During Earth Week the children chose to represent their appreciation for the Earth by creating an art project. We decided that a collaborative art project would be fun and the children had many ideas about what this could look like. The consistent message was that: they wanted the Earth to be in the project and they wanted pictures of things they loved in nature to be represented as well.

We have been studying the author/illustrator Barbara Reid, who is famous for her beautiful illustrations created using Plasticine. The students were curious about this art medium, so we decided to incorporate Plasticine art into our Earth Art Project.

But where to begin?

First, we watched some instructional videos made by Barbara Reid on creating pictures from Plasticine:

http://www.barbarareid.ca/plasticine.html

Then, we followed Barbara Reid’s advice and sketched our plans. Also on the advice of Barbara Reid, many of the students researched the animals or plants that they wished to create in books or on the internet.

The first step in creating our art was to make the background. The students selected and mixed the colours that they wished to use. We used our plans to guide our work with the Plasticine. We discovered that setting our Plasticine in a sunny window helped to make it nice and soft for spreading.

Next, we added our foreground figures. The techniques of rolling snakes and balls that we learned from Mr. Wilson came in handy for this part!

Last, we added details and textures. We used a variety of tools to create the looks we wanted.

Here is an Animoto of the process and our finished product! Please come and see it in person outside of our classroom!

Barbara Reid will be presenting at the upcoming Vancouver Island BookFest. We have sent her this book and letter:

Happy Earth Action Week!

This week, the students have been celebrating and showing care for the Earth through a variety of projects and activities. Here is an animoto we created to show you what we have been up to. Stay tuned for more on the special art project we are working on!

We also had our second visit from artist Shane Wilson. During this visit, the students learned techniques for carving bars of soap. We learned that the difference between sculpting and carving is that, with sculpting you are building up to create something and with carving you are taking away to create something. The students were deeply engaged in the carving, at some points you could have heard a pin drop (which, as you might imagine, is very rare in kindergarten!) We tried out many techniques for carving with a simple plastic knife. We also had the opportunity to try out Mr. Wilson’s carving power tools. Here are some photos from our morning with Mr. Wilson:

Have a wonderful week!

~ Mrs. V.

It has been an exciting week in Kindergarten! We began the week by welcoming our 14th member and have been loving getting to know our new friend!

We also began our next Unit of Inquiry. Throughout April and part of May, we will be inquiring into forces and motion. As with all Units of Inquiry, we began our inquiry by making connections to what we already know. The students have spent much of the year building and experimenting with ramps during their child-directed Independent Inquiry times. To get the students making connections between what they are familiar with (ramps) and what will be new to them (forces), I gave them the challenge of creating something to move a bowl of balls from one side of our classroom to the other. The students decided to call their project a “Contraption”. The Contraption Project served as a wonderful opportunity for collaboration, problem-solving, showing an attitude of commitment and testing theories. It also gave me an opportunity to see what the children already understood about forces and motion and where their misunderstandings were.

Here are some photos of the group in action:

After many failed attempts and much “tweaking” by the students, we finally achieved our goal!

Here are some of our reflections about the Contraption Project (I apologize for the sideways videos, but the children’s words were too cute not to share!)

Why we built the Contraption (and a theory on how it works):

Tips for Rolling the Ball (and some more theories):

Challenges:

Next week we will be exploring different types of forces and exploring how they can push or pull to cause motion.

Have a wonderful day!

~ Mrs. V.

Before the Spring Break we wrapped-up our Unit of Inquiry into Healthy Choices by performing our Hand-Washing Demonstrations and creating our Healthy Choices VoiceThreads to reflect on the choices we make and why they are considered healthy.

Here are some photos and a video from our presentations!

Our Healthy Choices VoiceThreads will be shared with you at the upcoming Student-Led Conferences!

The AGS Penny Drive to provide clean water for people in developing countries came to a close. Here is an animoto of the Cuddly Cougars doing the final count of our classroom pennies:

This week the students have been busy preparing for the upcoming Student-Led Conferences. We are very eager to celebrate our learning so far this year with you!

Here is another animoto highlighting events in our classroom since March!

Have a wonderful weekend

~ Mrs. V.

The JK4 families came for a visit today! The Cuddly Cougars chose activities in our classroom that they thought the JK4 families would be interested in hearing about. The children worked in teams to present “stations” to groups of JK4 parents.

Here are some photos from today!

This is the Animoto that we also showed:

The students (and teachers!) were very proud of their accomplishment and we hope that the JK4 parents enjoyed their afternoon!

Have a good evening,

Mrs. V

We had a short week in Kindergarten but we all enjoyed being back in action after the long weekend!

Our Unit of Inquiry into healthy choices continued this week with a visit from a Body Expert. We learned about choices we can make to take care of our brains, lungs and hearts. Here were the students reflections:

What choices can you make to take care of your Brain?

- “think!”

- “eat healthy food”

- “wear a helmet”

What choices can you make to take care of your Lungs?

- “NEVER smoke!”

- “exercise and breathe lots”

What choices can you make to take care of your heart?

- “get lots of exercise”

- “eat healthy food”

The students were making connections to previous learning in our unit as well. C made a connection about sun safety in her Reader Book. Here she shares the story with the class.

We all decided that the little girl in the story did not make healthy choices when she went out to play in the sun without any protection. The students shared what they would do if they were the little girl.

Another highlight of our week was celebrating Valentine’s Day by focusing on spending time with our friends and by showing how much we care for others through words, actions, special gifts and hugs.

The children enjoyed making our “Friendship Fruit Salad”. Each student chose and prepped a piece of fruit and together we created something yummy to share!

Check out our weekly video to see some of what we’ve been up to!

The students have been making healthy meal plans as part of our unit about healthy choices:

Here is our weekly video with a glimpse of what the Cuddly Cougars have been up to!

Have a wonderful long weekend everyone

~ Mrs. V.

Last week the Cuddly Cougars were taken-over by the magic of the ballet!

As preparation for our visit to the Kirkwood ballet performance, we read “The Nutcracker” story so that the students would have some background knowledge for understanding the show.

During Independent Inquiry on Wednesday, the students chose to create their own Nutcracker ballet. They asked me to play some music and videos of ballerinas on the projector. Here are some scenes from the afternoon…(please excuse the poor photo quality…”no flash photography allowed in the theater!”)

Dancers practicing and negotiating their roles as they retold the story (note J. in the background playing the part of the “orchestra” with his homemade instrument)…

The show is almost beginning! “Tickets please!”

C. and R. volunteered to play the handsome prince. We had MANY sugar plum fairies and Clara characters!

Refreshments anyone?

On Friday morning the students arrived excited to visit the show!

We brainstormed some ways to be a good audience:

- sit quietly

- sit still

- clap

- watch the show

- show respect to other audience members by not talking to them

- whisper or no talking. Only whisper to say things like “don’t you like this part of the show?”

- feet off the chairs

- use your manners “thank you” “excuse me”

Here are some photos of us at the show! (M. is sitting with Ms. Ihara, our classroom helper!)

What a wonderful show! When we got back to the classroom, the children drew and wrote about their favourite parts…

“I liked the nutcracker and the mice fighting” ~ R.L.

“I liked the nutcracker and the sugar plum fairy!” ~ L.L.

“My favourite part was when the sugar plum fairy and the nutcracker danced and Clara joined in”~ E.W.

“My favourite part was the lady with the really big dress! Little kids came out of it!” ~ B.N.

“I liked the lady with the really big dress!” ~ D.P.

“I liked when they fight and the sugar plum fairy booted the mice and I liked the lights and the mouse queen”~ A.M.

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“I liked when all of the dancers came out and bowed at the end. Then the audience clapped”~ R.S.

“I liked the ballerinas”~ O.F.

“I liked when the kids came out of the lady’s dress. It was so funny!”~ J.K.

“I liked the part when they fight with swords” ~ C.C.

“I liked the candy cane girl and when the little kids came out of the big dress”~ N.F.

“I liked the nutcracker and the rat queen and the little mice.” ~ C.W.

“I liked the nutcracker and the rat queen and Clara and Fritz” ~ M.A.

Have a wonderful day!

Love,

Mrs. V

Many of these photos were sent on Twitter, but we wanted to make sure that ALL of our parents could see them

The students have been VERY interested in learning to sew! When I was at the thrift store this weekend I found all the supplies we would need for learning to cross-stitch. I picked up the supplies and presented them to the children this morning. The students thought it would be fun to learn a new skill. We also knew that sewing would help to exercise the small muscles in our fingers (the same muscles that help us to write!). They were eager to get started on their projects and many of the children spent all of their Independent Inquiry time sewing! I heard many of the children saying:

“I can’t believe I am sewing! I am only five and I know how to sew!”

“My mom is going to freak out when she hears that I learned how to sew!”

“I think I will just sew everyday forever and ever now. This is so much fun!”

By the end of the day we had some advice for anyone who wishes to sew:

- you can make letters or shapes…whatever you want!

- if you want to make a project you need to make a pattern first.

- you should be careful so that you don’t get poked!

- sewing is fun!

If anyone has any fabric scraps that they are able to donate, we would love to have them so that we can continue making projects!

Have a great evening!

~ Mrs. V.

The Cuddly Cougars love to send out tweets! We are hoping that even more of our parents will sign-up for a Twitter account so that they can follow us

Twitter is a bit annoying because they change their process for setting up accounts all the time. I have done my best to create simple steps for setting up an account, but there may be some parts that are slightly different. Please let me know if you need any help at all

To create an account:

1. Go directly to https://twitter.com/signup by clicking the link.
2. Enter your full name, your email address, a password and a username. A username is the name that people you interact with on Twitter will see – ours is AGSKinder. Twitter will tell you if the username you want is available. Twitter will also suggest some usernames that are available in case you are having trouble (they are in green text).
3. Double check that your name, email, password and username are all correct and valid (Twitter will put a green check mark beside the box if it is okay).
4. Click Create my Account. You may be asked to complete a Captcha (which is a security measure to let twitter know that you’re human and not a robot trying to create a fake account).
5. Twitter will send a confirmation email to the address you entered on sign up, click the link in that email to confirm your email address and account.

To follow us on Twitter:

1. Go to www.twitter.com and click sign-in at the top right corner of the screen.
2. Once you have signed-in you can “follow” us by typing @AGSKinder into the search box in the top right corner of the screen. A little drop-down box of choices should appear as you type our name. Click @AGSKinder once it appears in the box.
3. Click the button that says “Follow”
4. Our account is private so we will have to confirm you as a follower before you will be able to see our tweets.

To see what we are tweeting:

1. Log into your Twitter account.
2. Click the @Connect button on the top or side toolbar (it shows up in both locations depending one your device)
3. This will show all tweets that have been sent by anyone you follow on twitter. Look for ones by @AGSKinder by scrolling through the list of tweets.

To send us a tweet:

1. Log into your Twitter account.
2. Click the button in the top right corner that looks like a box with a feather pen in it.
3. Before you start typing your tweet, type @AGSKinder into the box. This will make sure that we get your tweet.
4. Type your message and press send!

1. Click reply on a tweet we have made.
2. @AGSKinder will automatically appear in the box.
3. Type your message.
4. Click send!