October 15th Newsletter

Dear Families,
Now that the wet, colder weather has arrived please plan on sending your child to school with thick warm socks and warmer boots. Add two bread bags & a pair of socks to your child's backpack in case they have wet feet one morning.
We have been having lots of fun reading Halloween books, creating scary pumpkin faces and enjoying fall art activities in the classroom.
In our outdoor learning I have introduced the five senses beginning with touch, smell and taste. It was lots of fun, hands on learning. Next week we will continue with five senses activities in the forest talking about hearing and sight. 
The children are terrific counters and are quickly demonstrating mastery of counting objects to ten and higher. Many are using strategies like make a new pile, line up the objects and touch & count. These strategies help the children with accuracy. To encourage numeracy growth we have begun to play Mystery Number using numerals 1-5. 
I have introduced simple patterns during our nature learning activities and have invited the children to identify and copy a pattern through hands on activities and some fun forest art.
I have also introduced dot numbers as a circle game. The children are shown a card for a few seconds and then finger flash the number to me.
The fall math assessment is going well and I am almost finished updating your child's e-portfolio for counting and will then begin with simple patterns. 
Thank you for your family photos. We will be using copies of them for math and creating a family photo wall in the classroom.
Halloween is coming and Mrs. R. and I have worked with the Kindergarten team to plan some special activities on Oct 29th. If you are planning on sending in a special halloween treat please let me know as we don't want to overwhelm the children with too many treats.
Thank you,
Mrs. McCaw