Fused Glass and the Gingerbread Man

Thank you to all the parents and students that visited us during conferences on Thursday and Friday. It is always great to sit and talk about our students' achievements.

We also want to thank all our wonderful volunteers these past few weeks who have been helping us out. We appreciate your support. Please contact the office on how you can get your police clearance as we are always in need of volunteers.

We were super busy this short week!

Students reflected on their understanding after the Dentist visit by thinking about different foods that were "good" or "bad" for their teeth in their visual journal. We discussed that it is ok to have treats sometimes but it is very important to clean our teeth after we have treats. We continued finding different creative ways of sorting and have been learning about patterns more too.

- Ask your child to show you how to sort things around the home. Ask them to sort a different way. (Colors, shape, texture, etc.)
- Ask your child to explain what a pattern is. What is an example of a pattern. Have your child make a pattern using materials around the home (pencil crayons, crayons, socks, etc.), their bodies (clapping and snapping, dance moves, etc.) and sounds as well.
- Ask your child to explain the core of their pattern and to rename it (ABABAB...)
- Did you and your child find or make creative patterns around the house? Please share them by sending us a photo as we love sharing our findings with each other.

We started our investigation of The Gingerbread Man! We have read 2 Gingerbread Man books by two different authors and have started talking about different characters and looked at what is similar and different. We have enjoyed finding patterns (sentences that repeat) in the books such as, "Run! Run! As fast you can! You can't catch me... I'm the Gingerbread Man!" We are excited to read more versions of the Gingerbread Man and see how the characters change, how the endings are different, and what other similarities and differences we can find. Feel free to bring a different version of any Gingerbread character as we would love to read and compare.

Finally, another very exciting opportunity that took place this week was when we worked with Ms. Rachel from Clay For Kids. Our students got creative with fused glass and created a winter scene. We saw snowmen, winter trees, snow, and many other beautiful creations. After drawing our plan and using small pieces of coloured glass, we carefully used our tweezers to place and glue the pieces on our frame. Ms. Rachel told us that she will now take them to her office to bake in her kiln so that the glass melts or "fuses" together. We are so excited to see what they look like when they are ready!

Important Dates:
Monday, November 25:
- Final Inline Skating: AM Red, AM Green, PM Green
- Math Residency with Ms. Carlson - PM Red (1/2 hour)

Tuesday, November 26:
- Final Inline Skating: PM Red (12:25-1:20)
- Math Residency with Ms. Carlson - PM Green (1/2 hour)

Wednesday, November 27:
- Math Residency with Ms. Carlson - PM Green (1/2 hour)

Thursday, November 28:
- Math Residency with Ms. Carlson - PM Red (1/2 hour)

Friday, November 29:
- AM Kindergarten Attends- No school for PM students
- Math Residency with Ms. Carlson - AM and PM Green (1 hour)

Inline Skating

This week, a highlight for us was when we participated in Alien Inline Skating! We put on our helmets, elbow, hand, and knee pads, and our roller skates to start skating. We practiced different strategies including how to stop and fall safely and worked on being comfortable moving around the gym wearing skates. 

We were challenged to sort different objects without sorting trays - which encouraged us to think outside the box. We used our objects brought from home and created a collection using both AM and PM objects. We looked closely at each object (lollipops, orange, rocks, dolls, pencils, cars, blocks, pinecones, etc.) and used different ways of sorting them. Students are encouraged to sort different items at home with their families. Items could include cutlery, laundry, socks, objects found in nature, dishes, etc. We also read the book, "Stuck" by Oliver Jeffers and worked together on thinking of different ways of sorting things Floyd got stuck in the tree. We brainstormed ideas such as "big items, red items, things that go on land and water, things that are really tall, etc."

We had a great Crazy Hair Day where many of us had very creative and crazy hair and also read the book "Crazy Hair Day" by Barney Saltzberg. 

Finally, another highlight of our week- We had an exciting visit from Dr. Joel Thurmeier from Panatella Dental as well, who brought with him a dragon that helped us learn how to properly brush our teeth. Did you know that we should brush our teeth at least twice and floss at least once a day? We also learned the difference between healthy and unhealthy food and the effect they have on our teeth. 

PM students had a great time reading with their grade 3 buddies as well. 

Important Information

1) We are still looking for parent volunteers with valid police clearance for the following days. Please email your child's responsibility teacher if you are able to volunteer. 

Inline Skating Tuesday Nov. 19: 
10:00-10:55: Ms. Khan's Red AM Group 
12:25-1:20 Ms. Bereta's Green PM Group 

Inline Skating Monday, Nov. 25: 
8:15-9:10: Ms. Bereta's Green AM Group 
10:00-10:55: Ms. Khan's Red AM Group 
12:25-1:20 Ms. Bereta's Green PM Group 

Inline Skating Tuesday, Nov. 26: 
12:25-1:20: Mrs. Fitzpatrick's Red PM Group

Clay for Kids Wednesday Nov. 20:
9:30-11:00 Ms. Khan's Red AM Group 

12:00-1:30 Mrs. Fitzpatrick's Red PM Group

2) Please book for one conference block (15 minutes) with your child's responsibility teacher. Ms. Khan and Mrs. Fitzpatrick will be available to meet Thursday, November 21st and Ms. Bereta will be available Thursday, November 21st and Friday, November 22nd. 

Please remember to only book with your child's responsibility teacher. See below:

Red AM- Ms. Khan
Green AM- Ms. Bereta
Red PM- Ms. Bereta
Green PM- Mrs. Fitzpatrick

3) Scholastic orders are due Tomorrow. 

Sorting Fun!

This week, we focussed strongly on sorting. We sorted by shapes, colours, textures, materials and many other creative ways using different things in our classrooms. We especially had a great time sorting buttons from our own special box after being inspired by reading the book "The Button Box" by Margaret S. Reid. We also sorted each other different ways by the clothes we wore, by our colour groups, our shoes, and our hair colour.

To understand the importance of Remembrance Day, we learned a new poem "Poppy Poppy" and read books on peace and remembering including "The Peace Book" by Todd Parr. After talking about why we wear poppies, we worked in our visual journals to paint poppies. AM students used coffee filters and paint pucks to create their poppies and PM students used liquid tempera paint to paint theirs. Both groups had beautiful poppies that looked different.

To further our understanding of "Looking Closely" students read the book "Look!" by Edouard Manceau and used frames and detective glasses to look for different shapes and shiny things around the classroom. Through this, we began making connections to different things we found around our classroom and captured them using iPads as well.

Our SLP and OT team came in to our classroom for the last "We Thinkers!" book "Body In The Group" which introduced the importance of keeping a comfortable physical presence around others, not too close and not too far away. One way we follow a group plan and connect with others is to keep our body in the group.

Important Updates and Information

Please send a small object with your child that we can keep in our classroom and use for sorting.

Please note that AM Kindergarten will have Crazy Hair Day on Thursday morning and PM students will have it on Friday as it will be a PM Friday.