Our classroom was a sea of orange today as we learned about Canadian history through "Orange Shirt Day." The kiddos and I started the day off by watching a short video explaining why we all wear an orange shirt. Here it is: Shortly after, we read a story called, "Phyllis' Orange Shirt" by Phyllis Webstad (also in the video) to further our understanding of Residential Schools and the effect they had on First Nation children. At the beginning of the story, I presented each kiddo with a nice big, beautiful, orange, paper heart. Throughout the story, I asked them to identify unkind events in the story by crumpling a piece of the heart up to help understand that those actions were hurtful and can make people feel small. By the end of the story, the heart was shriveled up into a ball. The kiddos were very empathetic of Phyllis and other children who had to attend residential schools. They identified how she must have felt when her orange shirt was taken away, sleeping in a bed that was not hers and not being able to see her family for over 300 sleeps. At the end of the story, I challenged the kiddos to try and open their heart back up slowly and carefully. I asked them to try their best to make it look exactly the same as when I first handed it to them at the beginning of the story. Some children tried to pull the crinkles out and others used the floor to make it flat again. We discussed the differences between the heart at the beginning and the end of the story. I explained that although we tried to make it look the same, it never will be. This is why we need to treat all people with respect and embrace their unique and special abilities. We promised to work together to use kind words and help one another to create a more positive future! These little people are already so empathetic, loving and caring. They have all the capabilities of changing the world and are on their way already! You will find the crinkled heart in their back pack. Please take some time tonight to review why we wear an orange t-shirt and remind them of the following:
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Last week, we began to discover how each of us is "unique". So far we have concentrated on how our names contribute to making us special, and why we should be proud of them. The kiddos had a chance to create their own "unique" representation of their names. If you have time, stop by and take a look at the "Identi-tree" we created. It begins to tell the story of our Kinder Family.
Today we read the book, "Chrysanthemum" which tells a story about a girl who goes to school and some girls make fun of her name because its "too long" and "sounds like a flower." The kiddos and I discussed this type of behavior and concluded that making fun of other people is not kind. We spoke about how each persons name holds a special meaning and I encouraged the kiddos to ask you (parents) about how they go their name tonight! We learned that in Kindergarten we spell our names the "Kindergarten" way where there is only (usually) a big letter at the beginning of our name and the rest are small letters. We sat in a circle and practiced writing our name tracers. The kiddos sure were proud to see and share their names. Today was an exciting day in Kindergarten as we met our newest friend Mat Man!! Mat Man is a tool we use to help us learn to draw a full human body. There is an adorable song that goes along with the drawing. We learned that in order to create Mat Man, all you need is big lines, small lines, big curves and small curves. This is terminology and a creation from Handwriting Without Tears. The big lines, big curves (etc) are also used in printing and we will learn that a little later on in the year. Here are some pictures of our Kinder friends creating Mat Man in different ways. We got together during Circle Time today and drew Mat Man together on chalk boards. It was inspiring to see how hard the kiddos worked on their own individual Mat Man. They were so proud, they wanted to keep it on the chalk board forever!!
Our first day of Kindergarten was a fabulous day full of love, laughter and smiles. We begun to develop new friendships and were introduced to the routines of a brand new school year! It was so exciting to finally have our whole class together for the first time. I can tell this is going to be a special class and an amazing year!! Check out the video full of pictures of our first day :)
As I didn't have all the blog permission slips back, there are some kiddos missing from the class pictures. I also had to delete quite a few group photos for the same reason. Please send back the blog permission slips as soon as possible. If you need another form, send me an email and I can send one electronically. |
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July 2020
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