Like all good elves at this time of the year, we’ve been working very hard in our classroom finishing a myriad of projects.  Christmas activities are woven throughout our day but we’re managing our self-regulation pretty well.  The Advent Calendar we started on Friday, December 1, nudged us from the green zone to the yellow zone; however, a few calming breaths with the smell of chocolate Santas in the air seemed to bring down the energy…sort of.

This week “K is for Kite” and we made some colourful kites to go along with our beautifully printed Ks – no easy task with all those lines sliding back and forward.  We’ve noticed steady improvement and independence in our class’ printing and cutting skills.  We can also see all that monkey bar swinging and hanging paying off for a strong upper body, shoulders, arms and hands necessary for good fine motor control.

We read one of our favourite books, Time to Sleep, by Denise Fleming, and completed some fun activities with a focus on how seasonal environmental changes affect animals, such as migration and hibernation.  Recalling the main ideas and sequencing story events are two of the comprehension skills we are currently teaching in class.  With our buddies, we completed a torn paper hibernating bear art project.

In Math this month, we’re reviewing counting sets, including one to one correspondence, subitizing (recognition of a number set without counting), recognising number patterns on a dice and printing numerals with the correct formation.

During PE we’ve spent a lot of time working on basic locomotor movements and following signals and commands.  Signals and commands include following whistle signals (one whistle means freeze, two whistles means sit down on the spot) and verbal commands such as “find your personal space,” “listening line” and “listening circle.”  We practise these every time we go to PE to ensure everyone is moving safely in the gym.

The children are learning the difference between walking, jogging and running (we will focus on sprinting in the spring when we can go outside for PE).  While jogging and running, the children are working on remembering to use their arms (“hip to lip”) as well.

The children have been practising their skipping (step, hop on alternate feet), hopping (one foot) and jumping (two feet) and building endurance.

Thank you to everyone who attended the Library Scholastic Book Fair and bought books.  We receive a portion of the funds to buy new books and resources for our own library.

Our big event this week was making our Christmas Marshmallow Balls with our Buddies.  The sweet and delicious aroma of marshmallows wafted throughout the classroom, and this was another opportunity to strengthen fine motor skills as the children were threading sequins onto pins, through a mini marshmallow and into a styrofoam ball.  We won’t say anymore as these ornaments will be a special Christmas gift for your Christmas tree.

Upcoming Events and Reminders

We did not take out Library Books last week due to the Book Fair.  We will be back on the regular schedule this week.

Wednesday is our Christmas Cracker project with our Big Buddies.  We’re all looking forward to making some sweet treats to give to those less fortunate in our community.

All children should have runners to wear indoors and for PE, and rainboots for outdoor playtime during the rainy days. We’re expecting dry weather this week, but please be mindful of the cool temperatures; a toque and gloves help keep your child warm and cozy for these end of Autumn days.

Well, the weather this week certainly indicates we’re deep into Autumn.  There are leaves everywhere on the ground, it’s pouring rain, the children are wearing their boots (mostly) and raincoats and many are bringing their gloves and toques.  Autumn is here and it looks like Winter is on it’s way.

Inside the Kindergarten classroom, all is warm and cozy, particularly as we’re starting to talk about Bears.  Through studying Bears (real and literary) and the environment around us, we’re also learning how seasonal changes affect animals, local plants and ourselves.

We’re reading some lovely classic stories about Bears during Storytime, including Corduroy by Don Freeman and the Old Bear series by Jane Hissey.  

We also made our own Corduroy Bear and dressed him in these lovely green overalls.  The children loved using a paper crimper to crimp the paper and give it that “corduroy” effect.  Everyone couldn’t wait to select their own buttons to help the “straps” stay up.

Inspired by Corduroy’s lost button, we have been teaching about sorting and sorting rules using buttons.  We’ve been sorting by size, shape and colour, one rule at a time.  The children were fascinated with four hole versus two hole buttons.  Now, they also know that some buttons have a shank on them and are sewn on differently than buttons with holes.  Of course, that led to everyone checking out their clothes for buttons and the kind they have.

Sorting and classifying, and patterning are excellent Math activities to practise at home with your child.  Your child probably has lots of little things which can easily be used as a collection to sort; you can take turns deciding on the sorting rule.  Using the same collections, you and your child can pattern them together.  We’ve completed AB, ABC and AAB patterns in class.  We have been learning about creating, copying and extending patterns.  Patterns in our environment exist everywhere:  take a look for them the next time you are out and about.

Our little bonus art activity this week was finishing our owlets.

Our Alphabet letter this week was “j jumps.”  But our craft was “j jewel.”  It was very much appreciated by all those who love glitter and sparkle, and can never get enough.

Our children are learning two songs for the Christmas Concert, “Frosty the Snowman” and “The Bells on the Sleigh.”  We’re sending home the words for you to practise with your child.  When we find out our costume requirements, we will let you know.  Remember to save the date, Tuesday, December 19, for our Primary Christmas Concert.

Christmas Sharing and Special Helper starts next week.  We will send home the calendar with the date of your child’s Special Helper through Remind.  Not everyone participated in last month’s Sharing so we are hoping that you will be able to help your child prepare for this next round.

Upcoming Events and Reminders

Please let us know if you are leaving early for the Christmas Holidays.  This helps us with our planning, and we need to let Ms. Sanford, our Music Teacher know before she begins to organise the standing order for the concert.  Thank you.

Scholastic Book Fair:  November 27-29, 2017.  Please note that the Scholastic Book Fair is just three days this year.  Kindergarten children must have a parent in attendance before making any book purchases; the teachers cannot buy any books on your child’s behalf.  We’ve listed the Book Fair times below.  It’s always a very fun event and a great way to get a head start on your Christmas shopping.  We sent home the preview catalogue earlier this week.

We’re settling down after a few busy weeks of Hallowe’en celebrations, our Remembrance Day assembly and a then few days away from school for the Professional Development Day and Statutory Holiday.

We know the train to Christmas town will be pulling out soon– it’ll be warm and cozy and lots of fun.  We have many special activities planned for our Kindergarten children, and of course our Christmas Concert on December 19.  But before we get there, we’re going to spend some more time learning about, and appreciating, seasonal changes and how they affect us, animals and our environment.

This week’s Letter of the Week was “i.”  We made a cute insect to go with our printing which we’ll bring home next week.  It was nice for the children to have a break and form a simpler letter with fewer strokes, than some of the trickier ones we’ve been learning over the past few weeks.

We’re enjoying shared PE classes in the gym with both classes.  We’ve been working on listening and remembering commands and whistle signals from the teachers while working on locomotor movement (running, skipping, hopping, jumping), and playing simple games.  Safe behaviour in the gym is our top priority as we’re all moving around at the same time, so staying in our personal space and watching out for others is an important part of our teaching and learning.  

We thought we’d step away from our usual routine on Friday and have a special day.  We decided to have a Leaf Morning and take some time to explore our school ground.  It was a beautiful autumn day, cold and sunny, so what better way than to go for a walk and look for leaves?  

We kicked off our day with Autumn Leaves by Ken Robbins.  Then, we took a wonderful, lazy stroll through our playground and browsed the different leaves around us.   With a 2 minute time limit we ran back to where we saw our precious leaf and joined the teacher again.  We’re not sure if you’ve noticed, but we have SO MANY leaves on the playground.  From all over the neighbourhood so we have some amazing choices.

Back in our classroom we looked at the shape, texture and colours of our leaf.  Many children were intrigued with the vein designs on their leaves.  Some children traced their leaves, some children copied their leaves, but everyone’s final result was beautiful.  What a lovely way to enjoy the sunshine, feed our senses and create another delightful memory.  

Click here for more Autumn books we have read this year.

Upcoming Events and Reminders

Christmas Cracker Buddy Event, December 6.  We’re excited to be making Christmas Crackers with our buddies.  These sweet treats mean a great deal to those in need in our local, and greater, communities.  Thank you again for your generous candy donations.

Primary Christmas Concert, December 19.  We’ll be holding a matinee and evening concert with our Primary children performing.  We’ll let you know further details regarding tickets in the upcoming weeks.  

If your family is planning to leave school early for the Christmas holidays please let your teachers know as soon as possible, particularly if your child is going to miss the Christmas Concert.  

This year we had to quickly change gears as we just celebrated Hallowe’en last week.  Now we find ourselves preparing to observe Remembrance Day.  

We talked a lot about what Peace means to each of us on a personal level. Todd Parr’s excellent book, The Peace Book, helps us to understand peace is all around us.  Our family and friends, our environment, and acceptance and appreciation of others can help us find peace within ourselves. The children were quite reflective, and very thoughtful, as they expressed their ideas.

We focused on several symbols this year as part of our Remembrance Day learning.

We read a Poppy is to Remember and made poppies using an acorn squash and a potato.  One of our art techniques this term was learning about printmaking.  The children were fascinated to watch us cut open the squash, remove the insides, then paint it to make the prints.

We made our small Canadian flags in honour of Canada’s role as a peace keeping nation and read the story Why I Love Canada by Daniel Howarth.

We made peace doves with our Grade 7 Buddies. We always feel peaceful with our beloved Buddies.

We contributed some of our crafts to the displays of student artwork for the Remembrance Day Assembly.

The Remembrance Day Assembly is a formal, serious Assembly.  We are expected to be silent from the time we leave our classrooms, walk down the hall and make our way to the gym. We were very pleased with how our children visibly demonstrated excellent self-regulation throughout the ceremony.  Teachers of the upper grades always observe how calmly the Kindergarten is able to sit, and for a long duration (about 35 minutes).  

Sometimes people think small children cannot sit still, without talking or demonstrating unexpected behaviour, in serious situations. We know otherwise. We know our children can, and do, learn strategies for self-regulation and are able to use them appropriately according to their social situation.  

We knew from the program there would be a long segment where the children would need to really self-regulate their bodies.

The first was the playing of “The Last Post” and “Reveille,” beautifully performed on the trumpet by one of our Music teachers, Mrs. Soderling.  We had asked the children not to cover their ears if the music was too loud; rather, they were to close their eyes and breathe deeply.  We know from our strategy of listening to peaceful music in class that our children would be more than able to manage their energy.

Second, between these two performances is a minute of silence.  A minute can be a long time.  We noticed the children were doing a lot of quiet deep breathing to help them get through, as we had taught them they might need to do.

Before we left for the Assembly we had explained to the children we practise self-regulation strategies every day so that when we need to use them, we’re ready. And we certainly did justice to all of our practise these two months.  

Remembrance Day 2017…in honour of those who have served, and continue to serve, their countries.

We put our self-regulation to the test with an exciting week of costumes, cupcakes and crafts…we’re certainly feeling the aftereffects of a late night and the post-sugar haze of Hallowe’en Week (who really keeps track of all those small chocolate bars left in the bowl?)  

Self-regulation is very much about managing one’s emotions.  The children had a very exciting few days before Hallowe’en, never mind the actual Big Day itself and the anticipation of an evening’s fun with their family.  It would be so easy to let our energy up-regulate from the Green Zone to the Yellow Zone, but we know based on experience we all would not enjoy ourselves in the same way nor is it appropriate for the social situation (the classroom).  Indeed, several times over the past week we discussed with the children how we can all have lots of fun without getting carried away, and the importance of pacing ourselves so we would still have energy for Trick-or-Treating at night.   

We found trying to stay as close to our regular routine as possible really helped everyone to stay calm and relaxed throughout the day; it made the day more predictable which in turn can reduce anxiety of the unknown or unfamiliar as this was the first Hallowe’en for some of our students.  The activities themselves may have been all Hallowe’en themed, but we stayed true to our daily structure, our daily deep breathing practise and our self-regulation tools of the Time Timer and the Breathing Ball.  As we compared notes at lunchtime and afterschool, we noticed that there was a happy buzz in the classrooms, the children were cooperative and pleasant with one another and we felt good about how everyone was doing.  Scary or Spooky?  Neither one.  We’d say Self-Regulation passed with flying colours. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves….

We finished our Painted Pumpkins on Monday.  They are so cute, interesting and unique!  The children were really using their cutting skills as they cut out many facial features for their jack-o-lanterns.  They were particularly interested in arranging the eyebrows to give their jack-o-lantern a specific expression.

We thought the children were remarkable on Hallowe’en Day.  After posing for multiple pictures, we walked through the school hallways and classrooms for our annual Hallowe’en Parade on our way up to the gym for the Hallowe’en Assembly.  At the Assembly, we were treated to the Grade 7 Dance performance of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” Hallowe’en songs from the Grade Two/Three Primary Choir and a reading of The Thirteen Nights of Hallowe’en. Our children joined the rest of the school in a rousing rendition of “Dem Bones.”  We saw a slideshow of the first two months of school by Mr. Parslow, our Vice-Principal, and Hallowe’en safety protocol was reviewed.  The Kindergarten children sat attentively and patiently, and were good audience members.  

In case you missed us at the Hallowe’en Assembly, here are Ridgeview’s Primary (K-3), ELL, Music and Library teaching staff.

Next week is our school’s Remembrance Day Assembly.  This will be a very serious Assembly, and much different than the Hallowe’en Assembly.  Please click here to learn more about our school’s expectation for Assembly behaviour.

Following the Assembly, our classes had their regular snack and recess playtime.  For the remainder of the morning, we had fun Hallowe’en Centres including playdough, Hallowe’en colouring and a Hallowe’en necklace craft.  Thank you so much to our parent volunteers who helped out with our Centres and made spider cupcakes with all of our students.

We still went ahead with our Alphabet work, so we made our “g is a garden craft,” in addition to our regular printing activities.

We’ve completed our October pattern of the month, ABC, with these amazing Hallowe’en shape patterns.   

November’s pattern is AAB.  

We’re almost halfway through the current Sharing and Special Helper rotation.  We’re so pleased with the Alphabet sharing the children are bringing to school.  It’s certain given us plenty to talk about!  We want to give you a heads up for the next Sharing theme which will be “Christmas at My House.”  We know we will be asking some of you to open those Christmas boxes far earlier than usual!  We’re asking the children to bring a Christmas tree ornament, Christmas stocking, Christmas family photo or Christmas story from home.  Please do not purchase anything new.  The idea would be to bring something to school which is part of your traditional family celebrations.  Please see us if you have any questions.

In keeping with our Healthy Eating philosophy at school, we’d like to remind everyone that eating Hallowe’en candy is an unexpected snack to have at school; it’s expected the children would bring their regular healthy food.  However, we have it on good authority from the Great Pumpkin that Hallowe’en candy for another day or two next week would be acceptable.  Please do not send any candy to be eaten in class that may contain nuts or tree nuts.

Upcoming Events and Reminders

We’ll be collecting Hallowe’en candy for our Christmas Cracker project in December.  In a school-wide Buddy project, we make decorated Christmas Crackers stuffed with the leftover candy for several charitable organisations.  For some, these crackers will be the only sweet treat they will receive this year.  Thank you for supporting us in teaching your child about the importance of compassion and giving.

Wednesday, November 8:  Library Book Exchange for both classes

Thursday, November 9:  Remembrance Day Assembly for Ridgeview students

Friday, November 10:  District Professional Day (students are not in session)

Monday, November 13:  Statutory Holiday for Remembrance Day (staff and students are not in session)

Tuesday, November 14:  School re-opens 8:50 am start

We’re really into our Hallowe’en groove this week. So this week makes 1.5 weeks of thinking and dreaming about Hallowe’en.

It’s a very exciting time for the children, with Hallowe’en crafts, reading Hallowe’en stories, Hallowe’en classroom decorating and fun school events like the Hallowe’en Family Skate. Everyone is trying super hard to stay calm, relaxed and focused on learning…and that includes the teachers! We’re making sure we’re taking the time everyday with the children to allow our brains to rest as we listen to quiet music, practise our strategy of deep breathing to calm our bodies (will probably need to pull this one out next Tuesday) and checking in with each other about our feelings and emotions throughout the day.

Look at these cute painted bats we made with our Big Buddies! Each one has an individual personality….

We buiding up some anticipation for our painted pumpkins. Last week, we outlined our pumpkins and drew in the ribs with white pastel. This week we did some colour mixing using the pumpkin as our palette, with yellow, orange and red paint. After a shave and a haircut (we cut out our pumpkins), we’re ready to add some spooky features to create a very fun pumpkin patch next week! This great project is from the website Deep Space Sparkle, which is an amazing art resource for teachers.

We love to spread out the steps for making special projects to teach the children that it takes time and patience to create wonderful things, and that that is perfectly fine. In fact, slowing down, taking our time to enjoy the process and concentrating on each step is all part of developing mindfulness. It’s the little things like feeling the difference between crayons and pastels, observing the texture of the paint and the colour mixing or moving your scissors to cut out a large and unwieldy shape that encourage the children to focus on their senses, and enjoy the moment of making art with their classmates in a happy and creative context.

Our Grade 7 Me to We Team is organising the “We Scare Hunger” campaign to collect non-perishable food and some non-food items for the Harvest Project. We are collecting items in large boxes in the front foyer of our school. You can leave your donations in the boxes or your child can bring them to class and we will take them upstairs during the school day. Thank you for your generosity.

The most needed items for the Harvest Project include:
-canned baked beans, canned fruit and fruit cups, canned tomatoes, canned vegetables
-canned meat and canned fish
-canned soup (10 oz and 14 oz)
-pasta sauce – tomato or cream
-peanut butter and spreads such as sunflower or almond butters
-granola bars, cookies and crackers
-coffee (1 lb pack, ground)
-flour, sugar, salt (not more than 1 kg)
-oil, vinegar (500 ml bottles maximum)
-rice (1 lb package only)

-toothbrushes individually packed, toothpaste (small and medium size)
-soap, shampoo, conditioner
-toilet paper
-diapers (size 4, 5, 6)
-grocery gift cards
-men and women’s socks and underwear

Upcoming Events and Reminders
Tuesday, October 31. Hallowe’en Parade and Assembly. We sent home a Hallowe’en notice on with the children today with a few reminders about next week’s Parade and Assembly. We encourage everyone to dress up and show their Ridgeview spirit. The children will change out of their costumes at recess.

After recess, we will have a fun time with Hallowe’en themed centres and crafts, with a cupcake station to make a snack for lunch dessert. We will have quiet time with read aloud stories and a short Hallowe’en video in the afternoon. Hopefully the weather is good so we can get outside for some fresh air. School finishes at 2:55 pm as usual.

Wednesday, November 1 Post Hallowe’en. School will start late on Wednesday, November 1, to allow your little witches, ghosts, monsters and fairies to sleep late after their evening Hallowe’en festivities. We will see everyone at 10:40 am.

Wednesday is also Library Book Exchange.

Thursday, November 9 Remembrance Day Assembly. The Kindergarten will be joining Ridgeview students at our school Remembrance Day Assembly. This is a serious assembly and expected student behaviour should fall in line with the formality of this event. Click here to learn more about the expectations Ridgeview School has for student behaviour during school assemblies.

As these beautiful autumn days slip by, we’re settling well into our routines and enjoying Kindergarten Life.  The children have become very familiar with ourselves and their classmates.  There are always lots of smiles, cheerful faces and the highest praise, “I like school!” from our little ones.  Words to warm the heart…

A big part of our self-regulation is the ability to get along with others.  It’s wonderful to see the children inviting each other to join in play, or the confidence they feel in simply approaching a group and knowing they can be a part of it.  Sharing and turn-taking is never easy…it’s challenging for us as adults, so imagine how your children are asked to do that all day long!  We’ve been modelling and practising the language necessary to cooperate together:

“When you’re finished, may I please have the blue/red/yellow crayon?”

“I’m just waiting for ….. to finish.”

“Will I be able to have a turn to paint today?”

We continue to be amazed and delighted at watching our Kinder patch grow and mature.

Although we’re still over a week away, we’ve having fun decorating our classrooms in anticipation of the BIG Day.  Today we were informed that the children are VERY EXCITED about Hallowe’en.  The countdown is on….

But we better go back to the beginning…starting with our Alphabet work on the letter E.  We made our sweet  “e is for Earth” craft and tried to include everything we love about the Earth’s gifts to us — rainbows, flowers and trees, snow-capped mountains, spouting whales and more.  We’ve started printing in our beautiful Alphabet books that will be a special treasure your child will bring home at the end of the school year.

Because all thoughts have turned to Hallowe’en, we’re creating shared language experiences by discussing Hallowe’en vocabulary.  We’re building a word bank of pictures and labels, and it’s been very enjoyable to hear the children talk about their pumpkin patch adventures, describe the differences between a pumpkin and jack-o-lantern and explain exactly what “trick or treat” means.

In Math we’re working on creating and repeating ABC patterns during Free Exploration time.  The children are learning that each pattern should repeat itself at least three times so we know it is a true pattern.  We’ll make some fun Hallowe’en patterns in the upcoming days.

Of course our highlight of the week was making our Hallowe’en wreaths with our Big Buddies on Thursday.  We’ve been practising using templates, spreading our fingers to hold them firmly in place before tracing, then cutting them out.  We had some decorating fun with silly faces and lots of stickers to create a lovely display in the classroom.

We painted these little bodies in anticipation of Bat Week next week in Kindergarten.  We’ll finish them with our Big Buddies.  We’ve asked the Grade 7s to bring a Hallowe’en storybook to Buddies to share with our children on Wednesday.

We’ve had a couple of rainy weather days now in October.  At Ridgeview, unless the rain is a deluge, the children are expected to go outside for morning and lunch recess.  Thank you to everyone for sending in a raincoat with your child.  Students should also have a pair of boots to wear outdoors; it’s not healthy for the children to wear wet socks and runners on their feet for the remainder of the day.  At the same time, we do not want students to be wearing their boots all day; all children should be wearing runners or other indoor footwear in the classrooms and hallways.  Children are not to wear boots in the gym.

Hallowe’en Update

Ridgeview is holding our annual Hallowe’en Parade and Assembly on Tuesday, October 31.  The children are invited to dress up and we will be part of a parade that makes it way through the classrooms and hallways to the gym for our Assembly.

Please remember that children are not allowed to bring weapons to school as part of their costume.  This includes swords and light sabres.  These are best left at home.

On Wednesday, November 1 we will have a late morning start.  School will not begin until 10:40 am.  

Upcoming Events and Reminders

Library Book Exchange on Wednesday for both classes.

Tuesday, October 31 is our annual Hallowe’en Parade and Assembly. Parents may watch us parade down the halls of Ridgeview!

Wednesday, November 1 is a late start for all students.  We will not begin school until 10:40 am.  Dismissal will be at the regular time of 2:55 pm.

It’s been a golden end of summer as we’ve moved into the most delicious autumn we’ve been able to recall in the past number of years.  We’re enjoying sunny, warm afternoons on the playground, reading some brilliant new books about seasonal changes and watching our Kindergarten children grow, change and mature.  

We knew that post-Thanksgiving is a special time as we watch our classes take significant step forward in their self-regulation.  We’ve really worked hard on our self-regulation strategy of deep breathing.  Most of the children realise how good it feels to breathe deeply and feel their bodies relax and become more peaceful.  

This week, we’re solidifying our routine by including the Zenergy chime as part of developing mindfulness.  After listening to quiet music to calm ourselves (right now we’re listening to a personal favourite, “Deep in an Ancient Hawaiian Forest” from the movie “The Descendants”) we play the chime once and think about the sound.  We’re training our brains to focus.  We lead the children through a deep breathing sequence, and then play the chime a second time.  The children are learning to gently push away small noises they might hear, concentrate on their breathing and have a few moments of meditation when their mind can simply relax.  The most important take-away from this strategy is that the children know their breath is their friend – it’s always with them, it can help them to calm down, relax and be refreshed no matter where they are.  

Next week, we will start to discuss our emotions and feelings and the importance of sharing how we feel with others.

We worked on upper and lowercase D this week.  Lowercase “d” can be tricky because many children confuse it with lowercase “b.”  When practising printing at home with your child, remember that we print all letters left- to right, top to bottom.  

For lowercase “b” the stick is printed first (the left side of the letter) from top to bottom, then the circle is formed (the right side of the letter).  Both parts of the letter must touch without crossing over.

For lowercase “d” the circle is formed first (the left side of the letter), then the stick is printed from top to bottom (the right side of the letter).  Both parts of the letter must touch without crossing over.

Printing is all about precision, and so we strive to teach the children to at least try to form the letters correctly.  Forming the alphabet letters correctly will actually help your children to print neatly and quickly (this will become apparent and necessary as they move through the grades), and surprisingly, requires less energy so printing is not a tiresome task.   It goes without saying that it takes years of practise to have beautifully formed letters that sit on the line, with consistent size and spacing.  Each child arrives at this point when they are developmentally ready and is greatly influenced by their pre-printing experiences such as colouring, drawing and other fine motor play including playdough and Lego.

As classroom teachers, we recognise that each child has a different style to his or her printing and it’s exciting for us when we can identify a child’s piece of work without looking at the name printed at the top of a page!

We made these beautiful tissue paper apples last week.  We finally have everyone’s finished and up on the bulletin boards.  Are these not absolutely amazing?  The children separated small pieces of tissue paper (we’re always looking for activities to strengthen small fingers for strong fine motor skills) and glued them onto their apple cut-out.  Some mod podge and a whole lot of gold, red and green glitter later…well, if you could see how they capture the light in our room, they are breathtaking.

As part of our personal identity unit in Social Studies, we’ve been doing a lot of activities around our names so this week we thought we’d expand our knowledge and start to chat about our last names.  This discussion proved to be a little more challenging for our classes because not all the children have necessarily been required to say their last names very frequently and were a little shy to talk about it.  We think this is an important opportunity for you to talk about your family name so your child feels more confident in stating both their first, and last names.  

For our class activity, we created our initials using fruit loops.  The classroom smelled really good, and the children were very respectful about not sampling the fruit loops.  (Telling them that some of the fruit loops were left over from last year, and had been touched by MANY MANY hands, may have somewhat dampened their enthusiasm for tasting.  But our conscience is clear…we’re telling the truth).

We completed our October self-portraits with these cute pumpkin backgrounds.  It’s only our second self-portrait this school year and we are delighted with the children’s drawing, cutting and glueing skills.

Our Kindergarten children have completed a lot of fantastic work this week.  We’d say that so far, this year’s harvest has certainly been one of plenty.

Upcoming Events and Reminders

Friday, October 20 is a Professional Day; students are not in session.

Monday, October 23 is a Curriculum Implementation Day; students are not in session.

Sharing and Special Helper:  we’re starting another round of Special Helper soon and we’re ready to include Sharing.  Sharing is similar to the former “Show and Tell” but we will be giving a specific theme to follow each month.  Our theme this time is going to be “Bring 3 Objects that Begin with the First Letter of Your First Name.”  All three items must fit in a small ziploc bag.  We’re quite strict about that rule so please help your child to locate the appropriately sized items; your child should know the names of what he or she has brought to school.  Please Note:  if your children forget to bring their Sharing on their Special Helper Day, we will not be allowing them to bring it on another day. We’ve done this in the past and it frequently results in a backlog of Sharing and takes away from the child whose Special Helper day it really is.  Please check the posted calendar for your child’s Special Helper Day.