Category: Physical Education

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!

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!

September

The fun continues… Here’s a little glimpse of what we have been doing.

We made friendship bracelets to remind us to be kind to our friends.

 

Morning reading and morning exploration help set our day to a good start.

 

We were all very excited to explore in our Parkcrest forest.

 

We learned Terry Fox is a Canadian hero who raised millions of dollars for cancer research through his Marathon of Hope event. We were honored to have Terry‘s niece come to Parkcrest this year to inform our community about Terry Fox’s inspiring legacy.  Our class participated in the event by running around our field and raising money for cancer research.  We raised over our school goal of $1500.  Looks like Ms. Ralph will be kissing a fish!

 

For Truth and Reconciliation Day, we learned the day honours the children who never returned home and survivors of residential schools. We brainstormed words every child should feel and have…

On September 24, an Indigenous Elder and Elder Latash came to our school and led the handing over ceremony of the Two Sisters Mural to Parkcrest.     

Jump Rope for Heart

 

 

We had a fun couple of weeks learning how to jump rope!  Students from Division 3 came into our gym classes and helped to teach some of the skipping stations. For many kindergartners, this was their first time attempting to jump rope. We set small goals for ourselves, and when the skipping was too difficult, it was okay to do some simple jumps.

Thank you Division 11 for participating in Jump Rope for Heart this year! We have a few days left to reach our fundraising goal.  Please consider supporting the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.  Thank you to parents and the community for your donations!

https://jumpropeforheart.crowdchange.ca/89389

Gymnastics

The children had a blast exploring the different stations led by Lucinda of Gym Sense Gymnastics. Lucinda did a wonderful job of introducing the children to the equipment safely and in a fun way. Many students stated they had never tried Gymnastics equipment before, and some were a little hesitant to start. Students developed their skills in strength, flexibility, balance and coordination, confidence and most importantly, they had fun!  Individual photos of children will be sent to you in separate emails.

Some comments from the children:
“I liked the beams.”
“I love swinging and climbing the rope.”
“It was hard to stand on the balancing thing, but I liked it.”
“The monkey bars were hard. But fun.”