We respectfully live, work, play, and learn on the traditional territories of the Ta'an Kwa'chan Council, and Kwanlin Dunn First Nation.
Meet Mrs. Lee!
Mrs. Lee My background is in Early Learning, Special Education, and Behaviour Intervention. I previously ran the Learning Together Program here at Elijah Smith Elementary, and previous to this, worked as an autism specialist. I am excited to be teaching Kindergarten this year!
I was raised here in the Yukon! My family and I spend a lot of time camping, skiing, playing in the snow and in nature. We have many pets at our house, including rats!
Kindergarten Programming
Our Kindergarten Program has a large emphasis on Learning Through Play - Kindergarten aged students learn best when they are having fun, using the toys and materials to practice their learning, engaging with peers, using age appropriate language and interactions with their peers. Each of our carefully selected learning activities are created to follow our BC Curriculum, support the students in developmentally appropriate ways, and to be fun! Kindergarten is your child's first experience with school - our job is to set the tone! I want them to love school, and love learning!
Literacy
We have begun structured phonics lessons each day, following the newest and most thorough research into the Science of Reading. We do "letter of the day," where we learn about a new letter each day! We watch a dance video about the letter, practice sky writing the letter, review letter name and sound, brainstorm words that begin with that letter. We also spiral our literacy bins - students work with a partner at each bin, and each bin works on a different aspect of literacy (name recognition and printing, letter specific books, storytelling, writing practice).
Home reading is a huge part of our literacy program. Students choose a book of interest to take home and share with their families. We then read this book "to self" the next day, retelling the story and firing up our memories. Then we read to a partner or a teacher. We have begun journal writing each Monday, where we draw a picture of something we did over the weekend, and practice our writing.
Numeracy
We have finished up a unit on DECOMPOSING - which is breaking numbers into smaller parts (10 is made of 5 and 5, 8 and 2, 7 and 3, etc) Next we will continue to work on subitizing, and teen numbers. All lessons are based on this flow: I do ( I introduce a concept, or activity) We do (we do the activity together) You do (partner work, and then individual table work) After our lesson, we move to math centres, which have various math concepts (number sense and counting, shapes, patterns, measurement) so that the students can practice our focus concepts, but also explore other math concepts. This shows us what the students already know and what they are ready to explore.
Forest School
We attend Forest School at least 3 days/week, for an hour each time. When the weather is nice - we visit our space more often. We work on concepts we have been learning in the classroom such as patterns, shapes, letters as well as science based projects. This allows students to learn in an outdoor environment, practice their gross motor skills, transfer learning from indoor to outdoor and learn in a natural environment! Berry Picking is our favourite fall activity!
Reporting Periods
We are entering Term 3!! At the end of April, we will being spring assessments. This will give us documentation and evidence of your child's learning progress. This can give us an indicator if your child will need added supports moving into Grade 1 as well. Term 3 will bring us a Celebration of Learning in May - more information to come, and final report cards in June.