Thank you as always to our valued volunteers. It was great to see so many of you at the Sharing Assembly on Friday. The children look forward to the big reveal of what they will perform and then taking home their poetry books with the printed text to share with you. Since they know the words and can then "read" the poem to you from their books; this is a perfect opportunity to build one to one correspondence with text - have them point to the words as they say them, notice the small high frequency words we find in our morning message such as is, the, me, we, he, she, said, are, etc etc and build on these to include the new words. For those just beginning to take notice of print we use text to find familiar letters - such as those in their names, or see if you can spot all the letters from a - z etc etc but most of all have fun with it and encourage encourage encourage any and all efforts your child makes. Decoding the English language is one of the most daunting tasks they will have to learn and our support, praise and encouragement is so important.
Congratulations once again to our certificate recipients Will, Norah and Malena. Empathy is shown by being a good friend in Kindergarten and we appreciate their efforts. The next Sharing Assembly will be on Friday, December 12. Our next character trait is Kindness and Caring. This one is going to come so quickly...I can't believe it's almost December anyway...wow!
We continue to work on following routines and expectations in the classroom, playground and all around the school. We have seen some positive changes as most of us are becoming more aware of what makes a wonderful class family environment. Keeping our voices and bodies calm and quiet
is a big part of that and we are getting it! Special days with added excitement (birthdays, pizza days, family events and holidays) tend to set us back as the excitement is contagious and easily overwhelms all 31 but remembering to point out when your child IS doing a great job self-regulating their behaviour helps create the "norm" for how good behaviour looks and feels to a child. Without black and white, clear, concrete examples they have few experiences to relate to what we are asking or talking about! Words such as "you did a great job at the store today even when you didn't want to come" or "you were playing so well today while I was busy" help them realize we are watching and aware of them even when not directly focussed on them and we notice and appreciate good behaviour MORE than disappointing behaviour.
The snow this week quickly sorted out the independent dressers from the adult reliant! Most children did a FANTASTIC job with the amount of clothing they needed to put on and take off during the day and the limited space we have to keep the belongings organized and readily available. If your child stays for lunch they are dressing and undressing themselves about 7 times in our school day! This is rewarding to those who are able to dress themselves or willing to try and very frustrating for those still struggling or not used to trying. PLEASE practise at home when you don't need to get out the door in a hurry and watch what your child does well or needs help with so you can encourage and help them get better. Again, a good measure is if YOU have trouble with some of the items or fasteners such as zippers, or YOU have to do it FOR your child how will they then be able to manage independently in the classroom? With 31 children and various levels of accomplishment; we typically take the faster dressers outside with one adult and leave the others inside with a second adult to thin the crowd in the dressing area and avoid those already done getting overheated standing in a line waiting! Having an ECE in the class is to provide a level of safety and adult interaction that improves learning opportunities with this many kindergarten aged children in a room; not to provide another adult who can do things FOR the children. The goal of kindergarten remains creating positive, risk-taking and independent learners who will go forward and meet challenges with just that mind set - "I can learn it, I can do it!"
This week:
Monday - Reading Buddies
Tuesday - Mystery Reader PM
Wednesday - Music AM, LIB/IT PM
Thursday - Mystery Reader AM
Friday - Pizza Lunch, LIB/IT PM
Coming next week is our trip to "Mad About Munsch" and while we read Robert Munsch's work in the classroom you may wish to read some of his stories at home also so your child will have a better frame of reference for what they see at the show and also to give them a better opportunity to remember what they see and be able to tell you about the show when we return. We look forward to a fun day!
Have a great week!
Ms. I.
