Category: Applied Designs

It’s Not a Box!

Inspired by the story It’s Not a Box, our class transformed ordinary cardboard boxes into extraordinary creations! Using our imaginations, we turned plain boxes into a rocket ship, seals, Super Mario, a sun, turtles, a cat, a photo frame, an apple, a kite, flags, and houses. With creativity, markers, paint, and tape, each student brought their unique ideas to life.

This activity encouraged creative thinking, problem-solving, and imaginative play—and most importantly, lots of fun! To celebrate our learning, the children also worked together to create a dragon and proudly marched around the room with it.

 

Exploring Force, Motion, and Financial Literacy

Our Kindergarten students had a wonderful time learning about force and motion through hands-on exploration. We brainstormed our ideas and visited different stations, including building ramps to test how fast cars could go, exploring friction with different materials, creating domino chains, using magnetic force to paint on paper plates, and designing marble runs. All the teamwork encouraged problem-solving as we explored how gravity and motion work together.

 

 

We also learned about financial literacy through dramatic play. Students ran an ice cream shop and played restaurant with Mrs. Steverding. A special highlight was enjoying the real waffles she made for us—they were so yummy!

 

Building Our Commuity

As part of our Community Unit, we brainstormed what makes up a community and discussed the important places and people that help a community thrive. Div. 12 shared many wonderful ideas and decided what they wanted to include in our own classroom community. Working together, they designed and created a community filled with places that are meaningful to them, showing great teamwork, creativity, and problem-solving skills.

 

 

We also had a special visit from Ms. Steverding’s brother, who is a police officer. Sergeant Steverding shared information about his job and how police officers help keep communities safe. The children were excited to learn about his equipment and even had the opportunity to try on some of his gear.

April-Blooming, Growing, Learning!

April was another joyful and busy month in our classroom!

We were so lucky to have the Burnaby North Leadership Team visit us. They spent time decorating beautiful Easter baskets with our kindergarten students, followed by a fun Easter egg hunt together. A big thank you as well to our wonderful PAC for organizing another exciting Easter egg hunt for the children—we truly appreciate your continued support!

In Art, our focus was all about flowers and spring. Inspired by Eric Carle, we painted giant colorful flowers. We also created blooming tissue paper flowers. We also made adorable chicks hatching from eggs, inspired by the chicks we’ve been learning about in class.

We participated in the Jump Rope for Heart event hosted by Division 4—thank you to everyone who supported this meaningful cause and donated to the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

Our students also worked with their Big Buddies to create welcome cards for next year’s kindergarten students. It’s hard to believe that our current kindergarteners will soon be moving on to Grade 1!

In PE, we learned how to play lacrosse. Students practiced important skills like cradling, scooping (ground ball pickup), passing, and shooting on goal. They picked up the game quickly and demonstrated wonderful sportsmanship during our games.

In Math, we explored measurement using non-standard units, comparing and measuring different objects in fun, hands-on ways. In Literacy, we are writing lots of creative ideas in our journals. We continue to build our vocabulary and learn new letter sounds and words to support our reading and writing skills. During Story Workshop, we wrote about spring using our five senses, and continued developing our storytelling skills by retelling stories with loose parts. We especially enjoyed retelling “Little Owl Lost” and “I Want My Hat Back.” Ask your child to retell these stories to you at home—they love sharing them!

All three of our chicks have now hatched! We are very excited to continue learning about and exploring our chicks together. Stay tuned for a future post to see our discoveries!

January Adventures  

Happy 2026, families! We had a wonderful month of learning, exploring, and settling back into our routines after the winter break. Here’s a peek at what we’ve been up to in January: 

 

In math we focused on naming, sorting, and finding shapes in our classroom and around the school. We also learned a brand‑new math game called “First to 10!” The students practiced counting, taking turns, and using good sportsmanship.  

In literacy, we continued strengthening our understanding of letters and sounds. We continued working with CVC (consonant‑vowel‑consonant) words, learning how to tap and blend sounds to read simple words. The students are becoming confident little readers—it’s exciting to see their skills grow! 

We are discovering how different animals hibernate, migrate, or adapt to the cold season. The children loved learning fun facts and sharing their own wonderings!  

 

We are continuing to practice retelling stories. We read the winter tale The Mitten. Ask your child to retell the story to you—see how many characters and events they remember! We also enjoyed the story Over and Under the Snow, which helped us connect to our winter animals unit. After reading, the children created and wrote their own “over and under” stories. Be sure to ask your child to share their story with you! 

 

This month we also celebrated Literacy Day with our school community. We attended a fun and energetic assembly, where each child brought a knowledge card to the gym. They had a special moment to share the fact on their card with a friend sitting nearby. Our class focused on animals that hibernate in the winter. After lunch, we had a lot of fun reading in the dark. It was a huge hit!  

 

We also had our first visit with our Big Buddies in Division 6, and the children were so excited to meet their older partners! They spent time getting to know each other and sharing stories together. We’re looking forward to more buddy time in the coming months!

 

We read the book One Word for Kids, which inspired us to think about a word that will help us be our best selves this year. We brainstormed words like kind, strong, fast, love, smile, sing, family. Each child chose a word that was meaningful to them, wrote it down, and created a bracelet to wear as a reminder.  

A December to Remember in Kindergarten

December may have been a short three weeks, but our kindergarten classroom was filled with big learning and even bigger fun! The children stayed busy with festive and creative activities, starting with cookie decorating and lots of arts and crafts that helped them practice fine motor skills while expressing their creativity. We also explored learning about leaves through art, connecting seasonal changes to hands-on creative projects.

 

We danced our way through the month by learning a hip hop–choreographed routine and proudly performing it, showing confidence and teamwork. Literacy came alive as students retold The Gingerbread Man, acting out the story and strengthening their comprehension skills. As a class, we also worked together on a Christmas puzzle, learning the importance of patience, cooperation, and helping one another.

 

One of the highlights was making Stone Soup with Ms. Steverding’s class. The children peeled, chopped, cooked, and then shared a meal together to celebrate teamwork and community. They also enjoyed open play time with friends, building social skills, imagination, and cooperation through play. We wrapped up the month with cozy moments like movie day, a special pancake breakfast and lots of open play. December was short but sweet, and full of memories we’ll carry into the new year!

 

We would like to wish all our families a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and thank you so much for your generous gifts and continued support—it truly means a lot!

October – Autumn Adventures

This month has been full of excitement, curiosity, and friendship in our kindergarten classroom! As the leaves turned colours, our young learners explored the wonderful themes of apples, pumpkins, and celebrations from around the world.

We began our journey by discovering apples—tasting different varieties, labeling parts of an apple, and making apple prints with paint. The children loved learning about how apples grow and sharing which kind was their favorite!

 

We talked about Thanksgiving—a time to be grateful and to share kindness. The class shared what they are thankful for, from family and friends to food and toys. We made “Thankful Leaves,” where each leaf showed something special that fills our hearts with gratitude. We also had fun painting rainbow turkeys for Thanksgiving!

Next came pumpkins, we went on our first field trip to the pumpkin patch (see pumpkin patch post), we explored the inside of a pumpkin, their life cycle and tasted pumpkin seeds.

 

Our Halloween celebration was filled with costumes and laughter as we explored different ADST (Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies) challenges and math with a Halloween twist.

 

We also learned about Diwali, the Festival of Lights. The children listened to stories about how Diwali is celebrated and made colorful rangoli patterns and paper diyas to brighten our room.

 

Division 12 learning and exploring hands-on activities in literacy, math, and art.

 

During Story Workshop, our classroom came alive with stories from our trip to the pumpkin patch! Division 12 used their voices and imaginations to share their favourite moments — from finding the perfect pumpkin to completing the obstacle course and corn maze. Ask your child to share their story with you.

Our young artists explored self-expression! They looked closely at their reflections in mirrors to draw detailed self-portraits, noticing the unique shapes and features that make them special.