School Spirit Day December 19th

The student council has declared Thursday, December 19th to be Fancy Dress Day. The children can wear their dresses, suits, ties, good sweaters, or anything else that's a little extra spiffy. We will be dressed up for the morning. THEN, we will change into jammies for the afternoon and visit Mrs. Marshall and Mrs. Packmann's class for a movie and popcorn. So please dress your child up for the morning in their very best, and send in a bag with their jammies and slippers for the afternoon. It should be a fun last day!

Treats for the Party on Wednesday

Dear Parents; We have permission to bring in treats for our party on Wednesday. Miranda Yu, Mark's mom, has given us the name of some nut free bakeries they used in nursery school days. Here are the names and links if you would like to bring in a few sweets for the party: The two nut-free bakeries that we are allowed to buy from were Isobel's Cupcakes on Wellington and Thimblecakes . Although Thimblecakes is located in Old Ottawa South, the Candy Store in Westboro carries their cupcakes and will accept their orders, which is convenient. http://www.isobels.com/ http://thimblecakes.ca/ http://thecandystoreottawa.com/index.html Thank you to Miranda for this idea! See you at the party!!!

Advent

Advent has begun, so we are counting down the days to Christmas. We will make a paper chain advent calendar where there is a link for every day until Christmas. Each day we will take off one link from the chain and so we will know exactly how many more days we have to wait. We will also begin to "light" our paper advent candles with tissue paper flames to count the four weeks of the season. The last week of school we will also light the Kwanzaa kinara candles. There will be more and more lights in room 23! Our Advent chain.

Solstice, Kwanzaa, Christmas, Hanukkah and all Festivals of Light Holiday Party

Dear Parents, Grandparents, Friends and Relations; You are all warmly invited to our All Holidays Party on Wednesday, December 18th in our classroom, room 23 at 2:00. We will be singing you some of the songs we have learned and having a few seasonal treats. If you would rather, you can bring in a snack for your child. There will also be a little craft for you to do with your child if you would like. It should be a great part of our Festivals of Light unit. See you there! (And if you are unavoidably late, don't panic. We usually sing the songs again at the end of the party just for good measure.)

Happy Hanukkah!!

Hanukkah began on November 27th and finishes tomorrow night, Dec. 5th. We have been lighting paper candles on a bulletin board candelabra called a hanukkiah, one for each of the eight days. We have read Hanukkah stories and of course played dreidel. On Friday we made potato latkes and most of the children tried them and enjoyed them. Some even tried them with apple sauce and sour cream. Happy last days of Hanukkah!!!

Festivals of Light, Celebrations of the Human Spirit We have begun our unit on Festivals of Light. We began with learning about why it is getting so dark outside so early. We will talk about the seasons and how the sun makes the seasons. Then we will learn about different celebrations around the world that use light at this time of year. Of course, there is a connection! If you have any books or decorations from your family's celebrations they are very welcome. The children can show the class what they bring in as a little informal Show and Tell. Please make sure their names are on everything that comes in so we can return them! Our unit will include Divali, Yalda, Chanukah, Christmas and Kwanzaa as well as the native story of how Raven brought the light. It should be a special unit with lots of wonderful stories and some extra spiffy crafts.

Volunteers in the Classroom

We are now ready for parents to volunteer in the classroom. You can come in for any amount of time and any day that there is not another volunteer. Please use this link to sign up for a time and day that fits your schedule. We are looking forward to your visits! http://www.signupgenius.com/go/508084DAFAB2AAA8-volunteering Thank you to our class parent, Jill Nicolas (Gregory's mom) for setting up this Sign Up Genius page for us!!

Tomorrow is Crazy Hair Day AND Pattern Party

For a spirit day, the whole school is having a Crazy Hair Day tomorrow. We are having our celebration of Patterns with a Pattern Party. Don't forget to wear as many patterns as you can! Then in the evening we have parent-teacher interviews.

Helping Your Children Learn

Looking for tools and tips to help support your child's learning? Here are some excellent resources, found on the Ministry of Education Website: Read Every Day, Read Together, Make Reading Fun Back to School Tips Reading and Writing with Your Child, Kindergarten to Grade 6 , A Parent Guide Doing Mathematics with your Child, Kindergarten to Grade 6 ‚ A Parent Guide

Happy Divali!

We have been learning about the celebration of Divali at school. We made some patterns, or rangoli, from coloured sand and from sparkles. We danced with silk scarves to Divali music and read books to see pictures of children celebrating this holiday. We will be making little diyas or bowls from plasticine and beads and the children will be bringing them home. You can put a small tea light in them and light them together. Happy Divali!!

Sign Up for Parent Teacher Interviews!

November 14th in the evening and November 15th in the morning are the times set aside to meet with parents to discuss how your children are adapting to school. Please take a look at the sign up page in this link and choose a time that suits your family. If you can come during the day, please leave the evening spots for those who need them. Looking forward to meeting with you all soon! Click on or copy and paste the link to the sign up chart: www.SignUpGenius.com/go/508084DAFAB2AAA8-parent

Pattern Party!

Thursday, November 14th is our Pattern Party. The children can wear as many different patterns as they can put on. Mix and match the pattern on shirts, pants and socks; the more patterns the merrier. At school we will be wearing some lovely dot crowns and graphing the number of patterns we are wearing and generally celebrating all our work on patterns. Please remember that interviews begin Thursday and that Friday is a PD day.

We are having interviews soon to discuss how your child is adapting to Junior Kindergarten. There are no progress reports for Kindergarten so parents are given an interview time instead. Interviews will be held Thursday November 14th in the evening, and on Friday November 15th in the morning. Our room is 23. PLEASE NOTE: Friday is a PA Day, so there will be no school. I am creating a Sign Up Genius page soon to plan the schedule of interviews. If you have another child in the school and have an interview for him or her, we will try to coordinate interviews for families as much as possible. Thanks for your help!

The Day of the Dead

On Friday we talked about the festival The Day of the Dead and learned that many people celebrate this holiday. They have lots of marigolds everywhere to signify living forever, have candy skeletons, colourful decorations, and picnics at the graves of their family members. We made a tissue paper craft to celebrate here.

Photo Retake Day

This Monday, November 4th is picture retake day. Please let me know if you wish your child to have another picture taken by sending me an email at sarah.whitehead@ocdsb or a written note in her or his note tote. Thank you!

What we are learning at school

If you have looked at the Ontario curriculum document for kindergarten you will have seen that there is a lot written there. We decided to make a quick reference chart for us all to use in the class. We  pulled out the 8 main ideas and will be using them as touchstones throughout the year. As we observe the children, we will set goals for them in reference to these ideas. Here they are:

1) We are connected to others.

2) We contribute to our world.

3) We have a strong sense of identity and well-being.

4) We communicate effectively.

5) We understand numbers, measurement, shapes, patterns and collections.

6) We are building an understanding of the world around us, of the environment and of technology.

7) We make healthy choices and develop our physical skills.

8) We are open to artistic activities.

Tissues, please!

There are lots of children with sniffles in the class and we have used up all our tissues. If you have an extra box you can donate to the class, it would be much appreciated. We can also use bottles of hand sanitizer! Thank you!!!

We Scare Hunger

Happy Halloween!

Did you know that 1 in 5 parents said they have skipped meals to ensure there was enough food to feed their children? And that in 2012, 14% of food banks ran out of food making them powerless to support families who simply didn't have enough to feed their families?

This fall at Broadview the H.E.L.P club is holding a halloween themed food drive to support our local Ottawa food bank. The collection of non-perishable food items will run from Friday Oct. 18th until Nov. 1st. All items can be sent to school with your child. Items in high demand are:  rice, flour, pasta, canned fish and meats, stew and soup, canned or dried beans, canned fruit and vegetables, 100% fruit juice, canned or powdered milk, cereals, tomato sauce, peanut butter, baby products ( formula, diapers, baby food).

Thanks for your support!

The HELP club, Mlle Amanda and Mlle Coughtrey!

 

Trip Prep

As you know, this Thursday is our first field trip! We have enough volunteers, but if you wish to go, you are welcome to drive out and meet us there. It is on Fallowfield Road. Admission is $6.50 for adults. The schedule for the day is : 1) Ride the bus out to the farm
                                                          2) Be divided into two large groups and do three activities;
                                                          train ride, petting barn and a video
                                                          3) Lunch at picnic tables
                                                          4) See the animals further out and play on the play structures.
                                                          5) Ride the bus back to school.


Here is a digital copy of our reminder/ information letter for the trip:

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

 

Dear JK and JK/SK Parents and Guardians,

A reminder of our field trip to Valleyview Farm this Thursday, October 24^th.  We will be leaving the school at 10:30 and arriving back about 2:15.

As the weather forecast is calling for cool and cloudy, with a possibility of showers we strongly suggest that you send your child dressed in layers and wearing rubber boots, as well as mittens and a warm hat, as we will be outside for most of the time.

We will have an earlier nutrition break at school and then our later nutrition break at Valleyview.

As this is the first field trip for our classes, we ask that you remind your child to stay with their adult supervisor at all times, and to be a polite listener on the bus and at the farm.

We are looking forward to a great trip with our classes.

Sincerely,

 

JK and JK/SK Teams

Library Tomorrow!!!

Since we were going to miss last week's trip to the library because of the PD day,  we sent the books back to you to enjoy for another week. Tomorrow we will have our second visit, so please send them back again. Thank you!

Red and White Day on Thursday!!  It's a Broadview Spirit Day on Thursday so if you like, wear red and white to celebrate our school and its colours.

Field Trip!

We are going on our first field trip, to Valleyview Farm, on October 24th. We will send you home the trip forms and more information soon. We can't wait to go!

• 
• The Little Animal Barn is home to our little animals. Most of our new babies begin life here in the Spring.
  

4750 Fallowfield Road, Nepean.

Patterns, Patterns, Patterns

Our focus the first month was on building up a sense of belonging in our class, how to choose and make friends and on how to go to school. We began with the question of how to make and be friends. Our focus now is on Patterns. This will help to structure their thinking and give them a framework for many of the other concepts we will cover this year. We will be learning that anything that happens over and over is a pattern. We  will look at visual patterns such as stripes and spots and talk about rhyming words and repeated words in books and how they are a pattern. We will sing a song with a repeated pattern and will also do many musical rhythms. We are also learning that the days have a pattern and the seasons have a pattern. We will be creating lots of patterns in our crafts. If you have a chance to point out or find patterns with your child during the day, that will reinforce the concepts for them. It could be visual patterns, or rhymes in their books or other repeated things. Also, with all the topics this year your child is very welcome to bring in books from home on the subject to share with the class. (Please make sure his or her name is on the books, of course.) At the end of the unit, in early November, we will have a Pattern Party where they can wear as many different patterned clothes as possible. It is a great unit and we will have a lot of fun with it.

We are looking forward to welcoming parents and grandparents in to the class soon as volunteers. If you would like to be the volunteer coordinator and help to organize the schedule and round up volunteers, please let me know! We will help you set up an online sign up page and link it to our blog. Thank you!!

Welcome to our Blog!

Dear Junior Kindergarten Families;

Welcome to our classroom blog! Please bookmark it or link it to your email so you always get our updates. We will be using this as our newsletter instead of a paper letter, so it is important for you to keep checking in. On our blog you will find some notes on what we are learning in class so you can talk about these at home as well. There will also be reminders about our activities and their dates. There will also be links to other information, such as articles on curriculum and a sign up calendar for volunteers.To keep it safe, there will be no pictures of the children, but there may be pictures of their art from time to time, and other surprises! We hope you like our blog. Thank you for reading!