December Newsletter

Important Dates

December 5

– No School (P.A. Day)

December 10

– Performance of Beauty and the Beast for students

December 19

– Macmillan Delivery

– Poetry Café at 2:00 pm, parents welcome!

December 20 – January 4

– Winter Break! No School.

Welcome!

Welcome to Mr. Lane who started in Mrs. Cunningham’s class as a student teacher from University of Ontario Institute of Technology. He will be with us until December 17. 

Poetry Café

On December 19, the students will be sharing their poetry. All parents are welcome to attend to hear your child read in their classrooms. Please arrive at 2:00 pm in the gym.

Winter Weather

As the weather is getting colder, please make sure your child is dressed to go outside.

Boots

Snow pants

Waterproof gloves or mittens

Coats or jackets

Hat

Scarf

Please label all items!

New Inquiries

It has been a while since an inquiry has taken off in our class. This week we took off on some of our students' big blocks creation: a ship! Here's what happened:

Putting the treasure box together with some tape.

Finding materials to add to our treasure box and ship.

Putting the sail together.

Showing our friend what we could add to our ship from the book.

Adding details to the side of our ship to add the rope.

Things we thought should go into the treasure box: tools and pom poms.

Our friends playing on our new ship.

The captain talking to his shipmates. 

Treasure box is on board.

New grocery store in the dramatic play area! Take a look at our hard working cashier and shoppers. Thank you to all the families for donating all of your recyclables. 

The shopping cart is filled! Time to pay!

Paying for our items at the cashier.

Learning to make a list: making a list of our friends. 

Winter Weather is Here!

The winter weather is here! 

Lots of students are coming to school with hats, mittens, snowpants and boots! We are happy to see you dressing warmly. Please remember that we will be going outside most days unless it is extremely cold out. 

Here's a look at our class on the first snowy school day.

Making snowballs and...smelling them. What did they smell like? 

Gathering snow into a pile.

Look! I made this myself.

Making a snowman with Ms. Elmira.

Somehow our little girls made this gigantic snowball. 

Scientists In the School!

On Thursday, a scientist visited our class to explore our 5 senses. Thank you to all of our volunteers who came out to help us! It was a pleasure having you and we couldn't have done it without you!!

Look at some of the things we did.

Mr Potato head teaches us what the 5 senses are: Hearing, Sight, Smell, Touch and Taste 

2 of our moms at the Hearing Station. What's inside this box?

Another mom teaching our students about smell. What are all those smells?

Students exploring sight by looking through a small hole with a flashlight. What's do we see? 

What do these different liquids taste like? Are they sweet? Bitter? Sour?

November Newsletter

Halloween is on Friday! If you would like to send your child to school in a costume, you are more than welcome to. Please remember: no weapons, masks or offensive language.

Scientists in the School

Scientists will be here on November 6.

Mrs. Cunningham’s class will be in the morning. Volunteers please arrive at 8:45 am to room 129. 

Ms. Yang’s class will be in the afternoon. Volunteers please arrive at 12:30 pm to room 104.

The workshop is about 2.5 hours long.

Brookbanks LibraryWe will be walking to the Brookbanks Library on November 19 in the morning. We are sending a package called Ready for Reading with more information. If your child does not have a library card and you would like them to get their own, please fill out the Customer Registration Form and return it to school no later than November 10.  The librarian will have the card ready for our visit. If your child does have a card, you do not need to fill out the form and send your child to school with their card on November 19. Students with cards will be allowed to borrow books that day. Please note that it will be your responsibility to return the books.  

What have we been up to?

Learning centres are well on their way! Each morning we engage in a different learning centre. Here are some of the things we do:

Working on fine motor skills and counting skills.

Sorting and recognizing numbers.

Sensory: Writing letters and words in sand.

Working in a team to put together an alphabet puzzle.

Making the letter of the day: M.

With our worm inquiry out of the way...and a new season upon us we have been looking at the season of fall. We have noticed the abundance of leaves on the ground that have been blowing all over the place. We started collecting leaves and sticks for our discovery centre and sorting them! 

Playing with sticks and leaves in our discovery centre.

Ready to sort!

Our 2 sorters helping us figure out where the leaves go.

End product.
A few of our students said some leaves in the red pile looked
more purple so we moved them over. The class agreed. 

Finding a seed after reading a book about leaves. 

Scientists in the School

Scientists in the School

Hi everyone!

We currently have 2 volunteers for our class on our November 6, Scientists in the school. We are looking for 2 more volunteers to help us out! If you are a mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, auntie or uncle that would like to spend some time helping our class out in the afternoon, please let either Ms. Campbell or me know. :) Our science workshop needs YOU to run smoothly!

More updates soon!

October Newsletter

An October Newsletter was sent out this past week...please make sure you read it! :)

Here is the Newsletter in case you misplaced it.

Indoor and Outdoor Shoes!
Parents and Guardians, please remember to bring a pair of indoor shoes to keep at school. The weather is changing. That means rain and snow will be coming soon. To keep our classes neat and tidy, we ask that a pair of shoes (Velcro) be left at school.

Scholastic Book Orders
Reading at Home is Great!
Each month your family has the opportunity to buy many wonderful books at amazing prices. These books promote literacy, numeracy as well as science, social studies and the arts. Please remember to send money with exact change with your order by the due date on the flyer.

Scientists in the School
On Thursday, November 6 the Scientists will be coming to our kindergarten classes for a Sensational Science workshop. They will be learning about the 5 senses. The program will take about 2.5 hours. Please note: children will be tasting: apple and grape juice, apple juice with some red food colouring, peanut and gelatin free jelly bean, cocoa powder, lemon juice, gluten free soya sauce, sugar and salt. They may touch or smell orange extract, parmesan cheese, vinegar, coffee, cinnamon, and a latex balloon. Please let us know if you have any concerns about any of these!

Volunteers Needed!
We are asking for 5 volunteers to supervise a centre. If you are interested, please let your child’s teacher know! More information will be given.

Numbers 0 – 10
We will be continuing with learning and making numbers from 0 to 10! At home, you can practice counting different things (ie how many apples did mom buy?)

LettersOur classes have just started learning about letters and sounds. 

Week 4 of Kindergarten!

It is already Day 18 of Kindergarten!

Thank you to everyone who donated to Terry Fox! Our class has had so many donations. I think we might win! 

Just a reminder that Terry Fox run is tomorrow at 1:15 pm. Make sure to send your kids to school with proper shoes and clothes as we will be outside. 

We have started our Letter study. Each student was given a notice for their day to bring something to school. Please check them! So far we have done Ss, Aa, Nn this week. Please practice writing and recognizing these letters at home.

We have also been doing numbers. We have looked at numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. 

Helping others learn how to write the letter Nn on our SmartBoard.

Working together on a puzzle.

 Showing what we know about counting.

 Finding numbers in our snacks. "Look, a 10!"

Counting and studying our worms. 

 We found baby worms! They hatched from the worm eggs we found last week. 

 Having a "picnic" and eating "salad"

 Spotting earth worms...outside

 A big interest in an earth worm found in the soil. 

September Notices

Hi Parents and Guardians!

Homework Folder

A green folder labelled Homework Folder was sent home on Wednesday. As presented to parents on the first day of school, curriculum night and our newsletter these will come home regularly. Please read or do the activity together to help us bridge the gap between home and school. It is, of course, not required but does make a big difference in each student's learning.  They will generally go home on Wednesdays (every week or every other week). They do not need to be returned until Monday. Keep reading and working over the weekend!

This week's activity is reading the 2 poems together. The first poem is titled: 10 Little Pirates. The second poem on the back page is titled: ARE Poem. Both will be or have been introduced during instructional time.

-Work on recognizing each of the numbers in 10 Little Pirates AND what quantity that number represents. For example, gathering 8 marbles for the number 8.

-The A-R-E Poem introduces the word 'are' to students while also making it related to the theme of Pirates for Friday (International Talk Like a Pirate Day).


Alphabet Study

Purple notices were sent home a few days ago about our alphabet study coming up! We are asking parents to help choose an item from home that starts with the first letter of the child's name. For example, Lenny would bring in Lego because Lenny starts with L and so does Lego. Students will be sharing the item with the class. A photo will be taken for our word wall. Students will also be learning about the letter sound, what it looks like and begin to learn how to form the letter (JK) or refine that skill (SK).


Terry Fox
Terry Fox run will take place next Friday at 1:15 pm until recess. Kindergartens will be taken on the walk around the "track" to get their stamps. A donation of $2 for Terry is encouraged for the cause which gets a spot on our Terry Fox train in the main foyer.


Outstanding Forms

Please, if possible, return any forms that are still outstanding for your child. We are in the process of organizing permissions, workshops and trips for the year. Education Fees are due to the office or place them in your child's Communication Bag.

The First Half of September

What have we been up to?

 Driving on a bus.

 Working with others in the sand pit.

 Collecting cherries to make cherry pie!

 Making your first new friend!

 Building our names.

 Making snow on the trees (even though it's way too early!)

Encouraging others to play on our class iPads.

 Being worm scientists and investigating our class worms.

 Showing braveness by holding a worm even when others were afraid. 

Admiring and taking a closer look.