Donamo's Kindergarten

For the past two weeks the Kindergarten students have been drawing a variety of pumpkin faces and cutting them out for our pumpkin carving draw.  They used their knowledge of shapes and feelings to draw the faces.  We built a high quality drawing and a high quality cutting rubric.  The students had to achieve the happy or happier face to be able to put their pumpkin entry into our draw.  The students used these rubrics to self assess their work and set goals for improvement.  We had a total of 54 pumpkin entries and today we drew one pumpkin entry and carved that face into our pumpkin.  The winning entry was Kensi's and she drew heart eyes, a heart nose and a smiling face.  Kensi said, "My pumpkin feels happy."  Through this task the students learned how to draw and identify shapes, how to cut on a curved line, how to self assess and how to set goals for improvement, and how to identify and draw emotions.  

In Kindergarten we have been learning about pumpkins and connecting this learning to feelings and emotions.  The students had the opportunity to engage in the painting learning centre where they painted orange pumpkins.  When the paint dried they used black paint to make the faces with a variety of feelings.  Then they worked with the teacher to copy the feeling word that describes their pumpkin.  Some students independently copied print and others required hand over hand support by the teacher.  Here are their pumpkins:

  We read the story, "Ish" by Peter H. Reynolds.  Through the story the students learned that drawings don't have to be perfect the first time we try to draw something - we are in Kindergarten, we are just learning, and we need practice to get better at drawing.  We can create drawings that look close or similar to what we are thinking.  We call these "ish" drawings.  The students were challenged to draw something they have never drawn before.  They were reminded to use their knowledge of shapes and put shapes together to make a whole image.  After they drew their picture on their whiteboards the students were supported by the teacher to sound out and print the word of the picture they drew.  Ask your child: Can you tell me about the book "Ish" that you read in school?  What happened in the book "ish" that you read at school?  Tell me about your "ish" drawing.  Give your child feedback on their drawing: "I like how you..."...

 How does this artwork make you feel?  What does this artwork remind you of or make you think about?   This week in Kindergarten we have been learning about different ways to paint art.  We read stories about art including "The Dot" by Peter H. Reynolds, "Ish" by Peter H. Reynolds, "Sky Color" by Peter H. Reynolds, and "Swatch The Girl Who Loved Colors" by Julia Denos.  Through these stories we learned that anyone can be an artist - all you have to do is try.  We also learned about abstract art and that the same abstract art piece might make people feel different emotions.  We created our own abstract art and let our watercolour paints run 'wild,' just like the girl named Swatch from the story we read.  The students were very creative in drawing their shapes to create their abstract artwork and they all see themselves as artists through our art experiences.  Here are the students abstract art pieces:

 This week in Kindergarten we have been discussing what we are thankful for.  I am thankful for the wonderful students and the learning opportunities we have had thus far in Kindergarten.  The students each had the opportunity to verbally share what they are thankful for with the whole class.  They also each had the opportunity to work one on one with the teacher to sound out and print the word(s) of what they are thankful for on strips of orange paper.  Through this, students learned how to correctly hold their pencils, how to sound out words, the connection between letters, letter sounds and words, and how to print letters using the correct formation.  We will be using these strips of paper to create 3-D pumpkins that the students will bring home to use as a table centrepiece.  Here are the things the students are thankful for: