SK with Ms. Jo-Anne & Mr. KneeBone Kindergarten News 

                                                                                                            May 22, 2013

Dear Family,

We need your recycled “junk”…please!

For the next week or so, we will be learning about 3-dimensional shapes (such as cubes, cones, cylinders, spheres, rectangular and triangular prisms) and exploring these in our environment.

We are hoping to make a class castle (to go along with our reading of Jack and the beanstalk) out of 3-dimensional recycled items such as paper towel rolls, toilett paper rolls, all sized cereal boxes, egg cartons, juice containers or cartons, pasta boxes, etc. etc etc.

Please feel free to send these items in with your child over the next week or so!

Thanks so much!

Sincerely,

Ms. Jo-Anne and Mr. Kneebone

                                                                                      May 22, 2013

Dear Parents,

The Kindergarten students are going on a field trip…but we are not leaving the school!!! We are having “Scientists in Schools” come to WEJ to present a hands-on workshop called “Backyard Bugs”! How exciting!

At this workshop our Kindergarten students will discover through hands-on activities how to identify an insect as well as learn how insects see, eat, camouflage themselves, and how insect life-cycles vary.

This workshop will be in our classroom on Wednesday June 19^th from 9:15 am -11:15 am. The cost of this workshop is $8.00. Please send the exact amount (cash only, please) by Monday June 3. 

We are looking for 5 parent volunteers to help on this day. If you are able to volunteer, please fill in the bottom portion of this letter and return to school. Unfortunately we can only have 5 volunteers for this activity and we will select the first 5 volunteers who respond. Thank-you for your understanding and support!

Sincerely,

Ms. Jo-Anne

Mr. Kneebone

Hi!

I have been doing some planning for June so I thought I would give you some dates so you can plan ahead. Once June arrives, things seem to move so quickly. More information about these events will be sent home closer to the date but I thought you could mark your calendars.

JK/SK In-school Field trip Wednesday June 19…

We will be having Scientists in the Classroom…Educational and hands-on activities around the topic of….Backyard Bugs!!!!!

The cost of this field trip and  parent volunteer set up will be sent home closer to the date.

Here is their website if you want more information about this special activity. http://www.scientistsinschool.ca/

JK/SK- Summer Playday Friday June 21st…

Our Summer playday will take place during the first two periods of our day. This is weather permitting. If it rains, there will not be a raindate unfortunately!! More information will be sent home closer to the date! (Let’s hope for hot, sunny weather!!!)

SK Success Day Monday June 24th (9:15-10:30) All parents, grandparents and Siblings WELCOME!

We will be hosting a little morning of awards and celebrating student success in SK this morning! I am hoping most parents can come! We will present a song and you will have a chance to mingle with your child and other parents with some treats. I will be asking for donations of food for this, such as fruit, croissants, baked cookies etc. Again, more information will be sent home soon!

Thursday June 27- The last day of school…Sundae Party (2:30-3:45) Parents and siblings are welcome!

We will have our end of the year party with the students by enjoying ice-cream sundaes together! I will be asking forcontributions of nut-free toppings from the students.  Mmmmm…… this is such a nice way to end our year together!

Please let me know if you are able to attend either the SK Success day and/or the Ice cream Sundae party via Mr. Zippy.

I think that is it for now!

Thanks for reading!

Ms. Jo-Anne

Principal Movement at WEJ

Dear Parents,

Recently, the OCDSB announced the spring rounds of Principal & Vice-Principal Transfers and Appointments. There are a number of schools that have been impacted by these changes in staff, including us here at WEJ. After six great years, my time as Principal at WEJ is coming to an end.

I’d like to welcome and introduce the newly appointed Principal to W. Erskine – Mrs. Marilyn Burans.

Mrs. Burans arrives to WEJ from Jockvale Public School in Barhaven. She is familiar with this school community and is excited to get to know the staff & students.

I will continue in the Principal position here until the end of June and will then be moving into my next assignment as Principal of South March Public School.

I hope you will join me in officially welcoming Mrs. Burans to the WEJ Community. We wish her well as she transitions into her new role.

Thank you.

Ms. Shirley

Jen Shirley

Principal

W Erskine Johnston PS

592-4492

www.wejps.net

Hi! Happy Friday!!!

Things have been really busy but good at school in SK land! Here are a few highlights…

On Monday we put our chick eggs in our incubator. The children were so excited to do so. One of the eggs cracked so we have 11 eggs that are hopefully going to hatch into little chicks. Each day our kinderstar gets to be the chick patrol where he/she checks on the eggs, the temperature, humidity and egg conditions! This is a fun way to look at the eggs, practice drawing and writing numbers and the kids just love taking responsibility for the eggs!

On Tuesday,the children had a good day with Mrs. Ray and Mr. Kneebone (I was absent). The children enjoyed listening to the story, The Cow that Laid an Egg, written by Andy Cutbill. This is a very funny story about a cow that wanted lay an egg! The children  also had a chance to put the story of a chick’s lifecycle in proper sequence! This activity was very well-done!

The boys exploring our Chick lifeycycle game

On Wednesday, we worked hard on our Mother’s Day crafts….we “posed” on Monday, then painted, glued and printed throughout the day on Wednesday! These gifts went home in your child’s “Mr. Zippy” yesterday (Thursday). I hope you like your gifts, Moms!

In the afternoon, we also went to the Library and computer lab where we explored Baileys Book House, and made mother’s day cards using the stamps and alphabet tools. Next library exchange will be on Wednesday May 15.

computers

On Thursday, the children worked on making their French Mother cards with Madame Marquis. This was a big project that took 2 periods to do so but the children did a lovely job on these! In Numeracy, we have been exploring measurement concepts such as capacity and area. We are now beginning to learn about the passage of time and we discussed concept of before and after. Next week we will do some work around the idea of time, focussing on first, next, then and last.

Measuring capacity!

Today (Friday) our day started with French and the children played a fun game of Bingo using French vocabulary! Their oral French skills are really improving and we are constantly impressed with how much French language they have acquired!

I am looking forward to introducing the children to soccer baseball (or an easier version called ”cricket”) this afternoon in gym with Mr. Stratford’s class! Remember playing that as a child??? So much fun!

That’s all for now!

Enjoy your weekend!

Happy Mother’s day to you all on Sunday!!! I hope you get spoiled

I received an early mother’s day/teachers day, beautiful superhero teacher cape from Will and his mommy, Sarah! Thank-you from the bottom of my heart, Sarah, it made me feel extra special and I wore it with pride all day long!

Love, Ms. Jo-Anne (Aka Superhero Ms. Jo-Anne)

Hi!

Here is May’s calendar.

maycalendar13

A hard copy will go home tomorrow as well!

Have a great evening!

Ms. Jo-Anne:)

Good afternoon SK parents!

We have great news here in SK…our chick incubator arrived late yesterday afternoon!    Yipeeeeee!

I will be picking up the chick eggs from “Farmer Wayne“ on Thursday May 2 after school.  However, we will not be putting the eggs into the incubator until Monday May 6th. This way the chicks will hatch when the children are here at school on Monday May 27th-Tuesday May 28th.

The children will also enjoy doing this with me! We will be having each student be on “Chick Patrol” over the 21 days, keeping an eye on the eggs, the temperature and humidity of the incubator and the conditions of the eggs. I have some new activities that I want to try with the children during the next 21 days.

We are a month behind my original schedule but better late than never right?

Thanks for your understanding and patience! I promise you this…the learning and the excitement that this brings is truly wonderful!

Enjoy your Tuesday!

Ms. Jo-Anne

Show and Tell

Hi!

The children have done a marvelous job on presenting their “estimation jars” during their kinderstar days. Both Mr. Kneebone and I are very impressed at how well the children are able to estimate accurately. We have seen a tremendous progress in their skills. 

Having said that, we are ready to start a new show and tell program this Thursday April 25^th, with Syena!

Introducing….. Bring your favourite Book for Show and Tell! 

For the next month or so, we would like each child to bring in their favourite book to “read” to the class. We would recommend a short and “easy to read” book that your child can read or retell the story. This may be a Dr. Seuss book, a favourite book when your child was a baby or a family favourite.

Please have your child practice reading his or her book a few times so they are prepared to do so on their Kinderstar day! Please refer to your calendars for your child’s Kinderstar date. May calendars will be out next week! (Can you believe its May?????)

Also, please have your child complete the activity sheet (sent home today in Mr. Zippy) and bring it along with their storybook on their assigned Kinderstar day. 

Thanks so much for your continued support! 

Ms. Jo-Anne and Mr. Kneebone

Hi! Yesterday was a great day! We celebrated Earth Day here at school.

Our day started with a reading of The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. The children enjoyed listening to this book and were very good at picking out the big idea of taking care of nature, not to cut down trees and that we all need to do our part to take care of our Earth.

We had a very good discussion about ways to save and take of the earth and as a follow up activity we made Mother Earth puppets.  The children did a great job on these and wrote what mother earth would say to us if she could! Some ideas that the children came up with are:

 don’t cut the trees

don’t hurt me

Save me

turn the lights out

It was such a nice day out that we decided to have gym outside. We played at the playground, skipped rope and threw the frisbee.

When we returned inside we made bird feeders! Hopefully you were able to hang these last night! They are made with vegetable lard, oats and birdseed.  It was messy but the children enjoyed doing this. If you would like to do this at home, here is the link.

http://www.enviro-explorers.com/pinecone_web_page/pineconefeederindex.html

At the end of the day we decided to team up with the grade 1′s and 6′s and we raked and swept the leaves, picked up garbage and picked up pinecones. The children worked very well together, both myself and Mr. Kneebone were very impressed with the team work that we saw!

What a great day!!! and the message we hope the children understood is that everyday is earth day!! It is up to us to take care of the earth…we are the change! We can make a difference!

Thanks for reading!

Ms. Jo-Anne

PS our incubator has been shipped so it should be here by the end of the week! This means…..we can start our topic of the lifecycle of the chicken! Better late than never right!!!

Hi!

Can you believe that yesterday, Friday April 12th was a Snow day??????

We had 10 friends at school (since the buses were cancelled) and we had a good day despite missing the rest of our class! We had French, computers, gym, outside play, indoor play and the day ended with a viewing of The Lorax! We will get back into our program on Monday! Let’s hope for…NO MORE SNOW!!!!

 Early this week, one of our students brought in a worm first thing in the morning!!! How exciting! So as a class, we decided to clean out the popcorn table,  (thanks to Will and Alivia who did this for us) and put wet soil inside the table for the worm.

So the next day, Wednesday, I brought in some worms (2 dozen) for the students to respectfully play with. Squeals of delight and “scientific conversation” was heard as the children played with the worms, talked about the worms and vocalized their questions. We decided to make a “Worm Question chart” and on Thursday, Mr. Kneebone and the children explored the answers to the questions.

Some of the children’s questions were the following:

Are worms boys or girls?

What do worms eat?

What if worms break in half? What happens?

Our worm questions

 I brought in some worm books from the library and we have been learning all about worms! I love this type of learning! So much hands-on exploration, all from an inquisitive student who was just bringing in a worm on a rainy, spring morning! This is “inquiry based learning” at its best! Love it!

worm cake!

Oh ya! Worms!

Chick news…

We are still waiting for our incubator, fingers crossed it will arrive this week!

That’s all for tonight!

Thanks for reading!

Looking forward to some spring weather on Monday! Looking forward to seeing all the children then!

Happy Weekend!

Love, Ms. Jo-Anne