Merry Christmas

To the families celebrating Christmas, sending you wishes for a very Merry Christmas!  

Happy Chanukah

To all the families celebrating Chanukah, we would like to wish you and your families a very happy celebration.

Pyjama Day ... December 8th

Just a friendly reminder ... tomorrow, Friday, Dec. 8th, is pyjama day at school.  Children may wear their pyjamas to school if they wish.    

Jungle Sport in our Gym Next Week

As you may be aware from a number of school emails, our school gym will be transformed next week (Nov. 27 to Dec. 1) to Jungle Sport.  It looks like it will be a fun activity for all students with an indoor climbing apparatus.  Each class will visit 3 times during the week.  Activities change depending on the ages of the students participating and all activities are age appropriate.

Our class will be attending on:

1. Monday, Nov. 27th ... 9:10 - 9:50
2. Wednesday, Nov. 29th ... 10:30 - 11:10, and
3. Friday, Dec. 1st ... 9:50 - 10:30

Please go to to the school cash online site to register for Jungle Sport.  The cost is $10.00/student.  If payment poses a problem for your family, please let either us or the principal, Mrs. McInnis, know so we can make the necessary arrangements.  You have to give consent on the School Cash Online site in order for your child to participate in 'Jungle Sport' next week.

Link to School Cash Online

Senior Kindergarten/Year 2 Student-led Conferences

 

Our student-led conference schedule is open for booking appointment times on Edsby for the families of Senior Kindergarten/Year 2 students.  An invitation to do this was sent to your Edsby inbox with a notification to your email.  For help signing up for Student-Led Conferences, please visit:  http://bit.ly/edsbyparents. 

If you have any questions about this process, please contact the school's main office.

 

The Progress Report Cards for both Junior Kindergarten/Year 1 students and Senior Kindergarten/Year students will be sent home on Tuesday, November 21st.   

A Friendly Reminder ...

We will going to the Community Safety Village on Tuesday, November 14th.  Thank you to all the families who have already given consent and paid for the trip on School Cash On-line.  If you have not done so yet, please go to School Cash On-line soon in order to sign-up your child for the trip. Here is the link:  School Cash On-line

If payment is a problem, please let either us or the principal, Mrs. McInnis, know so we can be of assistance.  If you are planning not to send your child on the trip, also let us know.

Thank you to all the parents who volunteered to help us with supervision on the trip!  Unfortunately, we are only able to take 4 volunteers with us to the Safety Village.  Thank you again for your support.

Junior Kindergarten/Year 1 Observation Visits

We will be starting our JK/Year 1 Observation Visits the week of Monday, November 13th.  Thank you to all the families that have already returned their sign-up notes.  If you have not returned your sign-up note yet, please do so as soon as possible.  If none of the dates/times available for in-class visits works for you, please let us know so we can make alternative arrangements to meet with you.

We're looking forward to seeing you soon!

Borrow-a-Book Book Bags

A couple of weeks ago, we sent home information about our Borrow-a-Book home reading program.  Many families decided that they would like to participate.  We will be sending home the first set of books tomorrow.  Please look for the books in your child's backpack.  Please return the bag with the books each Tuesday.  Each Thursday, we will send a new set of books home with your child.

If you have any questions once the book bags come home, please contact us.

Fall Dance Fun!

We had lots of fun this morning at the Fall Dance!  We read a great book to get us in the mood just before the dance:  Shake dem Hallowe'en Bones.

Here is a picture of the last page of the book to give you a little sample of the book:

Here is a photo of the DJ and the MC.  They were terrific, and they kept us moving.  It was a great way to start the day!

Also, thank you for supporting the Grade 8 classes with their fundraising efforts today.  

Hallowe'en Fun

As you know, tomorrow is Hallowe'en.  Some children like to wear their costumes at school on Hallowe'en.  If your child would like to wear a costume tomorrow, please have him/her wear his/her costume over his/her clothes if possible.  We will have the children take their costumes off by morning recess. Please send an extra bag (e.g., a plastic shopping bag) so we can help your child pack up his/her costume.  Please remember, any masks and weapon-like parts of the costume (e.g., swords, guns, hooks, lazers, etc.) should stay at home.  

Fall Dance ...

The Kindergarten classes will attend the Fall Dance tomorrow from 9:30 to 10:00 a.m.  As was mentioned in a previous email from the school, each student is asked to bring $2 for the dance to help pay for the DJ and to support Grade 8 fundraising.  Snacks will also be on sale at the dance:  $2 for a cookie and $1 for a ring pop. 


Hallowe'en Treats ...

In the days following Hallowe'en, please limit the amount of candy that you send to school with your child.  Please do not send more than one or two treats with your child each day.  As always, please make sure the treats are peanut and nut-free to help keep all of our children safe at school.

Happy Diwali!

If you and your family are celebrating, we send you wishes for a Happy Diwali!

Upcoming Kindergarten Trip!

Our Kindergarten class will be going to the Community Safety Village of York Region to participate in the fire and injury prevention programmes on Tuesday, November 14th.  The Safety Village is located in Bruce's Mill Conservation Area.  

We will travel by school bus, and we will be leaving the school by 9:15 am. We will return to school by 2:30 pm.  We will be eating our lunches at the Community Safety Village.  (Please remember to make sure that your child's lunch is peanut-free and nut-free.)  The cost of the trip is $7.50.  Please go to School Cash On-line to pay for the trip and give consent for your child to attend.

Each class is able to bring 4 parent volunteers to help supervise students. Please note, all volunteers need to have an up to date police-check on file at our school.  If you are interested in accompanying us on the trip, please let us know.  If we get more than 4 volunteers offering their services, we will draw names.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing you and your family a very Happy Thanksgiving!

After reading about and discussing the idea of being thankful, we asked the children:  Who or what are you thankful for?
You can see their answers in the photos below:

Just a reminder, Wednesday is Day 5 at school.  Please have your child return his or her library book in the large plastic library bag.

Terry Fox Walk - Thursday, Sept. 28th

As you may already know, our school will be participating in the Terry Fox Walk/Run tomorrow.  All donations will go to the Terry Fox Foundation to fund cancer research.  As a school, we were hoping to raise $2000.  We have not reached that mark, yet, but you can still help.  Please make your donation on line at:  https://secure.terryfox.ca/registrant/mobile/mobileTeamPage.aspx?TeamID=749445&Referrer=direct%2fnone&moreText=true
Or if you prefer, send a donation of a 'twoonie' to school with your child tomorrow. 

Our Kindergarten class will be walking around the school field a few times as our contribution to the Terry Fox Walk/Run Marathon of Hope.  

Happy Rosh Hashanah

To all the families who are celebrating this week, we wish you all a                  Happy Rosh Hashanah!

Lost & Found

We found a hoodie jacket, but no one in our class has claimed it as their own.  Please let us know if it belongs to your child, and we will gladly send it home.

International Dot Day!

Friday, September 15th was International Dot Day!  

We read the book, The Dot, and learned how Vashti (the character in the book) overcame her fears and made her mark. In celebration of Dot Day, we also made our mark!

On Monday, we'll be starting our 'Writing and Drawing Books' and making more marks!

What kind of class do we want to have? - Our First Inquiry

For our first inquiry, we asked the children the following question:  What kind of class do we want to have?  We wanted to explore the topic as a way to establish our class rules/norms.

Here are the responses that the students gave us:
We want to have a good class.
We want to have a nice class.
We want to have a polite class.
We want to have a kind class.
We want to have a clean class.
Everyone agreed that if we had a nice, polite, kind and clean class, it would be a good class.

Then we began exploring the various concepts that the students listed.  Each day, we read and talked about books that highlighted the various characteristics of a 'good class'.  Here are some of the books we read:

We discussed how we are in charge of making good choices.  We can choose to make good choices every day to avoid problems, and we can choose to react in better ways to solve problems.

           Being polite means using your manners.  We learned that even dinosaurs can make good choices and behave appropriately at school.

The opposite of being kind is being mean.   Lily Jean learns a lesson:  you won't keep friends if you are mean to them.

What does kindness look like?  Big Al is kind and helpful, and he doesn't give up.  (We also discussed how you can't tell what a person will be like by the way he/she looks.  Big Al didn't look nice, but he was very nice and kind to all the other fish in the ocean.)

Why is it a good idea to have a clean class?  It is helpful to keep our class tidy and organized so we can easily find things.  That way, we can spend more time playing and learning.  

In additon, to reading and discussing the various books, we also acted out and modelled what the various behaviours looked like and sounded like.  Also, we highlighted students' positive behaviours and choices as we noticed them in the classroom and on the playground.

At the end of the two weeks, we came up with our class promise:

As you can see, everyone signed the promise.  The promise is posted in our room, and we will refer to it everyday as a reminder about the kind of good choices we should be making so we can have a nice class.

Terry Fox Walk at Nellie McClung Public School

Like many other commuities and schools in Canada, Nellie McClung Public School participates in the Terry Fox Walk to raise money for cancer research.  This year, our school is hoping to raise at least $2000 for the Terry Fox Foundation.  Please help our school reach this goal by making a donation on the secure site: https://secure.terryfox.ca/registrant/mobile/mobileTeamPage.aspx?TeamID=749445&Referrer=direct%2fnone&moreText=true  

The Nellie McClung Terry Fox Walk will take place on September 28th.  The Kindergarten classes will be walking around the school field several times in support of the Terry Fox Foundation.

Room 110 News

It's our second week of Kindergarten, and we are getting to know each other and learn our routines.  Hopefully, the children have been coming home and letting you know about what they have been doing at school.  

For our first inquiry, we asked the children the following question:  What kind of class do we want to have?  We are exploring the topic as a way to establish our class rules/norms. (Stay tuned for another blog post in which we'll describe the process in more detail.)

Thank you to all the families that have returned the green 'Parent Contact' pages and the blue 'School Start Up Forms' packages.  We will let you know in the next few days if your family has any outstanding forms that need to be returned.

Scholastic Book Clubs ... we will also send home some order forms in the following days.  If you would like to place a book club order, please follow the instructions on the order forms.

Birthdays ... we like to acknowledge and celebrate all of our classmates' birthdays.  In our class, when it is a child's birthday, we sing 'Happy Birthday' for him/her, and the child also gets to choose a small gift from the 'birthday box'. Please do not send any food treats to school for your child's birthday.  As per Healthy Schools Policy, we will not be able to hand them out to the class.  

Mark your calendar ... Nellie McClung is having its Open House/Curriculum Night on September 28th from 6:30 to 7:30 pm.  We hope you will be able to join us, and we know the children will enjoy showing you around their classroom!

Happy Labour Day

Hello Everyone, 

We hope you have had a great summer holiday and are enjoying the sunny weather today!  

Mrs. Mateo and I have been getting the classroom ready to welcome you all back to school. We are excited about seeing you again tomorrow as Senior Kindergarten students!  We also hope that our friends who are going to Grade One have a great day. If you have a chance, come by and say hello. 

See you tomorrow morning!  Just one more big sleep.

Summer Reading

You may already be aware that your child still has access to Raz-Kids over the summer break.  You and your child can access various levelled books on-line at:  https://www.raz-kids.com/

If you no longer remember your child's password, leave a comment to this posting, and we will get back to you with the information.

Happy Reading!

Happy Summer!

Hello Everyone,

We didn't get a chance to see everyone at the end of the school year so we just wanted to wish you all a good summer break.  The new school year will start on Tuesday, September 5th, and we look forward to seeing you again then.

Bye for now,

Ms. Guerriero &  Mrs. Mateo 😊😊

Report Cards & a Request for Bags

It's hard for us to believe, but the school year is almost over!  The report cards will be sent home tomorrow, Tuesday, June 27th.  Please look for your child's report in his/her backpack tomorrow.  

We will be sending home a number of items over the next few days.  Would you please help us out by sending some plastic shopping bags to school?  We will keep any extra clothing and shoes at school until Thursday.

Inside Picnics are Fun, too!

Despite all the rain yesterday, we had a great time at our end of the year Kindergarten concert and picnic!  Thank you to all the parents and grandparents who were able to join us for our end-of-year celebration.  Under the guidance and leadership of Mrs. Gordon-Rak, all the Kindergarten classes did a great job at performing at the concert.  Bravo everyone!

We hope our guests also enjoyed themselves, and we would like to thank you for coming!

   

End of Year Kindergarten Picnic

As you may already know, we will be having our end-of-the-year Kindergarten picnic this coming Friday, June 23rd.  We will start in the gym for a Kindergarten concert.  Weather permitting, we will then go outside to enjoy a snack and some fun activities.  If it is raining or the field is very wet, we will stay inside for snack.

We hope you will be able to join us on Friday morning.  Please drop your child off as usual in the Kindergarten yard, and then proceed to the gym.  We will take attendance, and then organize ourselves for the concert.

Please bring a blanket or towel to sit on, and bring a snack for your child and yourself.  Younger siblings and other family members are welcome to join us.

Bye, Bye Butterflies!

On Friday, June 9th and Monday, June 12th, we released our butterflies!  The weather was warm and sunny ... just the way butterflies like it.  We wore our life cycle crowns as we took the butterflies outside.  We opened the cages and sang 'Fly, Fly Butterfly' as the butterflies flew away.  Some of the butterflies quickly found some flowers, and we watched as they enjoyed drinking nectar from the flowers.
Here are some photos from Friday's release:

Trying to coax one of the butterflies to fly away.  It was enjoying the orange.

A butterfly enjoying the nectar of a dandelion

 Some of us tried following the butterflies as they flew away

One of the butterflies on the grass.  Sorry for the blurry photo.

We would like to thank the Nellie McClung School Council for funding the purchase of the caterpillars.  We appreciate all the support that we receive from the council.

Happy Father's Day!

To all Dads, Grandfathers and Uncles,

We hope you are having a great Father's Day with your loved ones!

Butterfly Update & Library News

Hopefully, the children have been sharing news about our butterflies.  There was lots of excitement in our room when we returned to school on Monday.  Here is the news from today:

Some of us were willing to put our hand in the butterfly cage and visit with a butterfly.  Butterflies can't hurt people.  They don't have any stingers.  Most of the children reported that the butterfly tickled a little bit.  The children were very respectful, and no one tried to touch the wings.  We have learned that butterflies have fragile, powdery wings.  If we touch them, we can easily damage the wings, and the butterfly may not be able to fly.  

Library News

Today was our last library day to sign out books for this school year.  If your child did not bring home a book today, it means that he/she already has a library book that has not been returned to school, yet.  Please return all library books by the next Day 1 of school (June 14th).

Painted Lady Butterfly Videos

Here are a couple of videos of our special visitors that you might enjoy watching.

The first video is a Painted Lady caterpillar.  

The second video is about a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.  We were very excited to see our first butterfly today!  

Missing Jacket

One of our students is missing a black jacket.  It is a size 6 girl's jacket from Justice.  (Please see photo below.)  If your child has taken it home by mistake, please return it to school.
Thank you.

Caterpillar Update

The 15 caterpillars.  We wonder how many will be chrysalises tomorrow?

Three of the chrysalises.  They have attached themselves to the lids of the cups.  We then taped the lids to the cage.

Lost and Found

We have lost a number of scissors from our class.  We keep scissors at the snack table to help with the opening of various snacks.  Would you please look at home in case some scissors were mistakenly taken home.  Most of the missing scissors look like this:

We have also found 2 sweaters in our room and no one has claimed them.  Here are photos of the sweaters:

If the sweater(s) belong to your child, please let us know and we will send it home.

Our Special Visitors Have Arrived!

Each caterpillar is in its own little cup.  The yellowish stuff in the cup is the caterpillar food.

The caterpillars look spikey.