Mid-November Update

We continue to notice interests emerging on a daily basis in our classroom and are so thrilled to have children who are curious and eager to learn.  We continue to have two inquiry groups available during wondering time - sensory mixing and clay creations.  We also are supporting interests of individual children at centres throughout the day.  For example, we have had a group working on creating a structure at the block centre (measurement, science, oral language, storytelling, etc.) that we have been watching carefully.  One student said they were in need of a steering wheel so we pulled one out of storage for them to use.  Children's curiousity continues to drive our programming and we are uncovering tons of curriculum as we journey through the beginning of the year.

Below is a project our sensory group was working on.  One child discovered that purple marker from the table changed the dough into a different colour and others began to build on this and explore print making.

We have also started to work with small groups now that we are into a routine.  We are beginning to look at children's knowledge around patterning and then are planning our small group instruction accordingly.  The idea behind this is that we aren't having all children doing the same thing.  We have some children who are already demonstrating pattern knowledge in the classroom because it is familiar to them and others who this is very new to.  Our goal is to be instructing children at the level that is appropriate for them.

Because Remembrance Day is very important to us, we wanted to ensure we focused on it in a developmentally appropriate way that was meaningful to them.  Our fantastic planning time teacher Mrs. Armstrong organized a kindergarten Remembrance Day ceremony.  The children were very attentive and engaged.

Finally, we so appreciate your flexibility around the time we've been out of the classroom this week.  We thought we'd give you a look into some of the workshops we've been facilitating for kindergarten teachers in our board.  Your children inspire us on a daily basis and we were excited to be able to share their learning and our journey as educators with others.  One aspect that we focused on for sharing was provocations which are open ended invitations to learning that invite children to explore and can lead to further learning.  Often they are based on children's interests but can sometimes be used to elicit interest in new learning or in gaps of learning.  We also talked about the inquiry process (taking children's questions and noticings to move programming forward) and documenting learning through photos, children's quotes, children's work and learning stories.  We've included a photo below from our workshop set up to give you a glimpse.