Valentine's Day ...

Exchanging  Cards

In the past, we have found that many students like to exchange Valentine cards with their classmates.  If your child would like to bring Valentine cards to school,  please follow these instructions to make the handing out of the cards as easy as possible for us:

1.  The easiest thing to do is to have your child just sign the cards, i.e., from (your child’s name) and send a card for each person;  

        or

2.  If your child would like to personalize each card, please make sure to include the number  beside each person’s name:

1, Alon	2.  Cyrus	3. Jordan	4. Emmy	5. Rhodes
6. Rhiann	7. Sammi	8. Taylor	9. Stefani	10. Juliette
11. Sam	12. Blake	13.  Myra	14.  Danny	15. Evan
16. Lian	17. Jordana	18. Benji	19. Ella	20. Elinor
21. Sophie	22. Bianca	23. Ethan	24. Sloane	25. Avigail
26.    Mrs.Gordon-Rak	27. Ms. May	28. Mrs. Mateo	29. Ms.  Guerriero

(Mrs. Gordon-Rak is our prep teacher.  She teaches the class when Ms. Guerriero has a prep period.   Ms. May is our Lunch Time Lay Assistant.  She helps Mrs. Mateo supervise the class at recess and lunch time.)

We will hand out the cards on Friday, February 12, 2016.

What's Been Happening in Math?

What Have We Been Learning About in Math?

If you have had an opportunity to come into the school, hopefully you had a chance to see our class displays of the work we've been doing in math during the first term of school.  We've been working on data management, sorting and patterning.  More recently, we have been focusing on number sense.


Surveys, Graphing and Sorting
At the beginning of the year, as we were getting to know each other, we surveyed our class and graphed the results of our surveys.  Here are some of the surveys we did:  How Many Letters are in Your Name?;  How Many Words are in Your Name?; and What is Your Favourite Colour?  Some children even came up with their own survey questions.  They surveyed the class and organized the data, and later, they reported their results to the class.

When our graphs are complete, we examine them and discuss the results.  What did we find out?  The students' observations are recorded and posted along with the graphs.

Here are  a few photos:

Home-School Connection:  Your child may be interested in collecting data (information) at home, too.  Young children can use simple graphs, tables, charts and other graphic organizers to help make sense of data.  Here is an example of an activity from 'Doing Mathematics with Your Child, Kindergarten to Grade 6:  A Parent Guide':
Have your child draw pictures on a calendar to record each day's weather.  At the end of a week or month, make a pictograph showing how many sunny days, cloudy days and snowy days were in that month.
(A pictograph is a graph that uses pictures to represent numerical data.)

You can access the resource mentioned above by going to the link below: 

Doing Mathematics with Your Child:  Kindergarten to Grade 6  -  A PARENT GUIDE

We have also been learning about sorting in math.  The children have been sorting various collections of objects and learning how to describe the attribute (e.g., size, shape, colour, etc.) they used to sort the objects.

Here are a few photos of some of the sorting done in our class:

Home-School Connection:  There are many opportunities for your child to practise sorting at home, too.  Any time your child is doing a task that involves tidying up and/or organizing he/she will likely be sorting items in some way.  Help your child become aware of what they are doing by talking about the sorting he/she is doing.  E.g., I like how you cleaned up your toys! Tell me about how you sorted your blocks.  Did you sort the blocks by colour or by type? E.g., Help me sort the laundry.  Let's find all the socks in the basket.  How should we sort the socks?  



Patterning
We have also been learning about patterns.  More specifically, we have been learning how to identify, extend, create and describe repeating patterns.  We have learned how to identify patterns by looking for or listening for the repeating part.  We have also stressed that we know it's a pattern when we are able to predict what comes next.  

Here are some observations about patterns that were made by the children:
Patterns can repeat.
We can use colours to make patterns. 
We can also use shapes, sizes, actions, instruments, sounds, numbers, letters, people, cars, toys to make patterns.  
We can use almost anything!  
There are lots of different patterns.


Here are a few photos of some of the patterns that were made in class:

More recently, we have been noticing the patterns in numbers using a number chart.  Here's one example from a recent counting activity in our class:  When we count by 5s, we are skipping four numbers and then we say the fifth number.  We end up with this sequence:  5, 10, 15, 20, 25, etc.  Using the number chart, the children were able to make predictions about which numbers came next.  They also noticed that one column of numbers all ended in '5' and the other column all ended in '0'.
  

Your child will probably enjoy noticing patterns at home, too.  

The 100th Day of School is Approaching

The   100th   Day   of   School

Written  by  the  Kindergarten  Class  in  Room  110 - Wed., Jan. 27, 2016

We  are  going  to  celebrate  the  100th  day  of  school!  Today  is  the  86th  day  of  school.  Just  14  more  days  until  the  100th  day!  We  will be  celebrating  the  100th  day  of  school  on  Wednesday,  February  17th.

Each school day, the Helper colours one of the cirlcles, and we record the number.  We have noticed many patterns as we count and record the numbers.

Mrs. Mateo  and  Ms. Guerriero  told  us  that  if  we  want  to,  we  can  bring  a  100  collection  to  school to celebrate the 100th day.  Here  are  some  ideas  we  thought  of  for  the  100  collections:

• 100  marshmallows/candy/cheerios
• 100  beads
• 100  hair  elastics
• 100  words/letters  (you can cut out the words/letters from magazines or newspapers if  you  want  to)
• 100  clocks  (or  pictures  of  clocks  or  pictures  of  other  things  you  like)
• 100  Shopkins/figurines
• 100  leaves
• 100  stickers
• 100  pennies
• 100  cars/dinosaurs/Lego pieces/shells
• 100  piece  puzzle
• 100  boxes

Please  note,  your  child  can  bring  the  actual  items  to  school  or  a  photo  of  the  collection.  Please  help  your  child  organize  the  collection  so  that  it  is  easy  to  count  the  100  pieces.  For  example,  you  may  want  to help your child sort and/or group the  collection into groups of  5,  10  or  20  items.  Your child can place each group in a baggie in order to easily transport and display the collection of 100.  

Your  child  may  bring  his/her  100  collection  to  school  starting  next  week.   If you have any questions/concerns, please contact us.

Happy New Year!

It's already January 12th!  Sorry for the belated New Year wishes.  We hope the New Year has started well for you and your family!

Just a few friendly reminders:

• Friday, Jan. 15th is a PA Day.  There is no school for the children on Friday.  The staff will be in the school if you need to contact anyone.                                                                                                                                       
• We love to play in the snow, and sometimes we get wet.  Please make sure your child has extra socks at school.  You may want to place a baggie with a few pairs of socks in your child's backpack.  Please label the baggie with your child's name.  Also, let your child know that he/she has extra socks in his/her backpack.                                                                                     
• Lastly, please label your child's outdoor clothing with his/her name.  We have a number of students with very similar mittens/hats/snow pants/etc., and it is sometimes difficult to identify which items belong to which student.