WWelcome back and Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and recovered from all those germs...of course in typical teacher-fashion, I was sick from Christmas Eve until Jan. 4th :(.
HIGHLIGHT FROM LAST WEEK (before the winter holidays began!):
WHAT’S HAPPENING THIS WEEK:
This week our letter is “Gg” (the first letter in Sound Group 3)! The kids are really loving our phonics program and are starting to sound out and blend 3-4 letter words independently! We finished printing all the “Frog Jump Capitals” before the winter break! We will being a new group of capitals called, “Starting Corner Capitals”, in our Handwriting Without Tears workbooks this week.
Our learning themes over the next few weeks will be discussing what we did over the holidays, reviewing school expectations, science experiments about winter (properties of snow/ice, symmetrical snowflakes), and reviewing the all Jolly Phonics sounds we’ve learned so far. In Math, we will continue to focus on printing numbers correctly and representing those numbers through games and activities. We will also celebrate our 70th day of school on Tuesday with another visit from Zero the Hero!
One of my favourite times with the Kindies is Star Student of the Week, where one child is in the “spotlight” for the whole week and gets to share his/her special things/books/memories with the class. Next week, I will be introducing and modelling this fun activity for the kids. Next Friday, one child will get to bring home the Star Student Bag (similar to the What Is It? sharing bag but with a butterfly pattern). The Star Student will have the weekend to read the information sheet inside the bag, fill in their Star Student memory book page, and plan what he/she will bring to school on Monday to share with the class. The Star Student also gets to look after our class stuffed animal/mascot (special reveal will be next week! ;) ) and class journal for the week and write about what they did together. Please carefully read the info. sheets in the Star Student Bag and the class journal as soon as your child brings home the bag on Friday. In order for all children to have their special week before the end of the school year, we need to ensure the bag, journal, and stuffie are all returned to school and ready to go home with the next child every Friday.
REMINDERS/HOW PARENTS CAN HELP:
THIS WEEK’S SCHEDULE:
Monday – Welcome Back!
Tuesday – Roots of Empathy with Wayne
Wednesday – Library with Mrs. Bond
- P.E. with Mrs. Brkovic
Thursday – P.E. with Mrs. Brkovic
Friday - P.E. with Mrs. Brkovic
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Let's have a fantastic first week back!
-Ms. Gartrell :)
HIGHLIGHT FROM LAST WEEK (before the winter holidays began!):
- Looking for our class Elf, Tinky’s, hiding spot each day
- Watching the “Elf of the Shelf” movie with Mrs. Beed’s class and opening a special Christmas gift from Tinky the Elf.
- Doing a wonderful job performing our songs at the Winter Concert!
- Filling up the rest of the Christmas Countdown ornament tree
- Reading more Jan Brett books and watching a video of her drawing a hedgehog (and holding her real pet hedgehog!)
- Retelling Jan Brett stories using puppets and Ms. Gartrell’s special puppet theatre (her mom made it for her 4th birthday!)
- Playing the “Frog Jump Mystery Letter” printing game
- Playing a math board game, High-Ho Cherry-O, in small groups with Ms. Gartrell and focusing on turn-taking and basic addition and subtraction skills
- Hunting around the school for the Gingerbread Man and his clues (we searched high and low for him with no luck, but somehow when we got back to our class there was a plate of the Gingerbread Man’s friends waiting for us!)
WHAT’S HAPPENING THIS WEEK:
This week our letter is “Gg” (the first letter in Sound Group 3)! The kids are really loving our phonics program and are starting to sound out and blend 3-4 letter words independently! We finished printing all the “Frog Jump Capitals” before the winter break! We will being a new group of capitals called, “Starting Corner Capitals”, in our Handwriting Without Tears workbooks this week.
Our learning themes over the next few weeks will be discussing what we did over the holidays, reviewing school expectations, science experiments about winter (properties of snow/ice, symmetrical snowflakes), and reviewing the all Jolly Phonics sounds we’ve learned so far. In Math, we will continue to focus on printing numbers correctly and representing those numbers through games and activities. We will also celebrate our 70th day of school on Tuesday with another visit from Zero the Hero!
One of my favourite times with the Kindies is Star Student of the Week, where one child is in the “spotlight” for the whole week and gets to share his/her special things/books/memories with the class. Next week, I will be introducing and modelling this fun activity for the kids. Next Friday, one child will get to bring home the Star Student Bag (similar to the What Is It? sharing bag but with a butterfly pattern). The Star Student will have the weekend to read the information sheet inside the bag, fill in their Star Student memory book page, and plan what he/she will bring to school on Monday to share with the class. The Star Student also gets to look after our class stuffed animal/mascot (special reveal will be next week! ;) ) and class journal for the week and write about what they did together. Please carefully read the info. sheets in the Star Student Bag and the class journal as soon as your child brings home the bag on Friday. In order for all children to have their special week before the end of the school year, we need to ensure the bag, journal, and stuffie are all returned to school and ready to go home with the next child every Friday.
REMINDERS/HOW PARENTS CAN HELP:
- Please be sure to send back a change of clothes for your child (especially as we sent clothing home to wash over the Christmas break)
- Please check that your child's inside shoes still fit, as the children have done a lot of growing since September!
- Review Phonics Sound Group #2 sheet that was sent home before the holidays (c/k, e, h, r, m, d)
- Return completed December Homework Calendars by Jan. 11th, to be entered in the prize draw
- Return completed Winter Break Reading Bear charts for a prize (no time restriction on this, just return whenever they are full :D)
- I am encouraging parents to drop their child off at the classroom door (this will also help create a calmer start to our mornings and another positive is adults don't have to take their own boots off ;D ). The students have had many months to learn our morning routines and we are continuing to work on developing independence. By all means, please come into the classroom in the morning if you need to speak with me.
- Students AND adults take boots off at the front entrance and carry them down the hall to the classroom boot racks
- Sign and return your child’s report card envelope if you haven’t already done so
THIS WEEK’S SCHEDULE:
Monday – Welcome Back!
Tuesday – Roots of Empathy with Wayne
Wednesday – Library with Mrs. Bond
- P.E. with Mrs. Brkovic
Thursday – P.E. with Mrs. Brkovic
Friday - P.E. with Mrs. Brkovic
UPCOMING EVENTS:
- Jan. 11th - December Homework Calendar Prize Draw
- January 20-27: Heap the Honda - for Family Literacy Week. Our school will be collecting gently used and new children's books for the Heap the Honda event
Let's have a fantastic first week back!
-Ms. Gartrell :)