Love is...the theme this week!!
We read stories, used math shapes and patterns, and sang songs to explore the idea of love. How does it make us feel? How do we show love? What is a compliment? Being kind and caring to our family and friends is an important social skill we will continue to develop in our lifetimes. See how our students expressed their ideas of love and feelings in their hearts this week.
Love, Z by Jessie Sima is about a small robot named Z. He finds a message in a bottle signed, "Love Beatrice." He decides to find out what "love" means. Our students created a robot from paper shapes and recorded how many squares, triangles, rectangles, circles, and hearts they used to make their robot. Here is what some of our students think "love" means.
Love is...
"drinking hot chocolate with my mom and dad."
"hugging everybody."
"kissing my dog."
"when my grandma picks me up from kindergarten."
"helping people that are hurt."
"getting popcorn at a movie theatre with my mom, dad, and brother."
"when I hug my mommy before bed."
We read the story, "In My Heart" by Jo Witek about the many feelings we have inside our hearts. Each feeling was captured with words, colours, and pictures, like "happy, calm, sad, afraid, mad, silly, and more."
We created math patterns in our heart pictures choosing coloured stickers to show patterns expressing our different feelings.
ABAB - might be shown as red, blue, red, blue to mean: excited, calm, excited, calm.
AAB - might be shown as green, green, red to mean: happy, happy, mad.
ABC - might be the colours purple, white, yellow to mean: brave, hopeful, silly.
In Kindergarten we do NOT hand out individual Valentine cards. We know that asking families to include cards for 50 children is not always possible. Some children are not ready to write their own name on a tiny paper 50 times, meaning parents often do that work. As a class, we work very hard for weeks leading up to Valentine's Day to foster friendship and community in a way that is meaningful...
On Wednesday, we celebrated Valentine's Day with an inclusive, whole group activity about friendship, showing love and kindness to our friends and celebrating what makes each of us special. We have been learning about compliments and how to use words to share kindness and tell our friends what we like about each other.
These are some of the compliments shared:
"He plays nicely and shares legos with me."
"He takes turns on the playground."
"She sits quietly at the carpet and listens to the teacher."
"He runs fast in gym."
"She helps me when I need help."
"I like her smile."
"I like how she is confident"
"She is my friend and we play together"
Thank you for supporting the work we are doing in Kindergarten!
❤️Music - We learned a few songs about friendship and Valentine's this week.
Maybe your child will sing a song to you! "Skinnamarink." OR
"I like you. Yes I do. Will you be a friend of mine? I like you." OR
"Valentine, Valentine. Who has the valentine? I have the valentine."
Important Kindergarten Dates
Thursday, Friday, Feb.15, 16 is Teachers' Convention - NO SCHOOL for students.
Monday, Feb. 19 is Family Day - NO SCHOOL.
Friday, Feb. 23 - AM Kindergarten attends 9:10-12:05.
Wednesday, Feb. 28 - PINK SHIRT Day - more info to come.
LINK to our school calendar
