Friendly Reminders ...

 'Cookie & Popcorn' orders for November 29 to December 21 are due November 24th.  Late orders will not be accepted.  If you did not receive an order form, please let us know, and we will send it home with your child.

Thank you to the families who have already signed up for their child's Student-Led Conference (Senior Kindergarten-Year 2) or In-class Observation Visit (Junior Kindergarten-Year 1).  

If you have not signed up, yet, please plan on doing so soon since the online booking will close tomorrow, November 23rd.  

Click here to go to the link for booking the JK In-class observation visits.

Enter School Event Code: nmsjk

If you are unable to attend any of the available dates/times, please let us know, and we will make alternate arrangements for you.

Pumpkin Seeds

How many seeds do you think are inside this pumpkin?  This is the question we asked the class. 

 

Some of our opinions about the roasted pumpkin seeds.

Tomorrow is Photo Retake Day

Just a friendly reminder ... tomorrow is school photo retake day.  If you would like your child to have his/her school photo redone, please send us a note.    

In addition, we will have our class photo redone tomorrow since Ms. Guerriero was absent on the previous photo day.

   

Kale & Beets Survey

We cooked some beets and some of the kale that we received at the farm last week, and we invited everyone to taste some yesterday afternoon.  We were very proud of the students because most of them were willing to taste the kale and beets.  (Five students were absent when we did our taste test.)

The good news is that we found out that most people in our class liked the kale chips and roasted beets!

Here are some of the comments from the children:

The Coming Week ...

Round the Bend Farm

We had a great time at Round the Bend Farm last Wednesday. It was a cool, crisp fall day, but all the children were dressed for the weather. Most of the class had a good time, according to our class survey, and hopefully our parent volunteers also enjoyed themselves.  A big thank you to the parent volunteers for helping us have a successful day!

The children helped the farmer pick some vegetables.  It was interesting to see what the vegetables look like when they are first picked compared to what they look like by the time we see them at grocery stores.  (In the photo, you can see how big a broccoli plant is before it is trimmed.)

At school this coming week, we'll be making soup with most of the vegetables.  (We'll use organic vegetable based boullion cubes for the soup stock.)  We are also going to taste kale 'chips', roasted beets and roasted pumpkin seeds.  It should be a yummy week ahead!


Hallowe'en Plans

As you are probably aware, we'll be attending the Fall Dance Monday morning.  The Fall Dance is organized by the Grade 8 classes as a fundraiser for their end-of-year graduation activities.  Each student is asked to donate $2 for the dance.  In addition, treats will be on sale at the dance:  sour keys and ring pops, $1 each, and cookies, $2 each. If your child is allowed to buy some treats at the dance, please send the money in a labelled envelope.

Students are allowed to wear their Hallowe'en costumes to/at school.  Please do not send any masks or weapons (e.g., swords, guns, etc.) to school.  It would be helpful to have your child wear his/her regular clothes under the costume so they can easily change later in the morning.  

Wednesday is Farm Trip Day

Just two more big sleeps until our trip to Round the Bend Farm! Here are a few reminders about our trip:

1. Please make sure your child is dressed for the weather on Wednesday.  The children thought it was funny, but we suggested that they might want to wear their pajama bottoms under their pants to help them stay warm at the farm;
2. We will eat our snacks before we leave around 10:30, and we'll have lunch when we return around 2:00.  Please make sure your child has a substantial snack to eat on Wednesday.  E.g.s, a sandwich; cheese, crackers and fruit; a slice of pizza, etc.; 
3. Please remember to send a plastic shopping bag labelled with your child's name to school on Wednesday.  Your child will be bringing home a small pumpkin from the farm.

                            

If you have any questions/concerns, please feel free to contact us or leave a comment here.

Eye See ... Eye Learn

You may be surprised to learn that 1 in 4 students has an undetected vision problem that can significantly impact his/her ability to learn.  The program, Eye See...Eye Learn, offers free glasses to any JK students who need them.  Eye examinations are covered through OHIP for all students under the age of 19.

Go to the link below to find out how to get free (OHIP covered) eye exams for your JK child:

http://www.optom.on.ca/OAO/ESEL/aboutESEL.aspx

Super Sorters

In Math, we have been working on learning how to sort sets of objects and describe how we sorted.  There are many ways that we can sort things, animals and people.  Often, we ask a survey question (e.g., do you like fall?) and sort ourselves based on our answers (e.g., 'yes', 'sort of' or 'no').

We use sorting everyday at school and home to help us get or stay organized.  For e.g., putting away laundry, putting away toys, filing papers, etc.  Here are a few photo examples of how some children have recently sorted sets of objects at school:

Sorting Beads by shape and colour by A.

Sorting coins by colour by B. and M.

Sorting shells by size by J.

Sorting planes by colour by B.

Home-School Connection:

You can encourage your child to sort at home, too.  E.g., Have your child help with sorting and matching socks on laundry day.  Encourage your child to describe how he/she sorted the socks.  E.g., 'I like the way you are sorting the clothes.  Why did you put all these socks together?'  

Sometimes we find that young children are able to complete a sorting task but may need some help to find the words to describe what they are doing.  If this is the case for your child, help them out by describing what you see him/her doing.  E.g., 'You're doing a great job of sorting the socks by colour.  You put all the black socks together and all the white socks together.'


Help your child notice and talk about the sorting he/she sees all around them.  A trip to the grocery store is a wonderful place to notice how items are sorted and organized.  As you have your child tidy-up, talk about the various ways he/she is sorting toys/books/art supplies.  E.g., find all your cars and put them in this bin.  I like the way you organized your crayons and markers.

Here is a link to a Youtube clip about sorting that you might enjoy watching with your child:  
Peep and the Big Wide World Season 2 Episode 17 - Peep and the Big Wide World "Chirp Sorts it Out"

Thanksgiving Wishes and a few other reminders...

We hope you and your family are enjoying the long weekend together.  Here are a few reminders for the upcoming week:  

1. Tuesday, October 11th:  Blue Jay Spirit Day ... wear your Blue Jay gear or blue/white to show your support for the Blue Jays.
2. Thursday, October 13th:  Photo Day ... we will be having our school photos taken on Thursday.  
3. Wednesday, October 26:  Trip to Round the Bend Farm.  If you have not already done so, please visit School Cash Online to give consent and pay for the trip.  Click/tap here for the link to School Cash Online. 

We hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend together! 

 

October is Here...

Happy October 2nd!  Where did September go?  Fall is here, and the weather is definitely cooler.  It felt like we went from summer to fall over night!  Speaking of weather ... if you haven't already done so, please send a pair of running shoes for your child to keep at school as his/her 'indoor shoes'.  

Some Thank You's:

Trip to Safety Village 

We had a great day at Safety Village, and we learned a lot about burn prevention, what to do in case of a fire, and community helpers like firefighters and police officers. We posted some photos from the trip outside our classroom.  

One of the reasons for the success of our trip were the parent and grandparent volunteers who were able to accompany us. Thank you all very much for your help and support.     You helped us have a great day!

Curriculum Night

We had a great turnout on Thursday night for our school's curriculum night.  The children appeared to have a great time, and hopefully, they were able to show you some of the things/activities that they like to do during the day.  We also hope that you left with a better idea about what your child does during the day at school.  

As you may already know, the Kindergarten curriculum was very recently revised.  In fact, we just received our hard copies of the curriculum a couple of weeks ago.  If you are interested in reading the curriculum, here is a link to the Ministry of Education's site:  
Kindergarten Curriculum 2016



Terry Fox Walk - Sept. 30th

On Friday, our school held its 6th annual Terry Fox Walk/Run in support of the Terry Fox Foundation.  We set a goal of raising $1000, and we surpassed our goal.  Our school raised almost $1200!  If you were able to make a donation, thank you very much!  If you haven't already done so, you may still make a donation online at:  Donations for Terry Fox Foundation.


Last, but not least ...

If your family is celebrating Rosh Hashanah, we would like to wish you all a Happy New Year!    

Correction to Sept. 27th Post ...

Please make your donation online for our Terry Fox Walk. Click here to go to the link:


Please do not send any donations to school.  Sorry for any confusion.

This Coming Week...

As you may already know, Thursday, September 29th is our School Open House & Curriculum Night.  The classrooms will be open from 6:30 to 7:30 pm.  Parents are invited to come with their child(ren) to see what is happening in our Kindergarten room and meet the Teachers.  We hope to see you on Thursday evening!


Terry Fox Walk - Friday, Sept. 30th


Our school will be walking on Friday to raise money for the Terry Fox Foundation. The Kindergarten classes will be walking around the field a few times to show our support for the Terry Fox Foundation. We are encouraging each child's family to make a donation online so that our school can reach our goal to fundraise $1000. 

Friday, Sept. 30th is also 'Orange Shirt Day'.  Orange Shirt Day officially started a few years ago as a way to promote healing and reconciliation for the survivors of Residential Schools.  On Friday, we will give the students in our class an orange ribbon to wear to show our support.  

Here is a link if you would like more information about Orange Shirt Day.




Library Books

The library is ready for us to start signing out books!  Our class will be going to the library on Day 1 of school.  Each child will get to borrow a book of his/her choice and take it home for about a week.  Please help your child take good care of his/her library books and library book bag.  Families will be asked to pay for any lost or damaged books.

Our first library day will be tomorrow: Wed., Sept. 28th (Day 1).  We will send home a schedule indicating the dates of our library days throughout the year later this week.  Please look for it in your child's communication bag.

Our Class Promise & A Few Reminders

We have written our class promise.  In fact, the children came up with 4 promises that they thought would help us achieve a nice class and a clean class.  Here are our promises:

1.    We   promise   to   keep   our   hands   and   feet   to   ourselves;
2.  
   We   promise  to   listen   and  pay  attention;
3.  We promise to solve problems in good ways (e.g., use our W.I.T.S. = Walk Away, Ignore, Talk about it, and/or Seek help); and
4.  We promise to tidy-up.   

    Just a few friendly reminders... 

     Friday, Sept. 23, 2016:  We are going to the Community Safety Village at Bruce's Mill Conservation Centre.  We'll leave in the morning at 9:50 and return by 2:30.  We'll be eating lunch there.  If you have not already done so, please go to 'School Cash Online' in order to give consent for your child to go on the trip and in order to pay for the trip. (We will send a second reminder notice today to any families who have not done so.)  

     Scholastic Book Club Orders:  If you would like to place an order for your child this month, please return the order form(s) by Tuesday, September 27, 2016. 

     Curriculum Night/Meet the Teachers:  We hope you and your child(ren) will be able to come and join us on Thursday, September 29th from 6:30 to 7:30 pm.  Our classroom will be open for you to visit and perhaps you may even want to try an activity with your child.  We look forward to seeing you!

The Adventures of Pete the Cat

  

                                                   

Pete the Cat is ready to start visiting with the children in our class! Starting tomorrow, Monday, Sept. 19th, Pete will be sent home with one of our students in his travel bag.  The 3 books pictured above will also be in his bag along with Pete's scrapbook. Each student will get a turn throughout the year to have Pete at home for a week.

Please help your child take good care of Pete the Cat, the books and bag, and please return everything to school on time so another family may enjoy Pete's company.  Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

International Dot Day

 

Today the Kindergartens celebrated International Dot Day with Mrs. Gordon-Rak.  We read the story, The Dot, by Peter Reynolds and created our own dot pictures to celebrate being an artist.

Rose Gordon-Rak
Nellie McClung P.S.

Mrs. Gordon-Rak is our prep coverage teacher.  She is with our class each day before lunch time.  She teaches drama, dance, music and health.  In addition, she will be taking the class to the library for book exchanges once the library is ready for us.

Room 110 News

We made it through the first week of Kindergarten!  A big thank you to our returning Senior Kindergarten students for being such good helpers with the Junior Kindergarten boys and girls and helping to make them feel comfortable and welcome in our class and school.

We have been working on establishing and following the routines of our classroom.  For example, our entry routines include:  finding our cubby spots; hanging up backpacks; handing in communication bags; locating and handing in our ‘name rocks’; standing for O Canada; and sitting down on the carpet with our legs crossed.  (And that all happens in the first 10 minutes of the morning!)

As our first class inquiry, we posed this question to the class:  How do you want to feel when you are at school? After some thinking and discussion, most children said they wanted to feel happy. After some more discussion, we decided that we also wanted to feel calm, relaxed, safe and excited. 

We then asked, what kind of class do we need to have so we can feel happy, calm, relaxed, safe and excited?  What kind of choices will we make so we can have that kind of class? After some more thinking and discussion, we decided that we want to have a nice class and a clean class. 

We have been reading various books to help us distinguish what kind of choices and behaviours will help us achieve the kind of class we want.  One of our favourite books is I Call My Hand Gentle.  It reminded us that when our hands do things it is a choice that we make.  We can choose to do good things with our hands like play, build and colour.  We can also choose not to make other choices like hit, break or steal.

This coming week, we will use our ideas to write our class promise.  We refer to our class promise, on a daily basis, as a reminder about the kind of choices we should try to make each day.

Pete the Cat

Have you heard about Pete the Cat, yet, from your child?  We have been enjoying reading the various books that feature Pete the Cat.  Pete is a happy, go-lucky character.  He doesn’t get bothered very much when things go wrong.                              “Just keep walking along and singing your song because it’s all good!” says Pete.

Pete the Cat will be visiting each child’s home this year.  Each week, Pete will be sent home with a child.  In Pete’s travel bag, you will also find some books to read together and a scrapbook to record some of Pete’s adventures with your child.  Pete will start visiting the week of September 19^th.

Helper of the Day

Each day, one child from our class is selected to be the ‘Helper of the Day’.  Throughout the year, each child will have about 4 to 5 turns to be the Helper. 

What are the duties of the Helper?  The Helper takes the attendance to the office with 2 buddies.  The Helper gets to be first in line throughout the day, and holds open doors for the class. What are the perks of being the Helper?  The Helper gets to sit on a special chair during carpet time, and he/she takes home the message of the day.  

It's good to be the Helper!

Birthdays

Birthdays are important, and we like to acknowledge everyone’s birthday in our class. We celebrate each child’s birthday by singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him/her and ‘How Old Are You Now?’.  Each child also gets to choose a small gift from the birthday box. (We also celebrate July & August birthdays. We will celebrate these birthdays near the end of the school year.)  

                                     

Our birthday box

                                                                                            

As you may have already read in previous communication from the school, we are not able to share any food treats (e.g., cake, cookies, etc.) at school. Thank you in advance for your cooperation with this policy.

Reminders & Dates to Remember:

·  Friday, September 23^rd:  Trip to the Community Safety Village at Bruce’s Mill Conservation Centre. Please sign up on ‘School Cash Online’ in order to give consent for your child to go on the trip and to pay for the trip. We welcome parent volunteers to come with us to help supervise the children on trips.  Please remember, in order to volunteer at school/on trips/etc., volunteers need to have a current police check on file at our school.

·      

    If you have not already done so, please send extra clothes and running shoes for your child to keep at school.  Please label all clothing and shoes with your child’s name.

·  Gym Day:  our class will have use of the gym on Day 1 of the school schedule.  Our school operates on a Day 1 to 5 schedule. Here are some of the dates for the upcoming Day 1’s:

 Tuesday, Sept. 13^th …. Day 1

 Tuesday, Sept. 20^th …. Day 1

 Wednesday, Sept. 28^th…. Day 1

·  Monday, September 26^th: PA Day … there is no school for students that day.  We will be in the school if you need to contact us.

·        

   Curriculum Night/Meet the Teachers:  September 29^th.  More information about the evening will be sent home soon from the school soon.