Bears Bears Bears

 

We have been learning lots and lots about bears and hibernation.  We have been checking in with two bears living on Grouse Mountain in British Columbia, via a live bear cam.  As you know we asked for donations of cardboard in an attempt to make a den for our "little bears."  We received the cardboard sent to school by our families, but not enough for a large den.  We went with plan B, and built a den using a loaned tent.  We have enjoyed reading bear books in the den during morning and afternoon learning centres. 

Our Wonderings

 

Our students are wonderfully curious about so many things.  It's one of the things I love most about teaching Kindergarten!  We are providing a place for our students to have their wonderings recorded - on our wonder board.  We attach a thought bubble to their name, and each week, we select one wondering to research further.  Our current inquiry on bears and hibernation started on the wonder board. 

Our Building Board

 

Our students have been encouraged to use building plans to design and plan at big blocks centre.  The students work together to create a plan and then work together to build their design.  We have displayed their plans and their buildings on our building board. 



Our Mathematician's Board

 

Our students have been excited about the addition of a math board in our classroom.  We will be including new information as we begin to each new unit of study.  During our recent math unit, we learned all about measurement.  The students assisted in the creation of a learning goal for our unit - "We are learning to measure."  We also encouraged the students to think about the BIG idea of measurement, and they created, "We can measure using different tools."  We worked together to create a success criteria.  Success criteria is explained to our students as, "How will we know we've done a good job."  We created three success criteria for our measurement unit.  Our mathematician's board also includes samples of student work, and photo documentation of our students at work.

 

Our Science/Discovery Table Challenge

 

Our students were interested in rocks recently.  We spent some time looking through rock books, and reading rock facts.  We had been studying measurement in math, and we wanted to see how tall we could build a tower made of rocks.  It was a challenge for sure, but our students persevered.