Donamo's Kindergarten

 This week we learned about Chinese New Year.  We learned that children get Red Envelopes with money in them as a gift for Chinese New Year.  We made red envelopes and pretend coins to add to our envelopes.  We decorated our red envelopes with Gold Glitter, stickers, and a Chinese word.  The students chose what Chinese word they wanted on their envelope - Horse, Goat, Ox, or Good Luck.  We also learned about Chinese Zodiac animals, and what they represent.  This year is the Year of the Ox.   Most of our students were born in the year of the Goat, and two of our students were born in the year of the Horse.  "My Chinese Zodiac animal is a Goat." "My Chinese Zodiac animal is a Goat." "My Chinese Zodiac animal is a Horse." "My Chinese Zodiac animal is a Goat." "My Chinese Zodiac animal is a Goat." "My Chinese Zodiac animal is a Goat." "My Chinese Zodiac animal is a Goat." "My Chinese Zodiac animal is a Goat." ...

 Three weeks ago the students learned about storytelling and we read a varitey of "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" stories.  The students compared and contrasted the different versions of the stories.  Then they drew pictures of their "Three Billy Goats Gruff" stories and used the pictures to re-tell their version of the story.  Below are the pictures of their picture stories:

Two weeks ago the students had the opportunity to spend time drawing pictures on their whiteboards.  Then they were challenged to add words to their pictures.  Some students chose to sound out the beginning letter, other students sounded out the beginning, middle and end letters, while others chose to use kid-printing to represent their words.  Kid-printing is a very important stage of Early Literacy.  When using kid-printing the students write a random assortment of letters to signify the words they mean.  These pictures capture each students Early Literacy Skills:

 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: