We love playing outdoors! Now that the weather is getting colder we need our hats and mittens. We play outside twice daily so please send in warm clothing for outdoors. Thanks for keeping us warm!
Month: October 2018
K2’s ‘color hunt’ in Ms. Cleveland’s classroom
Re-building Noah’s Ark
After our extensive exploration of the Parashat Bereshit, we dove into the story of Noah and the ark. Following the telling of the story, the yelladim were challenged to build their own teavot using a sheet of tin foil.
When all of the arks were built, we tested them in water with plastic animals to see how many chaiyot they could hold. This experiment provided an excellent opportunity to practice counting in Hebrew and we even had some models that held 100 animals! When the arks sunk, we discussed ways to improve the design in order to save even more chaiyot from the flood.
Our Kindergartens proudly sing their French fall song: C’est l’automne!
Our Kindergarten Shoe Graph
We began our new unit in math ..Data Management! A few of the new math words we learned ..Data and Labels. Our class graph will show you our results of the different types of shoes we have in our class!
She’elot B’Ivrit (שאלות בעברית)
Our yelladim are becoming masters of asking questions in Hebrew. Without fail, just as our lesson is starting, hands go up for bathroom, water or tissues. Luckily this is also a perfect opportunity to learn practical Hebrew.
Efshar la’lechet la’shiroutim bevakasha? אפשר ללכת לשׁירותים בּבקשׁה
Efshar l’ishtot mayim bevakasha? אפשר לשׁתות מים בּבקשׁה
Efshar tissue bevakasha? אפשר טישׁו בּבקשׁה
They’ve become experts already, and are showing their leadership skills to support their classmates who are still a bit shy or unsure.
Notice, there are no Bali’s in our classroom (inside joke for Israelis)!
We are also becoming aleph bet masters and love using our bodies to create the shape of the letters.
Here we are as the letter Dalet:
Shavuah tov,
Morah Shira
Leaf Hunt
- With today being a perfect sunny fall day, the Kindergarten Class went on a Fall Leaf Hunt. With our clipboards, leaf hunt sheet, and bags in hand, we set out to find different types of trees and leaves. We wondered why the leaves changed colours which led us to a discussion of what is Chlorophyll. The discussions and investigating into these questions will continue throughout the week with lots of learning on this topic and why Autumn is Awesome!
(A whole week of fun) שבוע שלם של כיף
We are now finally entering our first full week of school and I am so happy to be coming back into the classroom filled with enthusiasm and new ways to enrich learning after my time spent with the amazing Silvia Tolisano http://langwitches.org/blog/.
As requested, here is the Shabbat list for K1 and K2 students. Some of you have already informed me of times when you will be away (thank you!) no worries, I have already made the adjustments here. Any other conflicting dates can easily be sorted out.
Morah Shira
Planning Board Up and Running!
Our Planning Board is up and running! As we begin the journey of living one of the North Stars of the OJCS, the Kindergarten Class has begun by Owning Their Own Learning. This board allows the children (with a bit of my input) to choose what their choice of learning through play for that day will be. Each child picks an activity of their choice and places it into their name pocket. There’s so much variety on the board such as writing stories, drama and storytelling with puppets, blocks of different kinds where math is used to design, house corner where some of the best learning happens by writing grocery lists, menus, and ideas that your children will enquire and discover that I have not seen yet. There are math games, word games, woodworking, cut and paste, painting, and our Daily Five for Literacy built into the board as well. As we navigate through discovering all the exciting centres, I will document for you through the blog what the children have been doing. Sometimes a picture alone can capture the learning. A nature walk is planned for this week ( I’ll be looking at the weather and hopefully we can find a nice sunny day) where we will look at the trees and the foliage and discover lots from what we see and find in the world around us. This will lead us to some great questions that we can bring back into our classroom.
October Happenings!
Last week the Kindergarten class began the Global Read Aloud. I have been a part of the Global Read A loud for 4 years and each year it continues to grow. Each week I will be reading a book selected from the Global ReadAloud and will connect to other classes reading the same book at the same time. This year the authour chosen is Julie Flett. Below is the breakdown of the books we’ll be reading in class. After reading My Heart fills with Happiness, everyone did their first writing activity of what fills their heart with happiness. As well,through a site called Flipgrid, we watched children in New York share what made them happy. We listened to the book Wild berries as an orchestra sang this book and some of the words were repeated in Cree. The concept of children all over the world reading the same book at the same time and sharing their thoughts and ideas is very exciting. This then led to a wonderful discussion of what does it mean to be Global and we read a book exactly with that title. I’ve added a short video of what the Global Read A loud is all about and am very excited to be sharing this in Kindergarten this year.
Today we had our first monthly school Rosh Chodesh Assembly. As well we had our second Library visit. Please remember to send back the book by the following Wednesday in order to be able to choose a new one. Thanks to everyone for responding to Madelaine’s request for water bottle caps. I will be using them for a literacy centre for learning sight words. You can keep on sending them in!
Breakdown of the Global Read Aloud Books
Week 1: My Heart Fills With Happiness by Monique Gray Smith and Julie Flett
Week 2: Wild Berries by Julie Flett
Week 3: You Hold Me Up by Monique Gray Smith, illustrated by Danielle Daniel
Week 4: A Day with Yayah by Nicola I. Campbell and Julie Flett
Week 5: When We Were Alone by David Alexander Robertson and Julie Flett