October 2nd Kindergarten Newsletter

Dear Parents,

Please expect to receive an email on Sunday afternoon confirming our offsite schedule for the coming week. I have been collecting walking permission as well as confirming parent volunteers to facilitate our offsite program. I think that we will begin with Tues/Wed/Thurs as our offsite mornings as I expect the forest and seashore to be busy with other classes. Usually we would be taking the city bus to Neck Point where there is a beautiful forest and choice of beaches however due to COVID we will remain close to the school.

If you did not return the form on Friday confirming you are able to support the program but would like to help this week please email me by Saturday night at lmccaw@sd68.bc.ca. I will be organizing the schedule on Sunday morning and sending the family email. We are permitted two parent volunteers at a time.

The children have been writing every day. Once a month I will keep a writing sample for your child’s portfolio which will come home in June 2021. All other writing samples will be sent home in the back and forth folder. 

The school team is still organizing the schedule for music. We received the library schedule this morning. Once Music is confirmed  I will share our Daily Flow with you so that you have a good understanding of your child’s daily school experience.

We have begun our Inquiry on kindness and I have introduced the children to conversation circles where we are beginning to share our thinking about what is kindness. We have read many wonderful books and some children have already begun to notice and demonstrate kindness in the room. Part of this inquiry is understanding our own feelings and how they can change throughout the day as well as how they originate. I have introduced four feelings; angry, happy, worried and calm through a read aloud and shared conversations. Next we will begin to talk about what affects our feelings i,e: hunger, tired, unkind words, sick… and learn about our brains!! This will also be discussed using read alouds and shared conversations. It was interesting yesterday to see a child move their name stick from worried to calm mid day and another move from calm to happy.

    Our literacy program has been introduced and the children have responded well to Read to Self, Read with a Friend and Work on Writing. They do these three activities each day at different times.

        In math the children have been practicing sequencing numbers to five,

participating in counting collections (various jars of objects in different

quantities), played a Pete The Cat dice game and explored what is a

pattern using loose parts? 

Our art program is flourishing. The children have been using water colour, tempera paint and clay. This week we will be painting seashells with water colour and small sticks with tempera paint. I would like to continue to have the children work with clay using fall flowers. I purchased air dry clay as we will not have access to a kiln this year (unless a parent has one :)

Reminder that Friday will be a professional development day and school will not be in session.

      Mrs McCaw & Mrs. Hilland