Thank you as always to our volunteers for their time and efforts! By the end of the week we had the majority of kids back in our classes and were mostly back in the swing of things with backpacks, library books, mailbags and indoor shoes all where they needed to be...myself included...;)
We had quite a week with the cold temperatures and snow but a lot of fun outside as well. Please remember to keep sending those snowpants and all the outside gear so that your child can enjoy our outdoor time as much as possible.
Author Frieda Wishinsky had a great impact on the children, inspiring many of them to write their own books! She really impressed upon the children that stories can come from anywhere, especially real things that have happened, things they might wonder about or ideas they may have...pretty much anything can become a good story and the kids took it to heart. Some of the favourites she read to us were "Please, Louise!" "Oonga, Boonga!" "The Queen's Purse" and "Jennifer Jones Won't Leave Me Alone". As an author of over 60 books and a local Torontonian, she's one to look up.
This Friday coming we have a visit from the Brentwood Library librarian, Ms. Gillett. She will talk to all our kindie classes about the Public Library and encourage visiting their newly renovated site. My own children loved the public library as kids, going and choosing books, videos etc to borrow and also taking advantage of some of their drop-in programs for kids. As your children get older and into "projects" the library becomes an invaluable source of resources but even at this age as they become interested in something and just burn through books and information on the topic the library can seem like a wonderland full of fiction and non-fiction material. Take a moment to check out the public library website, you might be pleasantly surprised.
Something to start thinking about-
As you may know, we are counting up to 100 school days...very exciting as 100 seems like such a huge number to kindies! We will reach our hundredth day on February 10 and celebrate with 100 day activities in class. One of the activities involves each child bringing a collection of 100 of "something" (in a container, baggie or mounted somehow is great!) to show the class. Some ideas are pennies, macaroni, marshmallows, candies, Lego blocks, stickers, toothpicks, popsicle sticks, words, pictures, Goldfish...etc etc. The idea is the collection is manageable for the child to carry and show
the class. Collections can be grouped as we are learning about how groups relate to a whole and are easier/faster to count! (Like 5's, 10's, 20's, 25's). Have fun with this, more info will come about when to bring the collections in as we get closer to the date.
This week:
Monday - PM Library
Tuesday - Mystery Readers 10:55 and 2:45
Wednesday - AM Reading Buddies, PM Computers
Thursday - AM Library
Friday - AM Computers, PM Reading Buddies
Have a good week!
