Donamo's Kindergarten

 The students learned about the setting in a story - Where the story takes place.  After reading "The Three Little Pigs," the students had the opportunity to discuss elements of the setting, and we talked about how we can take a whole picture and break it down into it's individual shapes to make it more manageable to draw.  In the whole class setting we drew a square with a triangle on top for the houses.  Then we worked to figure out what we can draw to ensure that the straw, stick and brick houses looked different from each other.  The students also helped sound out the beginning letter of each type of house: S for straw, S for stick, and B for brick.  The students were excited to learn that both straw and stick start with the letter S.  Once the drawings were complete the students used their picture to re-tell the story of the Three Little Pigs.  Here are a few of the whiteboard drawings:

 In our Kindergarten classroom Pete the Cat is our favourite character.  The students had the opportunity to participate in a guided drawing of Pete the Cat.  They created high quality drawings of Pete the Cat and copied the words "Pete the Cat."  Through this task, the students learned how to create pictures using shapes.  They then acted like artists and made the choice to colour their work or leave it as a black and white drawing.  Below are their masterpieces:

 The Kindergarten students have been learning about Peace, Love and Friendship.  They had the opportunity to paint hearts and were asked to use 3 different colours, to stay inside the lines and paint all of the white spaces.  After they finished their paintings, they each had the opportunity to work with the teacher to write about their painting.  They copied the words "I love," and were supported to sound out the word(s) of what they love.  In Kindergarten we try to stretch out words so that we can hear each individual sound and connect it to the corresponding letter.  Even though some of the words are spelled incorrectly, in Kindergarten this is how we start learning to write.  Encourage your child to write letters and put them together to spell words - this is what we call pre-writing skills.  Praise your child for attempting to write letters even if they do not correspond to the letter sounds or words they are writing.  We want our Kinder...

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..."...