Learning from Home

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to our last week of school and our last week of on-line learning for this school year. Three months of on-line learning is a long time, and we very much appreciate all the support you have given your child(ren) to navigate our virtual classroom. We know it has not been easy, but we hope it has been a worthwhile experience for both you and your child(ren). 

This coming week, we will have our Google Meet for the whole class on Wednesday, June 24th at 1:30 pm. As usual, we will send the link to the meeting in an email around 1:00 pm on Wednesday. We will be playing ‘Summer Bingo’ during the meeting. Please have your child prepare their ‘Summer Bingo’ card before the meeting. (A separate email was sent to parents on June 18th with instructions. If you didn’t receive it, please let us know.)

Please note, we will need any completed activities submitted to us by Friday, June 26th at noon so we can provide feedback and post it for you in time.

Have a great start to the week, and we hope to see all the children at our last Google Meet on Wednesday.

Stay well,

Jesica  and  Lina

Happy Father's Day!

To everyone who is celebrating Father's Day on Sunday, 

we send you wishes for a great day with your family!

Happy National Indigenous Peoples Day

If you and your family are celebrating National Indigenous Peoples Day on Sunday, we send you wishes for a wonderful day!

June 21 is National Indigenous Peoples Day. This is a day for all Canadians to recognize and celebrate the unique heritage, diverse cultures and outstanding contributions of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. The Canadian Constitution recognizes these three groups as Aboriginal peoples, also known as Indigenous peoples.

Although these groups share many similarities, they each have their own distinct heritage, language, cultural practices and spiritual beliefs.

In cooperation with Indigenous organizations, the Government of Canada chose June 21, the summer solstice, for National Aboriginal Day, now known as National Indigenous Peoples Day. For generations, many Indigenous peoples and communities have celebrated their culture and heritage on or near this day due to the significance of the summer solstice as the longest day of the year.

Eid-al-Fitr Celebrations

To our students and their families who are celebrating Eid-al-Fitr, we would like to wish you all a very happy celebration!

Happy Mother's Day!

To Everyone who is celebrating Mother's Day on Sunday, 

we send you wishes for a great day with your family!

E-Learning: Week 2 ... Week of April 14 to April 17, 2020

Dear Parents,

We hope you and your families are all well!

We have made a few changes to our Google Classroom for the second week:
1. We will not post any daily messages this week;
2. We have added a new song and a new rap;
3. We have added new activities to complete over the week; 
4. There is a video math lesson about 3-D figures to watch;

5. We have included information about the IXL math site in the Week 2 activities.  If you need your child's log-in username and password, please let us know; and lastly,

6. We would like you to submit 4 pieces of work/activities for your child this coming week.  Please see the posted activities.


We have an 'office hour' when you can reach us every school day fairly quickly. It is from 2:00 to 3:00 pm. Just send us an email, and we should be able to respond to you right away. Of course, you can send us an email at any time. We are generally able to respond within the same day.  If you prefer us to call you, let us know in your email, and we will give you a call.

Have a great day, and the Week 2 activities on our Google Classroom will be posted tomorrow morning.

Mrs. Mateo & Ms. Guerriero

FDK Team for formerly Room 110

Good Friday and Easter Greetings

To our students and their families who are celebrating Easter.  We send you wishes for a blessed Good Friday and wishes for a Happy Easter!

Passover Greetings

To all of our students and their families who are celebrating Passover, we send you wishes for a Happy Passover!

Invitations to Join Our Google Classroom

Hello Everyone,

It was a pleasure to speak to everyone today, and we were happy to learn that everyone was healthy and safe!

As we mentioned in our phone calls, every family will be receiving an email inviting them to join our Google Classroom.  The emails have all been sent today (March 31st), and hopefully you have received it.  If your family did not get an email, please let us know, and we will send one out to you as soon as possible.

We look forward to 'seeing' everyone soon in our new virtual classroom!

Stay well,

Mrs. Mateo  &  Ms. Guerriero

Upcoming Phone Calls

Hello Everyone,

We hope this post finds you and your families all well!  

As you may have read in an email from Nellie McClung P.S. dated Monday, March 30th, we will be contacting all of our students' families this week.  We will be calling your family either Tuesday, March 31st or Wednesday, April 1st.

We look forward to chatting with you soon!

A Big Hello to Everyone!

Hello Everyone,

We hope that this post finds you and your family all well!  It's not easy practising social distancing, and we hope that we can all get back to our normal lives sooner rather than later.  

We believe that all families recently received the following email from the Board:

Dear families, 

I hope this correspondence finds you and your family healthy and safe.  As you know, on March 12, 2020, the Ontario Minister of Education issued an order to close all publicly funded schools from March 14, with an expectation that they reopen on April 6, to interrupt the spread of COVID-19. Today, the Ontario Minister of Education has written a letter to all families and asked that school boards share it broadly. You may find a copy of this letter on the Board’s website. 

At YRDSB, many of us have been working during the school closure to provide resources for students and their families and our staff members. On Friday, we shared resources for online learning and tips for speaking with children about COVID-19. We encourage you to continue to visit the Board’s website or Twitter feed @YRDSB for up-to-date information on education-related news, and www.york.ca/coronavirus or www.ontario.ca/coronavirus for public health updates. For those of you returning to Canada from abroad, please remember the importance of self-isolation for 14 days after your return. 

As the Minister has requested, our leadership team is working to provide technology for families who may not have access so that they may benefit from the online resources provided by us and the Ministry.  As our plans develop, we will communicate this information to families. 

Once again, I would like to reassure you that we are making decisions with your children’s health and safety as a top priority. Please continue to follow us on Twitter @YRDSB and check your email to receive updates from us during this rapidly changing global situation.

Sincerely,

Louise Sirisko

Director of Education 

If you click 'resources for online learning' in the above letter, you will see a list of sites that you may want to use with your child during the school closure.  In addition, the Ministry of Education has also provided a list of resources that you may access at:  https://www.ontario.ca/page/learn-at-home

For some of the sites that are listed on the Board's online resources, a password may be needed. For example, the information for the Bookflix site is:  Username: dsbyork , and the Password: dsby7692.

If you find other sites that you need a password in order to use them, please let us know, and we will do our best to get the information for you. If you have any questions/concerns, please leave us a message in the comments, and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

One more thing:

Here is one of the songs we were learning before the break. We thought your child(ren) may enjoy singing it to you:

March

March  is  here,  and  the  days  are  getting  longer.

March  is  here,  and  the  sun  is  getting  stronger.

Some  days  are  cold,  and  it  may  snow,

But  spring  is  coming  soon,  I  know.

Written by B. Beattie

Naw Ruz Greetings

To all our students and their families who are celebrating Naw Ruz, we send you wishes for a happy new year!  We hope you and your families have a wonderful celebration!

Our Germ Experiment

As you can imagine, in a Kindergarten classroom we are always reminding the children to wash their hands throughout the day.  We have been practising how to thoroughly wash our hands while we sing the alphabet song in our head for many months now. (We sing the song to ensure that we are washing long enough, i.e., about 20 seconds.) 

In addition, we have explained that when we wash our hands, we are getting rid of germs that might make us sick if the germs get inside our bodies.  The germs on our hands are invisible to our eyes, but we did an experiment to grow the germs so we could see them.

Here are the results of our experiment:

                       Last Thursday, half the class touched this slice of bread with 'dirty hands'  (they did not wash their hands).  We saw dark, mould spots on both sides of the bread  after one week.

The other half of the class washed their hands with soap and water before they touched this slice of bread.  After one week, we saw one small mould spot on only one side of the slice of bread.

Hopefully, this experiment helped the children understand why it is important to wash your hands thoroughly so you can get rid of the germs.  

(A big thank you to one of our student's mother, Ms. M., for sending us a link to a version of this experiment.)

Library Visits for Next Week

We missed our class library time the other day, because we were at Jungle Sport in the gym.  We will have 2 library visits this coming week:  Monday (Day 3) and Wednesday (Day 5).  Students are welcome to exchange and borrow books on both days.


Have a great weekend, and remember to set your clocks ahead one hour this weekend.

Junglesport

As you may already know from the school emails, our class will be participating in Junglesport activities next week.  In the past, our students have had lots of fun and really enjoyed themselves.  


Our class will be participating in the Junglesport activities on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday of the coming week.  The cost is $10 per child.  Please pay on school cash online and complete the waiver for your child to participate.  The waiver must be completed in order for your child to participate. 

If you have any questions/concerns, please contact us.

100th Day of Kindergarten in Room 110

As you know, we celebrated the 100th day of school today!  We finally coloured the 100th circle on our ten frames chart, and the celebrations began!  

Here are some of the activities that we had fun with on the 100th Day of School:
We moved and counted to 100 by ones, fives and tens. We made '100th Day' crowns.  We cut out 100 hearts. We worked together to write 100 words.  We sang songs about 100, and we read books about 100. We measured how far 100 strips of paper would go down the hallway. We made a pattern chain with 100 strips of paper, and we built with collections of 100 objects like cups, blocks and straws.  

Here are some photos:

Starting the 100th day wearing our crowns

Many students also brought their own collections of 100 to school to share with us. It was great to see all the different collections, and we imagined all the counting that had gone on at home, too. Here are some of the collections:

100 jellybeans,  100 paper clips,  100 beads, 
100  pictures  &  100 jellybeans

100 beads

100 words

100 fuse beads  &  100 beans

100 pennies

100 paper clips used to write the message

a rainbow made of 100 beads

Thank you for helping us make the 100th Day of School a fun and good learning experience for us all! As a souvenir of our 100th day, each child received a 100th day necklace kit to make at home. We hope your child enjoys making his/her necklace.

samples of the 100th Day necklace

The 100th Day of School

We have been counting the days of school.  Each day, the special Helper colours one of the circles in our booklet, and we record the number. (We have noticed many patterns in the numbers as we count and record the numerals, too.)  

The 100th day of school is soon approaching, and we will be celebrating soon!  As part of our celebration, we are encouraging the students to bring their own collections of 100 to school.  Here is a sample of a 100 collection that Mrs. Mateo & Ms. Guerriero shared with the class:

 

As was stated in a letter that was sent home last week, here are some ideas for possible collections:

·         100 cards

·         100 coins/pennies (if you still have any)

·         100 shells

·         100 stickers

·         100 pencils/crayons

·         100 Lego-type blocks

·         100 post-it notes

·         100 letters/words/numbers cut out of magazines/newspapers

·         A list of 100 books that he/she has read

·         Be creative and surprise us with your collection

It would be great if the collections were organized in some way.  For example, if your child has a collection of 100 crayons, have him/her bring the crayons to school counted and separated in sandwich bags:  10 or 20 crayons in each bag.  If your child finds 100 words, have him/her glue the words onto paper in some organized way.

Your child may bring his/her collection to school starting from  Monday, February 10^th.  We will share the collections with the class and then with the rest of the school via a hallway display.

Happy Lunar New Year!

To all our families who celebrate the Lunar New Year, we send you and your family wishes for a happy and healthy New Year!

Re. Monday, January 20, 2020

As you may already know, ETFO has announced that elementary school teachers in York Region District School Board may be conducting a one day strike on Monday, January 20, 2020 if progress is not made in negotiations with the Ontario government.

If the strike proceeds on Monday, January 20, 2020, Nellie McClung P.S. will be closed to students for the day. Please do not send students to school on January 20. (Secondary schools will not be affected and will remain open.)  In addition, all elementary school transportation services (including buses, taxis, etc.) will not be running. School will resume on Tuesday, January 21, and students are expected to return to their regular schedule for the day. (If your child attends 'Fun on the Run', please check with them if they will be open on Monday.)


You may find the following link helpful:

Ontario.ca/supportforparents

Here is some information from the above site:

Financial support for parents during strikes

Eligibility

Eligibility is limited to parents whose children are enrolled in a school or attending a school-based child care centre that is fully closed due to a strike.

Parents are eligible for support if their:

• children are in junior kindergarten up to and including Grade 7 in a publicly-funded school that has closed on account of a labour disruption
• children have special needs and are in junior kindergarten up to and including Grade 12 (or up to age 21) in a publicly-funded school that has closed on account of a labour disruption

Eligible parents of children up to age 12 (Grade 7), or up to age 21 for children and youth with special needs, in a publicly funded school, qualify for:

• $40 per day for students in junior (JK) or senior kindergarten (SK)
• $25 per day for students in grades 1 to 7
• $40 total per day for students in JK to Grade 12 (or aged 21 and under) with special needs

A student with special needs means any student reported to be receiving special education programs or services by their school board. This does not include students formally identified as being Gifted, who are receiving special education programs and services.

You can apply for funding at:

Ontario.ca/supportforparents

Let's all hope that progress can be made with the contract negotiations!

Welcome Back!

If we didn't get a chance to speak to you today, we send you wishes for a Happy New Year!  Here's hoping 2020 is a peaceful and healthy year for you and your family.

Some children took their indoor shoes home for the winterbreak.  Please send a pair of running shoes to keep at school if we send a reminder note home with your child.