Yellow Dragon Class News

Dear Kindergarten Yellow Dragon Families,

Well we are now in week 4! Almost half way through the term! As always, Yellow Dragon have been busy learning lots of new things!

Literacy:
This week we are learning about the sound ‘Oo’. Our sight words are: she, said, all and our Science word is: boat. We completed our brainstorm and our rainbow writing books on Monday morning and counted the syllables in all of our ‘Oo’ words. Later on this week we will be learning about the ‘all’ word family.

This week in writing we have been thinking about sentence structure. The Yellow Dragon’s have been editing my sentences which are full of ‘mistakes’. Silly Miss Richardson has left capital letters in the middle of words, no finger spaces and sometimes even puts a full stop in the middle of a sentence? The class enjoys pointing out my mistakes and we correct them together. This reinforces general sentence structure and helps to give the children the skills to edit their own sentences.

We completed a dictation like lesson today, where the students listened to my sentence and wrote down the words. They had to think about left to right swing, letter size and formation, spelling and used their sound knowledge. I was so proud of their efforts!!! It was wonderful to see that they can now write a sentence with very little teacher assistance. FANTASTIC WORK Yellow Dragons!!!

This week in modelled literacy lessons, Kindergarten are reading a lovely story called: ‘Owl Babies’. We have discussed the meaning of the word nocturnal and thought about the characters in the story. Later on this week will be using this book as inspiration for writing. We also enjoyed watching a short animation of the text.

Mathematics:
This week in maths, Yellow Dragon have been revising data. As a class we discussed what a picture graph is and why we might use one. Today we analysed a graph displaying a class’ favourite fruit. We talked about which fruit was the most popular and least popular. We also counted the total number of children in this class. The Yellow Dragons also began to think about the differences in totals between specific columns!!

Later in the week, Kindergarten will be learning about capacity. They will be using comparative language and words such as full, half full and empty to describe the capacity of containers.

Creative Arts
Drama was lots of fun again this week. The Yellow Dragons began improvising in front of an audience, concentrating on voice projection as well as mime.

As our sound of the week is ‘Oo’ and our book of the week is ‘Owl Babies’, the Yellow Dragons made their own owl babies during our fine motor lesson. The children are becoming so independent when cutting and pasting. I was AMAZED by how carefully they coloured, cut and assembled their little owls. Come and have a look at our owl babies if you have the time!

Science
Last week in our science lesson, we learnt what the word ‘hypothesis’ means. We made educated guesses and tested lots of materials to see if they would float or sink. After conducting lots of tests, the Yellow Dragon’s recorded their findings in their floating and sinking booklets. They were very excited when I told them that they are now real scientists!!!

This week in science the Yellow Dragons read ‘Who Sank the Boat?’ by Pamela Allen. We had a fantastic discussion whilst reading the book. We talked about boats, their shape and what happens to them when they are full. Using foil, today the children created their own boats. We tested them together in a fish tank, it was lots of fun!! Most of the students created a boat that did float! We discussed why some designs were better than others and enjoyed experimenting. The Yellow Dragons then drew a labeled diagram in our special science booklets at the end of the lesson.

Child Protection
This week we have begun discussing emotions. We used our faces to show how we look when we are: happy, angry, sad, excited etc. We also talked about times in our lives when we have felt these emotions. We discussed ‘yes’ and ‘no’ feelings. A ‘yes’ feeling is when something happens that we like. A ‘no’ feeling is when something happens that we don’t like.

At the conclusion of the lesson, we enjoyed singing: ‘I can sing a rainbow’ and ‘When your happy and you know it’.

Some reminders…
-Tomorrow is a no uniform day, to raise money for Allergy Awareness week!
-Tomorrow is also our floating and sinking project day. Therefore I will be cancelling reading groups and won’t need any parent helpers tomorrow. I look forward to seeing you next week!!!
-Assembly will be at 2.30pm on Thursday afternoon.
- Please check the newsletter to see if there is any industrial action on Friday.

I hope you are having a great week!

Kind Regards,
Katy Richardson

Dear Kindergarten Yellow Dragon Families,

Welcome to week 3! Another busy week in Kindergarten!

Talking and Listening
I have really enjoyed listening to everyone’s news so far this week. We have had experiments, videos, photos, books and toys to see and discuss. It has been FANTASTIC!! I look forward to the rest of the presentations later in the week.

Literacy
This week in Kindergarten we are learning about the letter ‘Cc’. The Yellow dragons brainstormed lots of ‘Cc’ words including: coincidence and Croatia. We also learnt about compound words, as someone suggested cowboy for our brainstorm. We then completed our Rainbow Writing books before heading off to Drama. This week our sightwords are: he, up, but, very. We are also continuing to learn our science words: float, sink.

This week we have been reading ‘The very hungry caterpillar’ by Eric Carle. The Yellow Dragons have watched a short video of the story. The children loved this! We have also been singing the days of the week to the tune of ‘The Addams Family’ as the caterpillar eats different foods on different days of the week. In writing this week, we have been practising writing the days of the week, by creating a mini book of the story. We will finish these tomorrow. The Yellow Dragons are very excited about taking them home to share with you.

Fine-motor Craft
In keeping with the caterpillar theme, the Yellow Dragons made their own hungry caterpillars. They look absolutely gorgeous and are displayed in the kindy hallway outside our classroom!

Mathematics
In Maths this week the Yellow Dragons have continued to practice their number writing and counting.

Today we read a book called: ‘Clancy and Millie and the very fine house’. This story was all about an old house and a new house that were very different sizes. Yellow Dragon talked about the concept of ‘Area’. We came up with different ways that we can measure the area of an object or compare the areas of different shapes. We discovered that we can put two items on top of each other to compare area. The Yellow Dragons also discovered that they can use concrete materials (such as playing cards) to measure area. In groups of 4 or 5, the children used cards to measure a small rectangle that I had taped on our class carpet. This was a wonderful team building exercise and the children worked very well in their small groups. The class really enjoyed comparing our rectangles. We will be continuing to investigate area this week.

Child Protection
This week I will begin teaching the Child Protection program. Our lesson is all about ‘protection’ and what this means. Where do you feel safe? Do you have pets at home? How do you protect them and keep them safe? What kinds of things do your parents do to look after you when you are sick to help make you feel better?
These are the kinds of questions we will be discussing together. Please come and see me if you have any questions about this.

Bounceback
Last week during our Bounceback lesson, we learnt about ‘integrity’. As a class we discussed what it means to be honest and fair. We played the honest/dishonest game (the children had to listen to scenarios and decide if the person was being honest or dishonest). Yellow Dragon were very good at this game. We also enjoyed playing: ‘Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar!’ A classic favourite! I was telling the Yellow Dragons last week that I played it when I was in Kindergarten!!!!!!! The children also discussed integrity in Buddies last Thursday.

Science
This week, Kindergarten will continue to discuss and investigate the concept of floating and sinking. We will predict, test and discover whether a variety of objects float or sink. The children will also have the opportunity to create their own floating object!! We will be having our Buddy project day next Wednesday. Check the newsletter for more details!

Visual Arts
This week in art Yellow Dragon continued with our water theme. Using craft glue, the children created an abstract design. We then poured salt all over the glue and sprinkled the excess into a container. Using eticol dye, the students then coloured their abstract designs using yellow, red, blue and green. It was great fun!

JUST A REMINDER….
-Assembly will be on Thursday at 2.30pm.
-Sport will be on Fridays at this stage.
-Buddies will continue on Thursdays.

I hope you are having a great week!

Kind Regards
Katy Richardson

Dear Kindergarten Yellow Dragon Families,

Week 2 already! The Yellow Dragons are well and truly back in routine and are busily learning lots of new things.

News
This week Kindergarten have started their formal news program. We have really enjoyed hearing from the Monday and Tuesday news groups, who have entertained us with very interesting presentations. I look forward to hearing the rest of the class throughout the week.

Literacy
This week Kindergarten is learning about the letter ‘Ll’. Our sight words for the week are ‘little’ and ‘big’ and our special science words are ‘float’ and ‘sink’. In class we have read a story called ‘Little Humpty’ and brainstormed words that mean little (small, tiny) and big (large, huge, gigantic). We have also written some sentences about big and little animals. During our fine motor lesson, we made lions. The students created their lion’s mane by cutting out rectangles with either lower case or upper case Ll’s. They look fantastic and are displayed outside the Yellow Dragon Classroom.

Reading Groups have started again. Thankyou to the parents who helped out today. If you are unable to continue helping or need to change your day, please let me know. Today we enjoyed using a new reading group activity called ‘Rhyming houses’. The students have to post simple words that rhyme into the correct 3D house. It was great fun!!

Mathematics
This week in mathematics we are continuing to revise number using Count Me In Too games that we learnt last term. The Yellow Dragons have also been counting both forwards and backwards and even beginning to skip count…. wow!!

Our main focus this week is Ordinal Numbers. We have been using the activeboard to play Ordinal Number games and have been saying 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc out loud. Today the students created a running race in their maths workbook. They labelled the children and animals in the race according to the order that they were placed in the race. I was very impressed with the Yellow Dragons ordinal number writing!!

Science
Today we started to discuss our science topic: ‘Floating and Sinking’. We read a factual book and watched a special float and sink podcast. The cookie monster taught us that a hypothesis is a guess. We had to guess or hypothesise and work out if we thought that a lemon, lime, coconut, rubber duck or ball of rubber bands would float or sink. A few of these items tricked us. We learnt that coconuts float and that a lime will sink!!

We also read ‘Alexanders Outing’ by Pamela Allen. In the story, Alexander the duck becomes stuck in a ditch. All the towns people pour water down the ditch and he slowly floats to the top. The Yellow Dragons then completed the first page in their special science booklets. Later in the week the Yellow and Orange Dragons will watch ‘Ups and Downs’ a Magic School Bus episode all about floating and sinking!

Art
This term our art activities will be focused around the topic of water. The Yellow Dragons studied Monet’s Water Lilies this afternoon. We discussed the colours used and general technique. The children each had a go at creating their own water lily painting using watercolours and oil pastels . As we painted, the Yellow Dragons listened to relaxing water sounds. The paintings look beautiful and are displayed in our classroom. Please come in and have a look!

Drama
Drama yesterday was lots of FUN!! We played lots of warm up games with our new teacher Miss Anna. I know that the children are excited about their lesson next week!

Reminders
-Buddies will be starting this Thursday after lunch.
-Assembly this week will be on Friday at 2.15pm. This will be a farewell assembly for Mr Cheng and will take place under the COLA.
-Please send your Child Protection note back to school ASAP!
-Just a reminder that the children are to keep their crunch and sip in their bags until 9 am when they will put their own crunch and sip on their tables. Most Children are remembering to do this. Thankyou for your help!
-Sport this week will be on a Friday!

I think that is all for now. I hope that you are having a wonderful week!

Kind Regards,
Katy Richardson

Dear Yellow Dragon Families,

Welcome to Term 2!!

It was lovely catching up with the Yellow Dragons yesterday. I can’t believe how much they have all grown!!! They all seemed excited to be back and we enjoyed listening to each other’s holiday stories! It sounds like the kids had a wonderful Easter break! We enjoyed writing sentences about our holiday and painting our favourite holiday activity in class yesterday!

I had a great break. I spent some time at home relaxing and of course some time at work. But the highlight of my holiday was my time in Canberra. One of my cousins (who is more like a sister) has moved to Canberra to study Law at ANU. It was great to see her and have a tour of her favourite places. We went to all her favourite restaurants and of course did LOTS of shopping. I was also introduced to her six chickens. Their names are: Pearl, Dorris, Margot, Eadie, Peggy and Clementine. By the time I visit next time, I believe she will also have two ducks!!!

Yellow Dragon were extremely excited yesterday to receive a present from Sam who has just returned from a trip to China. Whilst away, he found a ‘real’ yellow dragon which he brought in to show the class. Our yellow dragon is sitting on top of my easel and is absolutely gorgeous. Pop by and have a look. Thanks Sam and Robyn, a great class mascot!

Reading Group Helpers

This week the Yellow Dragons will be getting back into routine and revising term 1 content. We will be having reading group activities, but as the week is so short I will start our formal reading program with parent helpers next week! Please come and see me if you have any questions about this.

Crunch and Sip Routine

This term, the children will continue to place their Red Note Bags in the special Yellow Dragon box in front of our bear. However I will ask that the children leave their Crunch and Sip in their school bags (in the front pocket). At 9 am when we walk to class, the students will get out their Crunch and Sip and place it on their desks. This is to encourage the kids to play in the playground in the mornings, as many are choosing to play in the classroom and I am not always in there. The teacher on duty does need the kids to be in the main playground before 9 am in order to supervise the students. Your assistance in encouraging this would be greatly appreciated.

Drama

This term Kindergarten will be starting our Drama lessons! These will take place in the school hall and will be during our kickstart time from last term (Mondays at 9.50 am). Our new Drama teacher sounds fantastic and the children in Yellow Dragon are already extremely excited about starting next Monday!!

Science and Tech

This term our Science and Technology topic is ‘Float and sink’. The children have already begun to ask lots of questions as they saw our special display in the classroom yesterday. Over the next few weeks we will be learning about what the words ‘float’ and ‘sink’ mean and will be completing lots of fun science experiments. On Monday, the teachers all had a go at designing a boat that floats. Team Miss Richardson/Mrs Lawson created a rather fancy luxury liner that did, fortunately, float (I’m sure Barbie enjoyed her boat ride)!! In week 4, we will be having a special science project day. On this day the children will also have the opportunity in their buddy group to create a boat that floats. The Yellow Dragons are already thinking about what features their boat will need. It will be an extremely exciting term!!

Buddies

Buddy Groups: This term we will be starting our Buddy Program. This will be the third year that Australia St will have used the Bounceback program. If you are keen to know more about it, I have the Bouceback acronym poster up on the wall just inside our classroom door. The lessons help to teach the children to be resilient and to develop coping strategies that they can use at school and home. Each week Yellow Dragon will discuss the weekly Bounceback topic. This will then be reinforced during Buddies when the year 2 children will lead their group in further discussion. The children also play games with their ‘buddies’. Each Buddy group will have a mixture of kids from Pre-school to year 2 (about 12 in total). It is a great opportunity for the kindy kids to get to know other children in the school. It is lots of fun!

Child Protection

In PD/H/PE this term I will be teaching the Child Protection curriculum. If you have any questions about this please feel free to come and see me. A permission slip will be going home in the next few days. It would be great if this could be returned ASAP so that we can start our lessons.

Sport

This week Kindergarten will be having sport on Friday. I will post on next week’s Blog if this will continue or if the sport day will change. At this stage Mrs Lawson and I are still finalising our class timetables.

News and Sightwords

Yesterday I sent home a copy of our term 2 sight words. This week I will also send home a note and roster outlining our term 2 News program. Each child in the Yellow Dragon class has been nominated a news day. They will each present a 1-2 minute presentation on the weekly topic (relating to ‘floating and sinking’ or free choice). The note will outline each topic and give some suggestions. This is NOT meant to be a stressful task and shouldn’t take too much time to organise. Please come and see me if you have any questions about the program. The students will keep their ‘news’ in their bag all day until it is news time. This prevents anything getting lost or broken over the course of the day. Please don’t bring anything that is too large, it should fit in your child’s bag. If it is fragile, I am more than happy to keep it safe in my cupboard! The children are very excited about ‘news’. It is an important part of the Kindergarten Talking and Listening program.

Assembly

This Thursday will be an ANZAC day assembly at 2.30pm. There will be no awards this week.

I think that is all for now. I know that was a lot of information to take in. I look forward to the exciting term ahead!

Kind Regards,

Katy Richardson

Dear Kindergarten Yellow Dragon Families,

Welcome to the last week of Term 1! I can hardly believe 11 weeks have past us by already. It has been an absolute pleasure getting to know your gorgeous children and I look forward to the rest of the year!

To celebrate your child’s first term of Kindergarten and their wonderful achievements so far, Mrs Lawson and I would like to take all of Kindergarten across to Camperdown Park as a special treat. A note went home on Monday about this. If you have any questions or concerns please don’t hesitate to contact me!

This week, Yellow Dragon will be learning about the letter ‘Rr’. We will be revising all Term 1 sight words and learning two new words: went, for. Kindergarten’s book of the week is a favourite of mine: ‘Rosie’s Walk’ by Pat Hutchins. During the week we will be learning about position words such as: over, behind, around, under. Rosie walks around a farm in the story, but is unaware that a fox is chasing her! Yellow Dragon particularly enjoyed watching an animation of the story and discussing why Pat Hutchins never mentions the fox in the text.

The children in Yellow Dragon each made a ‘Rosie’ on Monday afternoon and Kindergarten have created a wall display in the Kindy hall using all the position words from the story. Come and have a look at Rosie’s adventure!

This week in Writing, Kindergarten Yellow Dragon will be having a go at sounding out all the places that Rosie went in ‘Rosie’s walk’. For example: the beehive, the pond, through the fence and around the haystack. Each child will be given a picture from the story to label and colour! This activity is lots of fun! Later in the week, Yellow Dragon will also be completing a sequencing activity. The children will glue pictures of the places that Rosie went in the story in the correct order. They will also make a Rosie’s walk puzzle…. Lots of exciting activities ahead! Lastly we will also be writing about our first 50 days of Kindergarten!!! (I can’t believe it!) The children will brainstorm things they have liked so far about being in Kindy at Australia Street Infants!

This week in mathematics, Kindergarten will be revising topics that we have learnt so far this term. We will focus particularly on addition and general number. Yellow Dragon will be playing Count Me In Too games like: Toss and add, fences, snakes and ladders and Teddy Bear Race. As well as: Around the world and Buzz off Hairy Legs.

I think the only new maths game in that list is ‘Fences’(Here is a quick explanation):
Fences: In this game, the children order paddle pop sticks (with numbers on them) along a fence. They take one stick out, taking turns with a partner. It is a race to try and cover your fence first.

During maths this week Kindergarten Yellow Dragon will also be completing some Easter maths activities which are lots of fun!

This week in Kickstart Yellow Dragon reflected on all the sports we have played this term with a particular focus on tennis and rugby. Mitch also taught us to tackle a big, soft ‘tackle pad’. It was great; the kids had a lot of fun. We will see Mitch again in Term 4 when we continue our Kickstart program. Thanks Mitch for a great term!

I am sure that the children came home and told you all about our visit from the Newtown Fire Department. It was great fun!!! Firstly we had a talk with a fireman, who taught us about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ fires. For example: A good fire is when we have candles on a birthday cake and a bad fire is a bush fire. We also learnt how to STOP, DROP and ROLL to avoid breathing in smoke when in a fire. The Fireman showed our class all the clothing he has to wear when he goes into a burning house. We saw the many layers of protection and observed the fact that no skin is showing. We then saw the fireman put his oxygen tank on. He sounded a lot like Darth Vader from Star Wars!

Once we had learnt these important safety lessons, we had a look at the fire engine! The children in Yellow Dragon learnt all about where the water is kept, how the hoses work and listened to the siren. Each child then had a turn of the fire hose. They turned it on with the help of the fireman and pointed it at the library. The water went VERY high and the hose was extremely powerful! It was like it was raining!

Just a reminder that this Thursday will be our final assembly of the term. It will start at 2.30pm.

It has been fantastic getting to know all the Yellow Dragon Families this term!! I hope that you all have a WONDERFUL and SAFE Easter break! I look forward to hearing all about your holidays from the Yellow Dragons when they return to school in term 2!

Happy Easter!!

Kind Regards,

Katy Richardson

Dear Yellow Dragon Families,

Welcome to week 10!!

The children in Yellow Dragon are really excited about Granfriends day tomorrow! We have been practising our song and working hard on creating props as well. I look forward to meeting lots of Yellow Dragon Granfriends!! Assembly will begin at 11 am and open classrooms will follow this. At lunch time there will be a barbeque and a book sale where you can donate some fantastic books to our school library! We will be completing a special activity with our Granfriends tomorrow. Come along and see what it is!

This week in Kindergarten we are learning about the letter ‘Dd’. We completed our ‘Dd’ page in our Rainbow Writing books and brainstormed lots of ‘Dd’ words. This week our sight words are: me, if, on, the. Our Modelled reading lessons will be focused around a big book called: Dan the Flying Man. It is a humorous story about a man who wears a jet pack and flies around. Yellow Dragon will be using our sightwords (which appear in our big book) to compose sentences this week. We will also be making our own ‘Dan the Flying Man’ book to read at home!!

Last week Yellow Dragon revised the ‘at’ word family. I was very impressed! They were able to come up with lots of ‘at’ words and could tell me what sounds had to go at the beginning to make each new word in the family. We wrote words like: sat, mat, cat, hat, that, pat, bat and rat. FANTASTIC YELLOW DRAGONS!!!

In reading groups this week we played ‘Beat the Frog’. This is similar to ‘Beat the Bear’ except in this game the children are listening for rhyming words. It was a hit!! On the fine motor table, the children used coloured tweezers to sort coloured beans into small bowls. This requires great concentration and focus and the kids absolutely loved it!! This activity is great for the children’s finger muscles and helps with pencil control. We also played another Yellow Dragon favourite: Pirate Treasure.

During our fine motor craft lesson, Kindergarten made dragons (‘Dd’ week). We used oil pastels and water colours. The children carefully added details like scales to their dragons and used lots of bright coloured paint. They look wonderful!!

This week in Mathematics the Yellow Dragons will be continuing to learn about addition. They will be revising the numbers that make 5 using a five frame and will also be completing simple word problems using bunny ears (fingers behind their head) to help them work out the answers. We will also be using pictures to write simple number sentences together. Yellow Dragon will compare sentences with words to sentences with numbers and begin discussing the addition sign and the equals sign and what they mean. We will also begin discussing numbers that make 10 using a 10 frame and concrete materials.

In science last week the children in Yellow Dragon created some AMAZING toys. They were able to clearly describe all the features of their toy and how it would move. It was lots of fun. Their toys are displayed on our ‘Toy wall’ at the back of the classroom. Please pop in and have a look at our wonderful creations!!

In Kickstart this week, Tim taught us all about soccer. We practised using both the inside and outside of our foot to control the ball and learnt how to score goals. It was lots of fun!!

This week in art we are in the process of creating magical castles guarded by dragons! As a class, Yellow Dragon looked at lots of different dragon pictures. We discussed their features such as: scales, eyes, noses, fire, tails, wings etc. The children compared the different dragons and discussed the features they liked and didn’t like. They then went to their tables, and using these pictures as inspiration, created their own mythical creature. They look GREAT! The next step was of course the castle. Using red and yellow paint, the children painted their magical castle. Sometime this week, the Yellow Dragons will add important details to their painting using permanent markers and decide where to place their dragon on their picture. They look fabulous so far and we are having lots of fun making them!!!

Lastly: This week is Winona Lukabyo’s last week with us in Yellow Dragon and at Australia Street Infants. We have really enjoyed having her with us for the term. I wish her all the best for her teaching career and thank her for all her hard work! All the best Winona!

I hope you are all having a great week!

Kind Regards,

Katy Richardson

Dear Yellow Dragon Families,

Well… another exciting week has past us by and we are now well and truly into week 9. Kindergarten really enjoyed tabloid sports day and had a great time Irish dancing at Friday’s assembly. A big thankyou to the lovely Miss McGinty for teaching us. I would also like to thank Alison and all the other parents for helping out on Thursdays Sport day! It really was much appreciated!!

Granfriends day is drawing near (next Wednesday- 28th) and the children in Yellow Dragon are getting very excited about their debut performance at our special assembly (11am). We are also looking forward to showing our Granfriends around our classroom (open classrooms will follow assembly). There will be a sausage sizzle on the day (order with Miss Heather) and the opportunity to purchase a book for our school library. A special sticker will be placed in the front cover of any donated book with your child’s name and they will be the first to borrow the book from the library once it has been processed!

I was on a course yesterday with Mrs Webber, so was unable to join in the fun of Kickstart. I hear from the children that they learnt about basketball. It sounded like they had a great time!!

This week in Kindergarten we are learning about the letter ‘Ff’. The children brainstormed many ‘Ff’ words on Monday and completed their rainbow writing books. Our sight words for the week are: a, on, at. We practise our sightwords every day! Yellow Dragon are getting pretty good at recognising them when I mix them up!! This week we will be reading some information texts about frogs, including a big book called ‘Growing Frogs’. This text clearly explains the lifecycle of a frog: egg, tadpole, froglet and frog. Today the Yellow Dragons made some beautiful frog life cycles. They are hanging up in our classroom, please come and have a look!!

As we have been learning about the text type ‘description’, Yellow Dragon will be creating some descriptive sentences in writing time this week. We will be discussing what frogs look like and feel like, how they move and what sounds they make.

In Yellow Dragon we are really enjoying describing our animal pictures. Last week we compared the features of a rainbow lorikeet and a cockatoo. The children noticed that they both have small eyes, use claws to stand on perches and tails for balance. They discussed their difference in colour and size and the shape of their beaks. Well done Yellow Dragons!!

In reading groups last week we enjoyed learning two new activities. ‘Rhyming Bingo’ on the listening post and Pirate Treasure. Pirate Treasure is similar to memory, however under one of the words is a piece of ‘treasure’ (a gold counter). It is a race to find the pair of sight-words with the pirate treasure underneath as you receive an extra turn! The children were very excited about this activity. It was lots of fun!!!

Our Maths topic for this week is Mass. The children will be using words like: heavy, light, heaviest, lightest, heavier, lighter. Using a technique called ‘hefting’ (using your hands to decide which item is heavier) and an equal arm balance, the children will be exploring and comparing the mass of different classroom objects. The Yellow Dragons will also be drawing heavy and light items in their maths workbooks. We will also continue to practise our number writing, counting and numbers before and after!

During our fine motor craft lesson this week, the Yellow Dragons read ‘The Rainbow Fish’. They really enjoyed this beautiful story and made their own rainbow fish. The children paper-chipped their fish and included one special silver scale, like the fish in the story. They are gorgeous!!

In science this week, the children in Yellow Dragon will be designing their own toy. I am sure they will create some amazing designs. I can’t wait to see what they come up with. Once they have drawn their special design the children will label the toys most important features.

Lastly, you may have heard about the latest addition to our classroom: a rainbow dragon that looks for table points. As we couldn’t agree on his name, Yellow Dragon voted as a class. There were many suggestions such as: Raffy, Rainbow, Sooty Duncan and Rainy; however after careful consideration he was named ‘Jon’. Jon visits the table with the most points on a Friday for the duration of the following week. Come and meet Jon if you have the time!!

I hope you are all having a great week!

Kind Regards,

Katy Richardson

Dear Yellow Dragon Families,

Welcome to week 8! Another busy week in Kindergarten!

In Kickstart we played hockey. Yellow Dragon dribbled balls between cones and had a go at shooting into a goal. We also played our favourite game: Builders and Destroyers!!

This week we are learning about the sound ‘iI’. Our sight words are: here, on. Yellow Dragon enjoyed completing their rainbow writing books, focusing on neat handwriting this week. On Monday we also shared recounts about our weekends!

This week Yellow Dragon have been learning about a new text type: Descriptions. We have been using adjectives to describe pictures of animals. For example: A crocodile is bumpy. It is green. It would feel rough to touch. Crocodiles have sharp teeth. We have also described a rainbow lorikeet, a sugar glider and a snake.

Our book of the week is yet another favourite of mine: ‘Where is the green sheep’ By Mem Fox. A story I am sure you are all very familiar with. On Monday Yellow Dragon made our own sheep during our craft lesson. The children paper chipped their sheep using coloured paper. We made: red sheep, space sheep, pink sheep, blue sheep, orange sheep and a yellow sheep. Today in our writing lesson we wrote about our sheep. Our sentence was: Here is the _______ sheep. Come and read our wonderful sentences!

This week in writing I will be introducing one of my favourite activities. It is called lucky dip writing. The children will each be given a picture of a sheep from the story. Some examples are: the working sheep, the dancing sheep, the crying sheep or the eating sheep. The children then compose a sentence about their particular sheep. They will write down any sounds they can hear in the name of the sheep they have pulled from the lucky dip. This is always a fun writing activity that the children love!!!

The children in Yellow Dragon are getting very good at listening for the first sound in a word!

In maths this week we will be learning about length. So far, Yellow Dragon have been discussing words that we might use when we are comparing the lengths of objects. As a class we have ordered rectangles in our scrapbooks from longest to shortest and discussed strategies we can use to compare length. This week the children will also be sorting objects under two headings: long/ short. We will also line up from tallest to shortest. As a class, the children in Yellow Dragon will compare the heights of their peers using words like: tallest, shortest, longest, smallest. Lots of fun maths activities this week!

News! You could feel the excitement in the room! Last week we presented our news in one giant circle. This week the children will be presenting their news in a smaller news circle. They listened beautifully to their peers, I was so impressed!! The children were so sensible with their own news and took great care with their friend’s special items. During news I learnt some interesting facts about frogs, the names of all the ‘Octonaut’ characters and the special submarines that they drive and enjoyed a lesson in chess. Very informative! It was lots of fun!

This Thursday is Tabloid Sports Day. Please make sure that your child comes to school in sports shoes. It is also important that they have a hat and a water bottle with their name clearly marked. I suggest that you give your child a big breakfast as they will be having recess a tiny bit later than usual! If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to pop by and see me!

This week Assembly will be on Friday at 2.30pm. This will be a special Irish Assembly. Each class will have the opportunity to do some Irish Dancing. We have been practising with Ms McGinity. It is lots of fun!

I hope you are having a great week!

Kind Regards,

Katy Richardson

Dear Yellow Dragon Families,

Another week of term 1 has flown by! The Yellow Dragons are well and truly settled into school and our class routines. I get into BIG trouble if I forget any of our usual daily activities!

Over the past few weeks, I have had lots of requests from the children for news. I generally start our News Circles in term 2, however the Yellow Dragons are extremely keen to start them sooner. As the students are so excited about the idea of ‘news time’, I have decided that we will start them this Friday. Here is a brief explanation of how News Circles will work:

Each Friday the children will be encouraged to either bring an item in to show their peers, or to have thought of some ‘talking news’. Please make sure it isn’t a really valuable item, as there is always the potential for things to get lost. I will ask the children to leave their news in their bags until News Circle time. At this time the class will be divided into small groups. They will have 2 minutes to present their news to the group and have some questions or comments. Later in the year, we will give presentations to the whole class. If you have any questions about how this will work, please do not hesitate to ask me!

In Kickstart Yellow Dragon learnt about tennis. Mitch was sick so we had a new teacher this week. He taught us to hit a forehand and backhand. We also played some fun warm up games!

This week we are learning about the letter ‘Tt’ and our sight words are: want, it, to, and. We completed our usual sound brainstorm and rainbow writing activity on Monday morning and will be making our tiger fine motor craft later in the week. Please come in and have a look! Yellow Dragon have also continued to practise recounting our weekend. We try and think about: ‘what’ we did, ‘who’ was there, ‘when’ we did it and one thing that we really enjoyed.

Our big book focus for week 7 is ‘Where’s my teddy?’ by Jez Alborough. We have really enjoyed reading this story which is about a little boy who can’t find his teddy bear. We noticed something different in the title this week…. a question mark. The Yellow Dragons have discussed why this was used instead of a full stop. Using our sight words and sounding out new words, we had a go at writing a sentence that needed a question mark like the title of our book of the week. We also enjoyed comparing statements and questions. The students began to identify the difference between the two types of sentences.

We will have a go at writing more questions later in the week!

In reading groups last week, Yellow Dragon enjoyed learning some new games. We played ‘Spikey Mikey’. This helps the children practise clapping syllables in words. It is lots of fun! We also learnt how to play ‘Alphabet Zoo’. This is a board game that encourages sound recognition. The students roll the dice and see what letter of the alphabet they land on. In order to stay on their new spot, they must find an animal in the zoo that starts with that sound (using the picture on the board game). We will learn some more new activities this week!

Our maths topic for the week is addition. As a class we have discussed what this word means and what the mathematical symbol for adding is. We have begun discussing strategies we can use to add two numbers together. This week we will be putting some of these ideas into practise.

Yellow Dragon will start by thinking of all the combinations of numbers that make up 5. They will also have a go at recording their findings. As part of our working mathematically program, Yellow Dragon will begin to solve simple maths word problems as a class and discuss the different ways that we can solve them.

Today we continued to practise our addition skills by playing the Count me in too game: ‘toss and add’. The students roll two dot dice and add the numbers together. They then find the answer on their game board and put a counter on it. This game is similar to bingo. The first student to cover their board with 4 counters in a row is the winner!! It is lots of fun!

In science this week, we continued to learn about ‘push’ and ‘pull’. The students walked around the playground with Ms Lykabyo and found different things that need a push or pull to work. After a lengthy scientific discussion, Yellow dragon each drew one object they can push and one object they can pull. Their drawings are displayed in the classroom, please come and have a look!

During science the students were also given a picture of a toy to discuss with a partner. After they had decided how their toy moves, each pair presented their finding to the class. The children then stuck their picture under the heading: push, pull, batteries or spin. Ms Lykabyo has asked if all the children in Yellow Dragon could bring in a toy that they can push or pull for this Friday!

In art this week, Yellow Dragon created a directed drawing. This is when they follow step by step instructions with me, to complete their final artwork. Their turtles look amazing! Please pop by and have a look!

Just a reminder that Tabloid Sports day is coming up on March the 15th and Granfriends day is in week 10.

Lastly, the Yellow Dragons were very excited to have a special visitor on Monday. Sooty Duncan the rabbit visited our class. We had a lovely time with him. The children had the opportunity to watch Sooty walking around the classroom and of course had a pat. I think Sooty Duncan enjoyed himself, however he flopped into his hutch and fell straight asleep when he got home!

I hope you are all having a wonderful week!

Kind Regards,

Katy Richardson

Dear Yellow Dragon Families,

Welcome to week 6! I can hardly believe that we are halfway through Term 1. It has just flown by so quickly!

Well… It has been another busy start to the week for Yellow Dragon!! We enjoyed our Kickstart lesson. This Monday we learnt about cricket. We were taught how to bat, field, throw and catch.

Kindergarten’s sound of the week is ‘Aa’. In our fine motor craft lesson we made alligators!! Pop in and see our ‘Aa’ craft if you have the chance. Yellow dragon have continued their rainbow writing books and brainstormed lots of ‘Aa’ words. Each week we have been clapping the syllables in our names and the words we have listed that start with our weekly sound.

Our Book of the week is a fantastic story called ‘Annie’s Chair’. We have begun to use this picture book as our inspiration for writing. Yellow dragon have been writing: ‘This is my ______’. Some example of what the children have written are: This is my cat. This is my cubby house. This is my doll. Our sight words are: this, can, is. We are becoming more confident when writing our sightwords and when sounding out new words during writing lessons!

Yellow dragon are continuing to identify the difference between a capital letter and a lower case letter. They are remembering that a sentence needs a capital letter, finger spaces and a full stop. This week we have also begun to discuss the text type recount. The children have been giving quick presentations to the class about their weekend on a Monday morning.

Reading Groups last week were lots of fun! The children have started to familiarise themselves with our daily routine and have completed two rotations of activities. Some of the activities we completed last week were:

Guided Reading: This activity is with the teacher. The students read a levelled reader and complete a short activity related to the story.

Shopping list: The students write a list of foods they would like to buy from the ‘supermarket’ using special shopping list cards. This helps the children practise letter formation, spacing, pencil grip and left to right swing.

Listening Post: As it was ‘Mm’ week, Yellow Dragon watched a Sesame Street podcast about machines and completed a cut up sentence activity.

Peg boards and Playdough: These are fine motor activities. The children created the letter ‘Mm’ and made things that start with ‘Mm’ using both pegs and playdough. Some examples are: mountains, mice and mops.

Beat the bear: The children love this game. It is one of my favourites too! Each child has a game board and the teacher has a special bear game board. The rules are similar to bingo. The children are shown a card with a picture eg. a doll. If the child has a ‘d’ on their game board they can keep it. If not, the bear gets to place a card on their board. The aim is to cover your board before the bear! That bear is very hard to beat!!!

Phonics booklets: Each week the children complete a double page with activities relating to the letter of the week.

We started our next reading group rotation this morning. Yellow Dragon enjoyed having our parent helpers with us today!!

In mathematics this week we are continuing to practise our counting, number writing and numeral recognition. Out topic of the week is patterns. Kindergarten Yellow Dragon are learning to: distinguish between a pattern and a non pattern, recognise a two-part pattern and three-part pattern, describe a pattern and are also beginning to make their own patterns.

In our maths lesson we  read a book  called ‘Pattern Bugs’ and created patterns together using pictures of bugs. The children also created colour patterns on teddies.

Today we enjoyed learning about chameleons and how they can change their colours. Each child created their own pattern and decorated a chameleon. They are hanging in the class room and look wonderful!!
Learning about different patterns is lots of fun!!!!

Last week we started our science unit which focuses on push and pull forces. The students learnt about what it means to be a scientist and conducted their own mini investigation using their senses. Ms Lykabyo had a mystery bag that had 3 things in it. Using their sense of touch and smell and even taste, the students concluded that the three items were mint, sugar and salt. We also used our bodies to push and pull like a train, exploring what these two words really mean. We look forward to putting our science hats on again this week!!

Lastly: Yellow Dragon have earned 20 Sooty Duncan points!!! HOW EXCITING!! This means that my rabbit, Sooty, will be visiting our class very soon. If the rain holds off he may be making an appearance this week!!

I hope you are having a great week!

Kind Regards,
Katy Richardson