We’ve had a lot going on around here, so please forgive us if we seem a bit distracted. Time to practice more mindfulness!

We’re having a lot of fun teaching Fairy Tales the past couple of weeks. For Sharing and Special Helper this month, the children are bringing in a favourite Fairy Tale, so we are getting a high rate of exposure to many stories and it’s broadening our understanding and perspective of this important genre.

Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf are back in town, and we’ve had an interesting time of it, reading three different versions of a familiar and much loved tale.

We started with a fun provocation: a basket filled with treats. We showed our basket to the children and slowly went through the contents, asking the children to think of a Fairy Tale where a basket has a part in the story. Inside the basket: fruit, juice…pizza. (Seems we had no croissant in the house corner). Admittedly, the pizza threw everybody off for a moment, but with a few good clues for our guided inquiry (“I’m going to Grandma’s house;” “I wear a red hood and cloak”) our well-read children were able to narrow down their guess to Little Red.

Our focus has been on story structure, and we’re talking about the beginning, middle and end in a Fairy Tale. We’re looking for common elements such as a story beginning with “Once upon a time…” and ending with “…and they all lived happily ever after.”

We then moved onto to house-building with “The Three Little Pigs.” We have had so much fun reading aloud familiar portions of the story; the children have really enjoyed being the little pigs (“Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin”) to our Wolf (“I’ll HUFF, and I’ll PUFF and I’ll BLLOOWW your house down.”) Here, we are teaching about recalling and sequencing the main events within the beginning, middle and end of a story.

The children loved making these delightful little books which they read to themselves or to a friend when they’ve finished sequencing and stapling together the pages.

As for next week, well, we’ve got some magic beans we can trade you for your cow….

We’ve also been investigating shapes in Math, and looked for squares and rectangles in our classroom. Who would have thought we could have found so many? In continuing with our tradition of inspiring children’s literature, we read  Perfect Square by Michael Hall, and Brown Rabbit’s Shape Book and Grey Rabbit’s Odd One Out by Alan Baker.

We’re teaching PE to both classes simultaneously right now, as we start practising relays. Sports Day is fast approaching, and all of the races our teams participate in are relays. Not all the children have had an opportunity to see a Ridgeview Sports Day or run a relay, so we’ve formed small teams and started running relays down the length of the gym, turning around a pylon and passing a small piece of equipment among the team members. There is a high safety factor when teams are running simultaneously and turning, so the children’s ability to listen to the teacher to complete the task correctly is very much evident.

The children brought home their class photos earlier in the week. We were delighted to be able to use the “Seussical” background for our photo from our Intermediate Musical. We’ll send home a list of names in order of the photograph for your reference.

Upcoming Events and Reminders
Tonight is our Ridgeview Parent Gala in support of the Library Modernization Project at the Hollyburn Country Club in West Vancouver. Our beautiful platters will be available for auction. Best of luck to all the bidders!

Next week we’re talking about the jobs our families do inside and outside the home. Please have a wee chat with your children about the kind of work you do outside the home so they can share that information at school. The children are all quite familiar with the work you do at home — they know about the grocery shopping, cooking and baking, washing up of dishes, gardening, laundry and ironing, just to name a few tasks. We were delighted to hear about how many children help with dinner preparations and fold the laundry (“that’s my job”)!

We’re sending home a form from our Music Teacher, Mrs. Soderling, for children who are interested in auditioning for the Primary Variety Show. Please read carefully the expectations for the audition process. If you have any questions, please email Mrs. Soderling directly at hsoderling@wvschools.ca

Tuesday, May 30 is Library Book Exchange for both classes.

Home Reading Book Exchange is Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays.