We’ve had lots of little projects on the go so here’s a peek at each of them.

We’d like to follow-up our last post on “Your Kindergarten Child’s Good Health.”  First, thank you for keeping your child home when they are not well. We know the children want to be at school but it’s more important to get healthy and be well-rested.  We’ve noticed a significant improvement in tissue use by the children for runny noses caused by the cold air after recess playtime. Thank you for tucking in a tissue or two into their pockets.  The children are very good at immediately disposing of their tissues. We’ve also been absolutely vigilant about handwashing, and essentially questioning all of the children each time they emerge from the bathrooms with “did you wash with hands with soap and water?”  Let’s continue to all be diligent and maintain the good health of our children and classrooms as we move towards Spring Break.

We’d like to thank the PAC for sponsoring the DuffleBag Theatre for coming to Ridgeview on Tuesday.  What a fun way to start the week! They performed “Peter Pan” and it was so much fun. Our children were a fantastic audience, clapping, cheering and laughing in all the right places!  It is truly our pleasure and delight to observe how well our classes remember expected behaviour during school assemblies.

We’re into the final third of the alphabet letters with the printing of the letter “s” this week.  We made these patterned snakes as our fun craft.  

As the year has progressed, we are reminding the children daily we are looking for their alphabet letters to be correctly formed (top to bottom, left to right), printed approximately the same size and shape, sitting on the line with tails (eg., g, p, q) hanging below the line.  Almost everybody is printing their names left to right with an uppercase letter to start followed by lowercase letters.  That is truly amazing and we are certainly very proud teachers.

Badminton officially finished for Mrs. Daudlin’s class on Wednesday.  We missed one lesson due to the snow days so it was terrific to squeeze in the last lesson, the same as the other Divisions.  Many thanks so Coach Anna Rice and all our parent helpers for teaching us!

We know we’ve come to the end of our beautiful winter art with the painting of the Snowy Owl.  We were inspired by Owl Moon by Jane Yolen and illustrations by John Schoenherr.  “Big painting” is a welcome alternative to always working on a small scale.  The children were delighted to be painting in their entire background, then the snowy owl with details.  We used three different size paintbrushes for the background, details and outlining (two in one lesson so you can imagine the switching around of brushes for an entire class), a first for the Kindergarten.  This lesson required a lot of technical skills (hold your paintbrush like a pencil; use your helping hand (non-writing hand) to steady your paper; load your brush with paint only part way up the bristles); keen observation, and active listening and thinking to follow the multi-step directions given by the teacher.  

We’re on our way with the Card Project, which is a fundraiser sponsored by the RPAC.  Our classes are currently in progress but we can promise you the children are working very hard.  Each class is creating some art to be turned into cards! These cards will be available for purchase by you with proceeds going to the PAC.  Thank you in advance for your support!

We had a fire drill practise on Thursday and we’re pleased to note how well the children listened and followed Mr. Zerbe’s instructions to line up quickly, stay quiet and follow their teacher to their assigned spots on the grass field.  We talked a lot about what the word “practise” meant and how important it is to review procedures so that you were ready for whatever happens.

We also wanted to thank you for the lovely cards, chocolates and treats for Valentine’s Day.  We hope the children loved opening their Valentine card holder bags.

Upcoming Dates and Reminders:

Monday, February 24:  we’re in the gym so please remember to have your runners at school.

Tuesday, February 25:  Library Book Exchange. Please return our book so you may take out a new one.

Please let us and the school office know if you are leaving early for Spring Break.

We had a very productive week finishing up a variety of activities.

The children were very pleased with their “p is a pig” craft.  We will send those home next week.

In Math, we continue our work with developing number sense.  The children love using the WorkJob red game boxes with counters and numerals to create sets.  We’ve incorporated this activity into our Centre rotations during Math time. You can read more about WorkJobs and the work we’ve done in Math Their Way, a child-centred, play-based Mathematics program.  Christy and I have both completed the Math Their Way program for teachers’ professional development.

We had our Lunar New Year lunch tasting on Wednesday.  Thank you again to the many parent chefs and volunteers who made this special event possible.  We were delighted with the adventurous eating by the Kindergarten, and the number of children who wanted second helpings!  The children received these shiny red envelopes with strawberry candies at the end of the day from our parent helpers.  

We finished some of our beautiful artwork and crafts this week.  

These Winter landscapes show perspective for “here, near and there.”  We painted and colour mixed the backgrounds, free hand cut the trees and used pastels to draw in the trunks and branches.  Very impressive for Kindergarten!

Here are our colourful dragon masks.

Our pretty Chinese banners with special symbols.

We’ve read a variety of fun and interesting stories to fit with our theme.  We really enjoyed the fairy tales with a twist, and how wonderful it was for us to hear some of the children share with us their knowledge of the traditional fairy tales.

Image from Google

Our favourite story is Lon Po Po by Ed Young.  It is a delightful retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.  For our literary response, the children drew the characters and setting in pastel, and then we will give it a watercolour wash next week.  The paintings will be cut into panels and mounted before we display them for you to see.  

Upcoming Events and Reminders

We will have a small Valentine’s Party on Thursday, February 13.  The children will be making their Valentine card holders in class.  If your child would like to bring Valentine cards for the class, we will have a class list of names available for you this upcoming week.  Please ensure there is a card for each and every child so everyone is included. The teachers will help the children distribute the cards during class time from February 10-13.

Library Day is Tuesday!  Please remember to bring your Library Books.

Special Event:  we will have an in-school presentation from the Vancouver Planetarium for each class this week!  Mrs. Daudlin’s class will attend on Thursday, and Mrs. Campbell’s class will attend on Friday.