Today we read The Kindest Red

Faizah's teacher challenges them to think of a world they want. A candy world? An ice cream world? a sunny world? so many choices!

Faizah imagines a kind world - how amazing!

Then she works to make her Kind World a reality through beautiful acts of kindness. In the end, her kindness is returned.

Some really good thinking in Math today.

Our patterns could be different - depending on the attribute we are looking at.

This pattern is an AB pattern if we are looking at size, but it is an AABB pattern if we are looking at colour.

 What a magical morning we had!

AHPS welcomed magicians Brett and Sarah.

They treated us to an AMAZING magic show!

They taught us the rules of magic:

1. Anything is possible

2. Believe in yourself

3. You're not alone

They also encouraged us to "Find Our Magic"

Everyone has magic inside them and it comes out in different ways.

What is your magic?

Kindness? Laughter? Drawing?

It could be anything at all!

Brett and Sarah have generously shared with us some ways you can learn magic tricks at home. We may try some at school too! Just click here to Find Your Magic

This afternoon we read Be Kind

We are often told to "Be Kind" but what exactly does that mean? This book teaches us it can mean so many things! Being kind is giving to others, but not necessarily giving 'things'. It could be giving your time to help, giving a compliment, or giving gratitude.

Being kind is doing things that makes others feel good.

The bonus is - we also feel good when we are kind.

 Today we read Kindness is Magic.

Wolf finds out that mean words make learning new things very difficult for Owl. Wolf learns that kind words can be magical! They help Owl to learn to fly and Wolf feels better too!

Patterning together!

We put ourselves in a pattern. Can you figure out the pattern?

Ms. Babcock worked with us on making different patterns with coloured cups.

 For Mindful Monday we looked at the book Charlotte and the Quiet Place

Most places in Charlotte's life are very loud! Charlotte needs to find a quiet place on the outside - so she can feel quiet on the inside.

We talked about how even if we can't be at or in our quiet place - we can go there in our imagination to help ourselves quiet down on the inside.

Where is your quiet place?

"In the fall when I go for a walk"

"My house is my quiet place."

"On the train when people are not talking."

"My room is my quiet place."

Our sound of the week is /f/

Our dramatic center this week is our Friendly Flower Shop.

The Ladybug group has such fun working at the Friendly Flower Shop today!

Each group will have an opportunity to enjoy this center throughout the week.

We read When We Are Kind and talked about the endless ways that we can be kind to one another.

We also talked about how being kind helps us too! When we are kind we feel joy and happiness.

I am kind when I tidy up.

I am kind when I help mom.

I am kind when I give my brother a hug.

 I have been in and  out of the classroom quite a bit over the last couple of days so here is three days in one (sort of). The Kindness Project continues!

Look at our beautiful Kindness Garden!

"If you plant a seed of Kindness.

Look what grows..."

Love

Joy

Smiles

Sharing

Reading Great stories about Kindness:

Working on patterning.

What types of patterns are in the above video? AB? ABB? ABBA? Also, can you talk about that big Math word we have been learning? What is the core of the pattern?

Pattern hats!

 This morning we read, learned to sing, and signed our kindness 'contract' stating;

"May all I think and say and do

Not hurt anyone.

May all I think and say and do

Help everyone."

We read "Henry is Kind"

Henry thinks 'kindness is stupid!' until his friends help him realize how small acts of kindness help the giver of kindness feel just as good as the receiver. 

Happy Monday! We are starting a long-term inquiry on Kindness. We will be learning about what kindness is, what it looks like and feels like and why it is so important for ourselves and others. We are drawing from several books and resources including the Kindness Curriculum coming out of The Centre for Healthy Minds in the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Today we read If You Plant a Seed.

This is one of my absolute all-time favourite picture books.

"If you plant a seed of selfishness - it will grow and grow and grow into a whole heap of trouble.

But if you plant a seed of kindness..."

If you plant a seed of kindness what will grow?

"Joy will grow."

"Peace will grow."

"Love will grow."

In Math, We are looking at patterning for the next little while.

Today we talked about what a pattern is.

- something that repeats

- something that we can guess what comes next

We looked at AB patterns.

 Today we read No More Hitting for Little Hamster

Little Hamster has trouble finding anyone to play with. That's because he uses his hands for hurting others every time something doesn't go his way. People don't like getting hurt and so they won't play with Hamster. Can you blame them?

But Little Hamster comes up with a solution! He promises (remember that word from last week?) to keep his hands off others.

We reminded ourselves of things we can do to keep our hands off others;

"I can take a breath."

"I can walk away."

"I can get help."

"I can talk about how I am feeling."

In math, I challenged the class to figure out a way we could sort ourselves out.

After coming up with several different attribute choices - we decided on shoe colour.

We had six different shoe colour groups.

"Black shoes have the most."

"White shoes have the least. Only two."

"Wait! Blue shoes have only two too. They are equal with white."

"Red shoes and pink shoes both have four- they are equal too!"

Today we read "Hands off Harry!"

Harry makes so many bad choices! He uses his hands to hurt others and make them mad.

After hearing how much he has upset his classmates - Harry decides to use his hands for helping - not hurting.

Working together to sort by shape.

At home, you can try sorting the same group of things - but by different attributes (yes - your child has learned the word attribute!) size, shape, colour etc...

 Our core text for this week is Hands are not for Hitting.

Can you talk to you child about the things we learned in this book?

Hands are for many wonderful things - but hitting is absolutely not one of them.

As a class we are focusing on keeping safe hands at school.

Hands are not for hitting. They are for...

"raising your hand." (to get the teacher's attention)

"high fives."

"hugging."

"sharing."

 Today we read two books on our theme of A Treaty is a Promise

I Make Promises talks about the everyday promises we make in our lives.

We also revisited the conversation around what happens if we break a promise. 

How does it feel for the person we made the promise to?

"They would feel sad."

"They will be angry."

"They will feel frustrated."

"Maybe they would get frustrated."

We also read "I promise" 

We learned that adults can make promises to kids too.

 Continuing our learning about promises we read The Butterfly's promise.

"I promise to tidy my room."

In math we are talking about sorting. We are learning the amazing math word "attribute".

We sorted these magnets according to different attributes.

Size

Colour

Shape

Could you do some sorting at home? Socks? Crayons? Buttons?

 Mindful Monday

Today we did a guided meditation. You can try it at home!

How did you feel after?

"I feel relaxed."

"I feel calm."

"I feel lovely."

Our sound of the week this week is /c/

What can you find around the house that starts with the /c/ sound?

This week is Treaties Recognition Week. To talk about treaties at a kindergarten level we are talking about how a treaty is a promise. 

After reading the book "Alex Shares his Wampum Belt" we had a good discussion around what a promise is and why it is so important that we keep our promises. We will continue this discussion throughout the week and I encourage you to talk about it at home too.