!