FDK November Newsletter
St. James Catholic Global learning Centre
We have had a busy first two months of school. Our classrooms are evolving into
creative and productive places where the students are happy and excited about what
they are learning. We wanted to share with you some highlights of the learning and
suggestions for follow-up activities at home.
Units of Inquiry
Our FDK classrooms are currently finishing up the IB Transdisciplinary theme Who
We Are, more specifically the central idea that play is conducive to learning and
fosters innovation, creativity and curiosity.
We have had many planned learning experiences to drive the play inquiry and
connect with our curriculum goals for reading, writing and science. Some of these
learning activities include; our visit to the local forest to play in nature, our
exploration of global outdoor games like ‘Luta de Galo’ and the traditional Ghanaian
game Pilolo, participating in creative play yoga sessions, having conversations about
play in learning circles, experimenting with different types of play materials,
journaling about play experiences, and co-constructing a barn and silo using
cardboard and upcycled materials.
Our play centres (both indoor and outdoor) have been places of great creative and
imaginative play. We are amazed at how the children’s play has evolved and we are
pleased to see our students demonstrating attributes of the Learner Profile. They
are being principled when they play by taking turns and sharing the classroom
materials and they are becoming more flexible in their thinking when they are using
objects in different ways. We are also pleased to see student-initiated actions arising
from the inquiry. In Ms. Hughes and Mrs. Johnson’s class the children were inspired
by a forest visit and a large scale project “grew” to transform the art area into a
classroom forest. The students created a collection of non-living and living things for
the forest based on the list of ideas generated by the forest committee.
We will be shifting our focus to the IB Transdisciplinary theme of Where We are in
Place and Time and exploring the central idea that journeys create change and
can lead to new opportunities.
Literacy in Kindergarten
We are so excited to watch our students become readers and writers! They are
showing enthusiasm for reading and writing by acting out characters from picture
books, storytelling, making mini books, writing lists and pretend reading.
Our reading instruction in kindergarten focuses on the individual needs of each
child. It is a combination of phonemic awareness activities (learning the sounds that
words make through songs, rhymes and word play), phonics instruction and sight
word study. We have determined the development needs of each student and will be
sending home literacy activities that are appropriate for each individual.
The take home Travel Literacy Bags provide a fun way to teach letters and their
sounds for our students with emerging literacy skills. The Snuggle Up Leveled
Reading Program allows our beginning readers to practice reading out loud and
focus on both the mechanics and comprehension of reading. We feel that this
approach will allow the children to develop at their own pace and ensure that they
have the fundamentals they need to become good readers.
Dialogic Reading – A Better Way to Read!
We want to share with you an important reading technique that we use during story
time to develop our students reading abilities. Dialogic reading is an interactive
approach to picture book reading, where the children are encouraged to talk rather
than listen to the story. The benefits of shared picture book reading has been welldocumented and it is believed to be the most effective way for young readers to
increase their vocabulary, reading motivation and skills. We see the benefits of
using this approach and we encourage you to try dialogic reading at home with you
child using these question prompts:
There are five specific kinds of questions for engaging your child in
conversation and participating in the story.

Completion Questions:
“Five little Monkeys jumping on the ____.” Your child fills in the missing word.

Recall Questions:
“What happens after the Wolf huffs and puffs?”, “Did Sam like Green Eggs and Ham?”

Open-ended Questions:
“Tell me what you liked about this story?”, “Why do you think he is doing that?”

‘Wh’ Questions: (Who, What, Why, When, Where)
“What do you see in this picture?”, “Where did the Three Bears go?”

Distancing Questions:
“What happened when we made your birthday cake?”, “Do you remember Trick or Treating on
Halloween?” Children remember past events and connect those experiences with the book.
We hope you enjoy the reading conversations with your child and use these questions as part
of your bedtime story routine!
House keeping
We are sending home your child’s extra set of clothes to replenish with a new set of
seasonally appropriate attire. Remember to label all belongings to ensure a quick return
should an item become lost. Please send the new set of clothes back to school at your earliest
convenience. Thank you!
We look forward to the Parent Teacher conferences this month.
Thank you for your continued support!
The Kindergarten Team