Thank You

As you have already heard, this will be my final year teaching prekindergarten.  It is a bittersweet goodbye for me.  While I look forward to the new challenge ahead, it is difficult for me to move on from the program we built from the ground up seven years ago.  Over these past seven years, I have been fortunate enough to work with some of the most dedicated, resourceful, and supportive educational assistants and therapists in the field.  I have learned so much from each and every team member I have had the opportunity to work with and will take this learning with my to my new position.

I can honestly say that this year's prekindergarten students have allowed me to experience one of the most rewarding years of my career thus far.  Each day was filled with moments of learning and joy and the successes far outweighed the difficulties.  Thank you so much for allowing us to work with your children.  They are each beautifully unique!

Noticing Nature

What an awesome week!  I will start off with our field trip to the river valley on Wednesday.  As you are well aware, there were many mud puddles to explore and playground equipment to climb.  I, along with the EAs, worked really hard to allow the students to direct their own exploration based on their individual interests.  This is harder than you may think.  As adults, we often feel a need to control situations.  I think this is largely due to a fear that, without our direction, children will engage in dangerous behaviour.  However, when children are able to take control over their own choices, they are able to develop a sense of ownership over their learning thereby increasing their motivation and engagement.  Rather than providing answers, I spent the day repeating other students' observations and posing 'I wonder' questions.
Thank you to everyone for braving the online consent form system.  It's not so complicated once you get the hang of it.  You will be using it more and more as your child continues on in our school system!
 Here are some more pictures from our time in the valley:

In the classroom, we were all very engaged in learning about the octopus.  Your child is now a mini-expert on this wonderful creature.  For example, do you know where and octopus' mouth is located?  Did you know that they have jet packs (student explanation for how they shoot ink and water)?  And did you know that they can change colour to hide and hunt?  The nonfiction book Meet the Octopus by Sylvia M. James guided our learning this week.

In phys ed, we continued our pool noodle floor hockey activities from last week.  We also played sharks vs fishes - another form of tag.  These students absolutely LOVE tag games.

I believe I mentioned our learning about balance in the email I sent out last week.  We continued that learning this week.  There is a cute little poem from Cosmic Kids Yoga that I have been using the past two weeks when speaking about balance.  Students sit cross legged and tilt from side to side in rhythm to the poem until the end.  It goes like this:
Tick, tock,
Like a clock
Until I find my center

Please send a swimsuit, towel, sun hat, and water shoes with your child every day next week.  Weather permitting, we will be at the spray park for pick up every day.

It is almost unbelievable, but this upcoming week will be our last week with students.  I have truly enjoyed working with these children.  This has honestly been one of the most fulfilling years I have had in prekindergarten (and there have been 7 years in total).  Thank you for trusting us to educate your children this year.  It has been my honour and privilege.

Working Together

Circles collaborative art project.  The students really enjoyed painting together.  This project carried over two days.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears was our focus story this week.  The students were delighted to learn that the 'bad guy' in the story wasn't the bears.  It was Goldilocks!  Here are a couple of pictures of students retelling the story using hand puppets.  As in previous weeks, students explored using different voices to represent the characters.

Cardiovascular strength and endurance was our physical education focus this week.  Using pool noodles cut down into small rainbow shapes, we played noodle popper tag - teachers against students.  We also learned about Cortisol and what it does to our bodies and brains.  We could feel our hearts pumping as our guard dogs (amygdalas) woke up and got us running.  Mrs Christan, from the RMS office, also came to lead us in a yoga session. She is a certified yoga instructor.  It was a busy week!

Please watch your emails for information about some end of the year field trips.  I would like to take advantage of the river valley and spray park during the month of June.  I will send you more specific information about these trips via email.

June's Important Information:

• I would like to meet with every parent at the end of the year.  Please watch your email for scheduling.
• June 7, 2016 Field Trip to Lions Park
• June 9, 2016 Ms Wilson away for Convocation. Tania Ortiz will be subbing.
• June 13 - 16th, 2016 Walking field trips to the spray park
• June 16, 2016 Last Day of Prek!!!

Huff, Puff, Blow!

The Three Little Pigs is such a fun story and it lends itself to so many different learning activities and objectives.  Of course, the students are able to participate in the repetitive phrases throughout the story.  To build on last week's learning, we are using big voices for the wolf and little voices for the pigs.  It is also a wonderful story for sequencing concepts and vocabulary (e.g., first, second, third).
In addition to these wonderful language and literacy objectives, we have also been running some fun science experiments.  Using various items from the classroom, students have been hypothesizing whether or not the item will blow away.   For our final object on Wednesday, I pulled out a weighted lap animal.  All of the other objects we tried that day did blow away - even the small wooden block!  As soon as I pulled out the weighted animal, I heard one of the younger students exclaim "It's so heavy!"  What great thinking!  On Thursday, students got to select their own items from the classroom to guess and test.
Another fun experimental activity involved jujubes and toothpicks.  The students really enjoyed building structures and then seeing if they could withstand the force of the hair dryer.  There were some very creative structures!

Of course, blow art had to be part of the weekly plan.

As I mentioned in my last post, Mrs Kehoe came to visit us this week for our regulation circle.  Using the program MindUp as the framework, she talked with the students about the role their happy hippos (hippocampus) play in storing memories.  She introduced mindful smelling as a way of activating those memories.  She also encouraged us to control our impulses and engage in mindful tasting.  I have never eaten one candy so slowly!  Here is a hilarious video (careful because you will be singing it for days) about impulse control:

Me Want It (But Me Wait)

A jumping and hopping course was our physical education activity this week.  Some of our students are working on two foot jumps while others are working on one foot hopping.  Mrs Warrell set the course up differently each day, and we had a great time jumping and/or hopping on and over various objects.  We even got to jump on a small rebounder!

Reminder that there is NO SCHOOL on Monday.  Enjoy the long weekend with your loved ones.

Small, Medium-Sized, and Big

Our focus story this week was The Three Billy Goats Gruff.  Along with developing our storytelling skills, we were focusing on using different voice levels as we acted out the three billy goats and the troll.  Students really enjoyed this story, both during group learning times and during child-directed play.  The photo above shows some students reenacting the story during playtime.

Students had an absolute blast in phys ed.  My instructional focus was building cardiovascular/muscle strength and endurance.  Most of our time was spent playing Teacher Tag.  This is a version of freeze tag where the teachers are 'it'.  The students had a lot of fun running away from us and saving their frozen classmates.  We also used scooter board to push off from the walls using our hands or feet in Scooter Board Blast Off.

A Pete the Cat book served as our topic guide for our brain circle and regulation learning.  In this story, Pete learns that he can change his own feelings by changing his perspective - how he chooses to look at the world.  Next week, we are lucky enough to have Mrs Kehoe coming to lead our brain circles.  She will be reinforcing our learning about Mindfulness with a focus on mindful smelling and memories, and mindful tasting and delaying gratification.  It should be a lot of fun!

There are really only a few weeks left for Prek.  Our final day of class will be June 16th, 2016.  Please watch your email for more information about final IPP/transition meetings scheduling.  Some of these will happen at the beginning of June, while others will be scheduled for the week between June 20th - 24th.

Have an amazing weekend!

Paint, Paint, and more Paint

On Monday, I introduced the famous artist Georgia O'Keeffe.  The students used their mindful eyes to notice all sorts of details in her art.  We learned three important things about O'Keeffe paintings:

1. She liked to paint flowers
2. She like to use bright colours
3. She painted her flowers so big, they look like they are falling off the canvases.

The 4 Cats art studio came on Wednesday and students created their own flowers in the style of Georgia O'Keeffe.  I will be displaying their artwork at Robina Baker on Monday for the Celebration of the Masters.  Please come by Robina between 3:30 - 6:00 pm to check out their art.  I will be there and would love to see you!

Students drew their own beanstalks.  Many of the students chose to add details from the story, such as the giant, a castle, and the axe chopping the beanstalk down.

Jack and the Beanstalk was our focus story for the week.  We enjoyed three different versions of this traditional tale.

Excited to build a castle in the clouds (shaving cream)

What a fun activity!

Students retelling the story during child directed learning

Another big project this week was preparing for Mother's Day (spoiler alert).  Each student worked very hard to paint their pots, select a flower, plant it, and water it.  Happy Mother's Day!

Did I mention it was a busy week?  We also had the pleasure of having a member of the Lion's Club come and read us a story.  The book My House by Byron Barton was 'just right' for us.  We were thrilled that she presented the book to us as a gift.  Unfortunately, I was too engaged in the presentation that I did not think to snap any pics.

As you are well aware, it was a super hot week.  Mrs Kehoe, from Riverview, brought a slurpee treat to help cool us off.  Thanks, Mrs. Kehoe!

Our phys ed focus this week was object control - striking.  We played partner t-ball using pool noodle bats and foam balls on pylons.  These kids can really bat!  

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Recap and Looking Forward

The classroom was wonderfully noisy this week.  The students discovered the musical instruments and a marching band quickly formed.  Drums, cymbals, tambourines, and shakers filled the room during child directed playtime.  It was great ;)

Our focus piece of children's literature was Paul Galdone's version of the classic tale The Little Red Hen.  In this story, a hen, a cat, a dog, and a mouse all live together.  The cat, the dog, and the mouse, like to spend their days sleeping, so the hen is left doing all of the housework.  All her hard work pays off when she grows some wheat, grinds it into flour, and bakes a delicious cake.  The other animals didn't want to help with the work, but they sure wanted to help eat the cake!   The lesson of this story is: if you want the good stuff, you have to do the work.  Our classroom is filled with wonderful workers, so for our craft project on Friday, we all made chef hats, just like the little red hen wore in the book.

Adorable!

We had a really fun time in phys ed this week with obstacle courses.  We enjoyed going around, over, under, through, and on various items to deliver Easter eggs from one basket to another.  As the week went on, I observed increased balance and confidence.  These students have come so very far in their motor skills this year.  I have to give a big shout out to our Physiotherapist, Megan Archibald, who designed the developmentally appropriate gross motor curriculum that guides my planning.  It is awesome!

Mindful listening was the focus of our regulation lessons this week.  We used our mindful listening to notice the sounds around us, and to play a sound guessing game.  The guessing game was a lot of fun!

Next week promises to be really busy.  I hope you all received the email I sent out earlier regarding the 4 Cats art studio visit on May 4th.  Please ensure that your child is wearing old clothing on this day.  While I will provide paint shirts, I cannot guarantee that they will not get paint on their clothes.  I believe we will be using acrylic paint!  Please check the calendar above for information about all of next week's exciting events.