Dear Friends,

At the end of a hectic, worrisome and uncertain week, I want to share with all you parents the joy, the simplicity and the sweet certainty of kindergarten.

We get organized in the cubbies.

We look at books.

We play and learn together.

We like to write and draw.

We love puddles! (And a sunny day)

We like to see what we can make.

We like writer’s workshop! Look closely, we were drawing and writing about our favourite part of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

These are the versions of the story we have read.

 

I wish everyone a safe, healthy and happy break. I wish you good dreams, yummy treats, a board game or two, and some loving snuggles with your children.

Be brave, be strong, Team Awesome families. We will see each other soon.

 

With love,

Miss Parliament

 

 

Dear Friends,

As we progress through the kindergarten year, the children continue to make connections in their learning. They recognize and reinforce letters and numbers as they see them in books, puzzles, games and other classroom activities. The children share their ideas and experiences. Talking and playing together helps them connect their ideas from their own imaginings to the real world they live in. It is gratifying to see the children’s enthusiasm and abilities develop each day at school.

Watch us as we shine…

We print in lower case.

We explore numbers in many ways.

Matching numerals to quantities.

Counting as we move through the game board.

Exploring numbers that are larger or smaller than another number.

Printing proper numeral forms.

 

We make cool stuff.

A rocket ship.

Patterns and designs.

A tall tower.

A dog.

A rainbow cake.

An awesome track.

Tiny houses.

Bigger tiny houses.

Cool cars.

An inside slide.

A comfy spot.

Playdough cookies.

A race car.

A serious ramp.

And we still have time for…

Colouring.

Cutting safely.

Snow dough.

Water!

Snow!

Soccer.

Organizing snow and ice.

Tiny Mr. Panda.

Taking turns.

Drawing and colouring.

Cars.

Puzzles.

Our days are full in kindergarten… full of laughter and learning… full of children showing and sharing what they can do… full of incredible connections.

 

Love,

Miss Parliament

P.S. We said hello to a new friend this week. Rachel has joined the Bumblebee group. Welcome Rachel, we are happy to get to know you!

Dear Friends,

This week I wanted to highlight cooperative play because I am seeing it happening among the children. This is a kind of complex social play that has children working together in pairs or groups towards creating something or achieving a common goal. Developmentally this play starts to be seen around 4 or 5 years of age when children have developed enough social skills that allow them to engage purposefully with other children. Cooperative play further strengthens social skills such as sharing, taking turns, negotiating with peers and dealing with disputes that arise. Cooperative play improves listening and speaking skills, introduces the concept of teamwork, develops early leadership skills and lets children tackle problem solving. This play is important in the development of collaborative skills that lead to academic success in later grades.

Here are some good examples of cooperative play in action.

Building a tower,

a house,

a castle.

Building words.

A car conference.

Is it a house? a city? a pizzeria?

Exploring an arctic scene.

Playing school.

A roll of the dice.

Creating with sticky snow (at last!)

We continue to work on individual skills as well.

We can do big things… together!

 

Thank you for a very friendly February!

Love,

Miss Parliament