Max does kindergarten

I thought I would write a quick post about Max's first few weeks at school. That's right - our first baby is in junior kindergarten.

Max's awesome teacher, Mrs. N, sends us a little email every day to let us know what the kids have been doing in class. Considering that Max lets us know things in dribs and drabs and sometimes weeks after something has happened, this is a GREAT way to get a sense of what he is doing every day. He seems to really like school and is definitely enjoying daycare more as well as he settles into his morning at school-bus-lunch-daycare routine. It is a big relief for us not to have a crying Max on our hands every morning anymore.

Max is in the French immersion program. This entails 20 minutes of French per day. Max does his gym time in French every day and we can already see the results with many French words, phrases and songs being repeated at home. In Senior Kindergarten, the ratio will flip and he will have all day French with 20 minutes of English.

Here is a quick sampling of what Max has been up to in school (thanks, Mrs. N!):

- We started out by playing Alphabet Bingo. This week the focus was Books by Kevin Henkes; We read Chrysanthemum, Birds, Wemberley Worried, and Chester's Way. They especially enjoyed his book Chrysanthemum. Hence, we watched the movie Chrysanthemum.

- We had a fire drill today. We discussed what to do in case of a fire. We went to our school library. Later the children made a self portrait.

- Today the children made a tactile activity using glue and sparkles. Some were also spelling their name using either magnets or sand paper letters.

- Today we made a graph of number of letters in each child's name.

- This week the focus will be the children's names. Today the children were either spelling their names using magnetic letters (using one to one correspondence), Alphabet sand paper rubbing, or printing letters, painting, or working on puzzles.

- We started our morning counting the straws for number of days we've been in school. We played number games. After French we read some nursery rhymes.

- Today the focus was on numbers. We played a game with numbers 1-5 and later we played Bingo numbers 1-20. After going to our school library we read a story about numbers.

- Today we played a Numbers Bingo (1-20). Later we made a class graph to find out how many children take the bus, car, walk or bicycle to school. We learned that most of the children take the bus.

- Today we discussed what is a calendar and what it is used for. We are learning the days of the week. We counted the number of days we've been in school. We're tracking the days using straws.

- Today we made a graph of the number of boys and girls in the class. In the morning class there are 10 girls and 7 boys. In the afternoon class we have 11 girls and 9 boys. We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Alphabet book and listened to the song. We had a great day!

- The theme for this week is the five senses. The Big Idea for this theme is to understand that through our five senses we learn about our world.
Today we focused on 'sight'. We played seeing games such as I Spy and guess what's missing! We walked around the classroom with our eyes open and tried to walk with our eyes closed. We compared the two walks, stressing the important role the eyes play in our everyday lives. We talked about things we see outside and discussed what we see with our eyes: colours, shapes, buildings, trees, birds and sky. At the art centre, the children experimented with colours to observe what happens when mixing yellow and red, blue and red, and blue and yellow. At another centre, the children were using magnifying glasses to look at small objects and at the math centre, some of the children were sorting objects by colour or shape. We read Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? I Can See by Peter Curry. We had a very busy day!

- Today we talked about our sense of smell and how it helps us decide whether we want something or not. We also discussed how some smells give us important warnings i.e. smoke warning us if something is on fire. We also discussed how our appetite changes when we have a stuffy nose. We made a graph of things we would miss or not miss if we had a cold. We also played a game the children had to guess what they were smelling (lemon, orange, cinnamon). The children painted today and sprinkled cinnamon on their art work. We read Smell it! by Sally Hewitt.

- We talked about our sense of Touch. We felt things that were smooth, bumpy, rough and soft. We made a craft and read a book Touch and Feel by Katie Dicker.

- For the Sense of Taste, during snack time the children described what they were eating and how it tasted. They were using words like sweet, sour, and bland. We read The Big Brag by Dr. Seuss. Everyone finished making their Turkey Craft. We also went to the school library.

Here are a few photos:


Max leaves the nest.

Max and his classmates (the ones in the yellow crowns) line up in the yard to go into his classroom for the first time.