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.