Hi again,

Just a friendly reminder to please, please take a moment to label all of your children’s clothing: mittens, boots, coats, neck warmers, sweaters etc. Everything  please!

We have had so many mix-ups with mittens and boots so far and although we do apologize and try our best to help the children keep their belongings organized, these mishaps occur, unfortunately. Labelling sure helps with getting items back to their owners.

Thank-you sooo much!

Love,

Ms. Jo-Anne 🙂

Hi Chickadee Dot Families!

I hope you are enjoying your weekend! It has been awhile since I’ve posted a blog entry! I hope you are enjoying this nice, mild weather!

I am “tweeting” a lot, please follow me on twitter (@jojopull) as I find it very quick and fun to send out pics of our fun here at school! Thank-you to the moms and dads who “like” my tweets each day…love to see that you are reading and hearing what we are doing daily at KHPS!

Just a few highlights from the last 2 weeks in January!

2017!!!!

We talked about the new year and the children learned how to say 2017 in both French and English, as they coloured and “sparkled” the numbers 2017. We made self-portraits which are displayed on our door.

In Literacy, we have been continuing with “Hot News” twice a week. The children are drawing and writing about their own experiences or reflecting on a read-aloud. We are now encouraging the children to write the beginning sounds of the words they are writing. For example, if their picture is about snow…we are encouraging them to print the letter “S”. The children are doing well with this and are progressing at their own rate! We continue to “Echo Read” a few times a week, where the children are learning to track the words as they read.

In French, Madame McCurry continues to work on developing French vocabulary through hands-on activities. She brings in a lot of “loose parts” (ie jewels, rocks, sequence, beads etc) and the children make neat things, working on risk-taking, problem solving and of course French vocab. They work in their red booklets, focussing on letter recognition in French. This week, the children were archelogists and had the chance to “pick” ice to try to get the toys (which were Paw Patrol figures) out of the ice! The children loved this! And…they were further developing their fine motor skills, learning about ice and problem solving how to make it melt faster! So fun!!!

In Science, we planted an Amaryllis, “red lion” and are watching it grow and making observations and predictions about how tall it will grow! This week, we will be bringing in snow and ice and watching it alter states from a solid to a liquid! Maybe if the children see just all of the dirt that is in the snow, they won’t eat so much! Fingers crossed! 🙂

In Numeracy, we have been working on number sense and making number concept. For example, making lego towers of a certain number. We also explored the idea the idea of number conservation where 3 blocks in a row is the same as 3 blocks apart. We will continue to explore number concept and we will begin formally exploring making and identifying patterns.

In Physical Education, we have been enjoying the gym! It is beautiful and we have really great equipment! We go to the gym 4 times a week, every day except Tuesday! We have established routines and rules that will keep us safe! We warm-up each time by moving our bodies in different ways (ie. walking, running, marching etc) and the children are getting very good at knowing if their hearts are beating fast or not! Skills such as spatial awareness, balancing, throwing and catching are being developed! We continue to play cooperative games as well, ask your child about “Shark attack”!!!

In Art, we have been exploring chalk on paper to create snowy pictures. We have talked about perspective as we draw “wintery scenes” from our windows and we made some “melting” snowmen pictures after reading my favourite story by Lois Ehlert, Snowballs.

Peach!!!!! No not the fruit…

Lastly, if you haven’t heard, we have a class pet! A hamster named Peach! We made welcome signs for her on Monday! The children are enjoying watching her as she plays and sleeps in her cage. We have put her in the ball and she enjoys going around the classroom while we play! The children are very respectful and are enjoying learning about taking care of her! If you would like to take her for a weekend, please let me know! If you want to have her at your house, please write me a note in “Mr. Zippy”. I just ask that you pick her up on Friday after school and drop her back off on Monday morning! We can make arrangements privately should you want to have her for a weekend!

 

I think that is it for now!

One request:

Please send in a washed, plastic water bottle 500 mL this week. We are going to make “calming bottles” with water and sparkles. We have been learning different strategies around mindfulness and I would like to start implementing some of these ideas with our class, starting with “calming bottles” to have if needed. Thank-you!

Have a happy week!

Love, Ms. Jo-Anne:)