September in Room 122

Wow! We can't believe that a month has already gone by! What a busy and exciting month we've had. Our learners have been busy exploring our classroom environment, learning routines and expectations and having fun creating in the classroom. Here are some photos to share some of our learning from this past month.

Lots of literacy during September!

A goal of our first few months in Kindergarten is name writing. We provide many different opportunities for our learners to practice writing and reading their names.

Each of our learners create a letter using rocks. We took a photo of each letter they created to use for our writing centre.

Working on letter recognition and sorting.

 A big focus of the Kindergarten program (and ours) is self-regulation. We have been working on various strategies to help us calm down and get our bodies ready for learning. 'Take 5 Breathing' has been a huge hit with our learners (and the staff) as a way to bring everyone to a place where we're ready to listen and learn. You can use 'Take 5 Breathing' at home. Try it out. You'll be surprised how much it helps you calm down and focus.

Some learners find they need movement breaks or a space to calm down. They have been using the yoga posters and yoga mats to do various calming poses.

Tree pose.
(Yoga even goes outside!)

We have been teaching 'Whole Body Listening'. Our learners have many times throughout the day where they need to be respectful listeners (not just for whole class meetings, but for all moments they are listening to someone else). Watch the video to see how you need to use 'whole body listening' to ensure you don't miss important information.

Our learners have been enjoying using art as a way to share their thinking and learning. We have provided opportunities for them to experiment with different writing utensils (crayons, markers, pencil crayons) as well as with paint.

'Loose Parts' is another way learners can share their thinking. You can find loose parts all around you. Look at what you can create with various materials.

Fine motor skills are important to support, as they lead to a successful pencil grip and writing skills. Our learners have enjoyed the various activities in the room.

As always, the building centre is a popular location for our architects! We have had roads, stages (with performing bands!), houses, sky scrapers, drums and so much more!

We 'Read to Self' everyday. Our learners use special 'reading glasses' and 'reading pointers' to help them focus on their books during our reading time. We are working on building up our stamina. Together we created our expectations during this time.

Can't wait to see all the great learning October will bring.