Thank you!

Families and Friends,

I wanted to thank you for a lovely last day on Friday! As many of you know, I am moving on to a research assignment at the school board beginning March 5 and ending June 29. I am also pregnant with our third child and will be on maternity leave for the 2012- 2013 school year. I have been so proud to be an educator involved with the Full Day Early Learning Kindergarten Program for the last two years and have loved every exciting minute in our classroom. We could not have done it without your interest, support, donations, and encouragement along the way. From the bottom of my heart, thank you! Until our paths cross again, please take care of yourselves and your precious children and have a safe, healthy and happy March Break! Although this blog will not be posting classroom news until I am back in the school, I will periodically post interesting news, activities, and articles that might interest you as parents. Check back in July for a new baby picture!

Deanna McLennan

Barrier Games

 Barrier games are two sided game boards that use little manipulative pieces to create pictures. We have a store purchased one in our classroom. On Friday we placed it on a table and invited the children to use it. A player sits on each side and the children take turns giving each other instructions like "put the flag on the moon" or "put the spaceship on top of the planet". When the pieces are used up the players compare pictures to see if they match. The point of the game is to give clear instructions and be an active listener so that the pictures are identical.

Not only are barrier games fun, they encourage turn taking, active listening, and build oral language skills too!

Red Sand on the Light Table

We purchased some very neat decorative red sand and put it on the light table this week. It was beautiful!

The children were very eager to explore it, using their hands and fingers to swirl and shape the sand into letters and designs.

The light from the light table illuminated their drawings and printings.

Here's a beautiful spring butterfly!

Lots of printing practice too!

Square Prints

It's amazing how such simple materials can be used by our very creative children to create some amazing, unique pieces of art work!  We used stacking squares as print makers this past week with paint.

Some children patterned with them...

Some children stamped and then smeared the squares, and then stamped again on top. The paper we used retained the original colours so that a layered look could be achieved.

Some made geometric prints...

Smeared art work...

Folded symmetrical art work..

Beautiful background with geometric print on top...

Gorgeous!