Problem-Solving in Math

Our kindergarten friends love a good math challenge!

We played a game using 10 cubes, a number line and a container.  

One partner closes his/her eyes, while the other partner hides some cubes under the container.

When the partner opens his/her eyes, he/she has to figure out how many cubes must be hiding under the container.

Here we are working with partners as we problem-solve to figure out the answer.

Try this one at home...
There are 10 cubes.

Some cubes have been hidden under the container.
How many cubes must be hiding under the container?
What is your answer?
How did you figure out the answer?

Continuing our Learning about the Earth...

We have been working very hard to properly sort items into the red box, blue box and garbage.

Catching a little sunshine this week by the "kindergarden". We are discussing signs of spring and looking for signs of spring in our school yard!

This week, we made bird feeders.  We hope you are able to hang your bird feeder somewhere close to your home.  We have hung a few around the school yard and are observing what happens to the bird feeders.

We discovered a nest outside in one of the trees.  We will be checking back on this tree to see if any changes occur in this nest. 

Earth Day is Every Day

April 22nd is Earth Day. 

In our kindergarten class, we are learning that "every day is Earth day".

We have begun an inquiry on the earth and the environment.

We are learning about different ways we can take care of the earth.

Small group guided reading a non-fiction story about the Earth.

We learned about the word "pollution".
We listened to a story about a lake that became polluted and how this affected all the creatures that lived in the lake.

Take a look at our "beautiful planet Earth"! We worked on this cooperative project together as a class with some help from our grade 5/6 buddies!

Water is important. Look at all the ways we use water!

Jack and the Beanstalk

Following along with our "fairy tale theme", we read different versions of the story "Jack and the Beanstalk".  We explored the concept of measurement as we compared the length of the giant's foot to other objects in our classroom.

We used our imaginations to imagine what things could be at the top of the beanstalk.

We experimented with a mixture of oil and flour to try to make our very own clouds - just like the clouds Jack travelled through to get to the top of the beanstalk.

 The Fairytale Castle

If you see some princes, princesses, kings and queens wandering around Colchester North Public School, they are likely coming for Ms. Ducharme's JK/SK class.  Our youngest learners have been busy working together to create a "castle center".

From printing letters on signs, to making the castle walls to decorating crowns, all the students have been engaged in some way to help construct this center.

We did some "research" about castles by looking at books and searching the internet to get ideas about how our castle center should look.

The children love dressing up and engaging in imaginative play at this center.

Many of the students decorated "shields" to display in the center. We used our "best guess spelling" to print "castle" words.

One of our new favorite stories..."King Bidgood is in the Bathtub".  

Fantastic work drawing castles and finishing the sentence starter "My castle is...".

Happy Easter!

We incorporated EGGS into our learning this week.  We are working at making good "estimates", so the students were challenged each day to "estimate" the number of eggs in a container.

We experimented with colour using hardboiled eggs and a colouring kit.  The students especially enjoyed this activity and made great observations about how the eggs changed.  Thanks to everyone for bringing in eggs.  I hope the eggs made it home safely!

We ended our day with a special egg hunt.  The students had to read a message I wrote to them on chart paper.  Working together using their letter/sound knowledge and sight word recognition, the students were able to red the message successfully!