Ms. Osiris' Kindergarten Blog

Love, Laughter, and Loose Parts

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Core Competency Self-Assessments

Hello again my wonderful families!

As we near the end of the school year, we are beginning to think about our time in kindergarten together and reflect on what we have done and ourselves as learners. I am going to need families’ help with an important step in our year-end reporting process!

We are required by the Ministry of Education to do a Self-Assessment on Core Competencies in our final term (you can find information about what they are here: https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/competencies). We don’t necessarily use core competency language with kindergarten students, but we do practice them all the time. You may recognize them from our term overviews.

They fall into three main categories:

  • Communication
  • Thinking
  • Personal and Social

 

I am asking families to speak with their child and ask them “What kind of learner are you?” We touched on this a little bit in our class meeting this week.

  • Are you a good communicator? Can you share your ideas to your friends? Can you work well and share ideas when you play and explore? Are you a good listener? (Communication)
  • Are you a good thinker? Can you ask good questions and explore different things? Can you think creatively and come up with new ideas? (Thinking)
  • Are you a kind and confident friend? Can you notice your feelings and work to calm your body when needed? Do you like to help others? (Personal and Social)

I have a list of books that we have read in class already that you can read with your child again to help prompt them to talk about these different skills. You can choose to read one book that fits with the theme they choose, or you can read all of them! Rereading familiar books is always fun.

Once they have read the book, have them reflect on the main character – what kind of person is the character? Are they creative, kind, clever, curious? What do you do that is similar to that character?

Record a short video of them talking about themselves and what kind of learner they think they are. Have them reflect on what they do at school or at home that shows it! Upload your video to their Fresh Grade page so that I can see it.

Thank you for your help and support!

-Ms.Osiris

 

Here is our book list by topic:

  • Collaboration – Knit Together (available through a video I uploaded to Fresh Grade)
  • Thinking – Rosie Revere, Engineer and Ada Twist, Scientist (available on Epic!)
  • Personal and Social – Red, A Crayon’s Story and Super Manny Stands Up (available on YouTube here https://youtu.be/R8Z3GunXOz4 and here https://youtu.be/_pH9dIur4Ps)

There is a great bonus book for Personal and Social that I found, although we haven’t read it before! If you want, you can check out The Buddy Bench on Epic!)

Are you a critical thinker like Ada?

Are you a creative thinker like Rosie?

Are you a communicator and collaborator?

Are you confident like Red learned to be?

Are you a responsible and kind friend like Manny?

Are you inclusive and welcoming like these students?

Weekly Learning plan for May 11-15: Practice Makes Perfect!

Hi Families!

Here is our weekly learning plan; this week we are focusing on two important skill building routines that are a fundamental part of our usual program in our classroom. Routines are tasks that we do on a weekly or daily basis, and they give students practice in foundational skills. In the absence of in-class learning, we have been varying our activities to keep home learning fresh and fun. Here is where students really get to show off what they know!

The plan looks a little bit different than it has in past weeks; instead of a “choose your own adventure” style list of activities, I have given families 4 types of tasks and ask that you try to do one from each every day. One journal entry, one counting collection, one literacy building job, and one physical activity. There are suggestions and extension options if you need them.

Keep posting on Fresh Grade, keep exploring, and keep being awesome!

-Ms. Osiris

Weekly Learning plan for May 11-15

Optional Challenges for May 11-15

If you require the “translate” function on the blog, keep going for the text-only version.

Continue reading

Learning Plan for the week of May 4-8: Letter Time!

Hi Families!

Here is the weekly learning plan for this week, as well as some optional extensions for those who are interested. We are focusing on some fundamental letter and literacy skills this week. Many of these activities can be practiced frequently to help continue some of our classroom routines at home and build important foundational knowledge.

Class Meetings this week: Monday at 11:00am and Friday at 2:00pm.

 

Thank you, and I can’t wait to see all the fun stuff your children create!

-Ms. Osiris

 

This week’s activities: Weekly Learning Plan for May 4-8

Optional activities: Optional Challenges for May 4-8

Optional Printing Book: My-Printable-Alphabet-Book-ABC

Optional Mother’s Day Page: Mothers Day

 

 

If you need to use the “Translate” button for the Learning Plans, you can find the text-only plans below.

Continue reading

Learning Plan for the week of April 28-May 1: STEAM

Hi Families!

This week we are learning all about STEAM! STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math!

I was inspired by the students’ amazing recycled material creations, as well as so many of them showing me their Lego during our class meetings. We have some talented builders in Div. 27, and I’m excited to see what fun things you can explore and create this week.

Here is a picture of something that my daughter created out of recycled materials! She made a cafe for her Playmobil characters – thank you, Div. 27, for the great inspiration.

This week, I have attached the learning plans in PDF format, as well as provided a “text only” version in this post for those wanting to use the translate function on the blog. To access the “text only” learning plan, click “continue reading.”

Weekly Learning Plan for April 28-May 1

Optional Challenges for April 28-May1

Making 5 Worksheet (optional)

 

 

Continue reading

Recycled Materials Creations

Hi Friends!

Thank you everyone who sent in a picture of their amazing recycled materials projects! I was so inspired by your creations that I have planned some fun building activities for  next week for us – I’m looking forward to seeing even more fun creative projects from Div. 27.

Here are some of your wonderful creations! Continue reading

Learning Plan for April 20-24: Earth Day!

Hi Families!

Below you’ll find the PDF document for this week’s learning plan. Additionally, I have added some optional challenges for those seeking more, but they aren’t required! As with last week, you can spread out the activities throughout the week in the way that makes sense for your family. I can’t wait to see some of your fun nature and Earth Day inspired work!

-Ms. Osiris

Weekly Learning plan for April 20-24

The following PDFs are optional:

Optional Challenges for April 20-24

Nature Math Worksheet

EarthDayColoringPage

EarthDayCrown

Rock Monsters!

Hi Families!

Thank you to those who posted their pictures to Fresh Grade of going Rock Monster hunting! Below are two lovely collages that Alyssa’s mom made of a bunch that they found throughout the neighbourhood. Zak even found a sign about using rocks in the forest! And thank you to Hannah for her lovely picture of herself and her favourite rock monster!

Wow! Look at all these rock monsters around the neighbourhood!

Have you seen any of these happy faces around?

Check out this sign in the forest that Zak found!

Hannah says “The pink rock monster makes me calm.”

Window Hearts

Hi Friends!

Thank you for all of your beautiful videos and pictures that you have posted to Fresh Grade! Here are some of your window displays that help show our appreciation for essential workers, like doctors, nurses, grocery workers, fire fighters, and other important people who help keep our community safe and running smoothly right now.

Don’t forget: If you want to share your pictures with the class, be sure to post it to your portfolio so I can see them!

Love,

-Ms. Osiris

Zak’s beautiful paper hearts.

Meika chose many different colours of paper.

Harper made a big paper heart and some lovely signs!

Hannah L. used neat window crayons for her hearts!

How To Help Your Child “Write”

Children learn to show their ideas on paper gradually. They begin with pictures, eventually experimenting with strings of letters or “pretend writing,” and eventually work their way towards what we can identify as words and sentences. This does not happen overnight, and each stage of writing development is valuable and worthwhile!

In order to help your child develop confidence as a writer at home, here are some helpful tips:

  • Give them lots of opportunities to use pictures to show different kinds of ideas (made up stories, family adventures, retelling a familiar story from a favourite book, drawing about a nature wonder they have)
  • Encourage them to check their picture for details: Have they answered the important “who, what, where” questions? Is their idea clear? What kinds of details would help their reader understand their message even better?
  • After drawing their picture, can they label any of the people or objects in it? Writing “mom” next to my picture of my mom or “ball” next to my ball helps my reader know what the pictures are trying to say.
  • When writing words, help your child “trust their sounds.” This means that they say the word to themselves slowly, and s-t-r-e-t-c-h out the sounds, writing each as they hear them. At first, they may only hear one or two sounds and only write down a couple of letters. That’s okay!  They might even get the letters wrong. Also okay! The key is that they do this themselves, to develop confidence in their abilities and practice some foundational phonetic skills that they will build on as they move forward in their writing journey.
  • Remind them that using “kid spelling” is great! This inventive spelling that children create when sounding things out is an important step in their writing development. I like to tell them that they don’t need to worry about “book spelling” (meaning conventional spelling) because they aren’t books! So don’t worry if they don’t spell things “right.”

It helps to continue to practice letters and letter sound with your child in fun and engaging ways, like their Alphabet Jive book, rhyming songs, and ABC books. Help them notice letters around them, showing them the sounds they make. This helps them build the knowledge necessary to use in their writing as they sound things out!

Thank you for your continued support! You’re doing great!

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