We can’t believe it ourselves, but did you realise we are halfway through Kindergarten?  We were kind of caught off guard with how quickly this year has gone by.  So were the children as we all paused to consider what that meant.  There are not a lot of things we can say we know for sure, but this is one of them:  while the days may be long, the years are short and every single day is a precious day.  

My daughter Christina turned 21 years old this weekend.  As we celebrated her birthday and reflected back on her birth and childhood, and the teenage years into young adulthood, we recognise the time we spent together when our children were younger, sharing our personal interests and developing common interests, have been essential to building and strengthening our relationships with them.  As parents of young adults we’re happy that our children are still wanting to travel, ski, sing, cook, watch movies and talk about books with us.  So let’s take the time to be present with our children each day, share their interests and teach them about ours, and delight in these wondrous, innocent days of their Kindergarten year.  

Our huge focus this week has been on DancePlay.  What an amazing program this has been for our children.  Our children learned about many different kinds of dance including disco, country, hip-hop, funk and rock and roll.  They listened to many different songs and worked on specific dance moves.  But the most important part of DancePlay is their messaging for the children:  Be Positive, Be Fun and Be Yourself.  We loved how positively every class ended (a 3-peat of “I am Awesome”).  Dance which encourages free expression and values the individual effort, without criticism or constraint, has been wonderful for the children’s mental and physical health.  We want to say thank you so very much to our PAC for providing this wonderful opportunity for Ridgeview’s Primary students.

Back to classroom activities….In keeping with our cute animals for alphabet letters, what do you think about “p is for pig”? The children are continuing to develop their cutting skills when using templates and did such a cute job drawing in the facial details.  The most fun was watching the children twist the pink pipecleaner into a curly tail.  They were really amazed at what they could do!

Our UBC Teacher Candidates have bravely taken on mine and Christy’s legendary Penguins Science unit.  We have loved teaching about Penguins as part of our Kindergarten curriculum but feel we are all so fortunate this year to have such talented and innovative student teachers working with us and our children.  We love their enthusiasm for teaching and new ideas for fun and learning activities.  

Our beautiful art project for this week was “Snowmen at Night” based on the same book by Mark and Caralyn Beuhner and created by DeepSpaceSparkle.  We are loving using pastels and started this project by drawing a snowman and adding colourful details.  The trickiest cutting task so far this year has been cutting around the snowman’s stick hands but true to form, Kindergarten determination and perseverance took over and most children independently cut out theirs out.  The second part was painting the snowy background which we all did with the enthusiasm of those who have not yet had a chance to play in the snow (although at the time of writing, this could be changing).

Upcoming Events and Reminders

Monday is Library Book Exchange.  Please return your books.

January Homework Calendars can still be returned this week.

Our big Multicultural Celebration is on February 7.  Our classes will be attending with the Grade 7 Buddies.