This Week in Kindergarten!

This has been an incredibly short week for Mme Godin.  On Tuesday, I attended a kindergarten workshop and tomorrow is a divisional inservice.  No school for the boys and girls on Friday.  Most of the photos this week are of the two class visits, from artist Leigh-Anne Kehler.  She will come back for her last visit on April 25th.

This term's artist is Leigh-Anne Kehler, a very talented storyteller, actress and writer.

She is introducing us to "The 7 Teachings", through storytelling.  This first puppet was the wolf, who teaches us all about humility.  We all need help, no one is better than the other, we are all equal.

Each child had to find their "personal spotlight" in the class, to reenact parts of the story. Our body had to remain in the spotlight, no touching others, no touching the furniture.

After recreating the story together, the boys and girls were invited to come share in front of their classmates.  This story is about the eagle, who represents love.

These "baby eagles" are learning to fly with their mommy's help and love.

The afternoon class met the turtle, who represents truth.

Leigh-Anne taught the students some "mirroring" activities.  They had to look carefully and copy her actions.

The children were using their hands to make eagles.

Another animal we learned about was the beaver, who represents wisdom.

The children were making rain sounds to fill the river with rainwater for beaver.

The boys and girls are pretending to be moose, drinking water.

Beavers in the river.

Beavers lifting and rolling logs to build a dam.

Some more moose.

Even Mme Godin enjoyed role playing.  "Those logs were very heavy!"

During her second visit, we listened to the story of the bear, who represents courage.

A long time ago bears had very long tails.  A clever fish, told them to dig a small hole in the ice and to put their tails in the water in order to catch one hundred fish.  So the bears listened.  The children are putting their bear tails in the river.

They are so cold sitting on the icy river.

The next day, they pulled, pulled and jumped and off came their tails.  That is how the bears got short, stubby tails.

This is Sabe (Sasquatch), who represents honesty.

The children are now bison, ready to go scratch their fur on the boulder.  The bison represent respect.

The bison are running towards the boulder.

We also used our bodies to paint a picture. We had to show a part of the story using our faces, bodies and legs.

We played a few games on the SMARTboard.

The morning class had time to make the planet earth today.  The afternoon class will do theirs next week.  First step was to paint a coffee filter with blue and green markers.  We had to cover the entire filter blue and green.

Next step, was to gently spray the coffee filter with water.  I will post photos of the finished product next week.

We were very busy this week with the Integrated Arts program, as well as visits from our division's numeracy coach, Mme Page.  We still managed to have some play time.

Cooperating and creating with our friends.