Volunteer Breakfast

   If you have been helping out at the school in any way then you are a volunteer we would like to honour you.The invitations have been sent home, but please consider this post as your second invitation. The teachers are preparing a breakfast buffet for you and would be very happy to see you in the library this coming Tuesday, June the 14th at 8:15 am. I hope to see you there!

Camp Kindergarten is Open!

We have begun our last unit, Camp Kindergarten. The children will have turns playing in a tent, using toy camping tools, playing at the camp nurse's station, playing rainy day board games and reading camp and nature stories. We will do some camp crafts and sing lots of silly songs.

 Our circle time is now held around our (tissue paper and papier mache) campfire. We are singing songs like Fire's Burning and Down by the Bay and others.

We are using our imaginations to pretend to be going on canoe trips and other wilderness adventures. If your camper would like to bring in a sleeping bag or flashlight or bug net, they are very welcome. At the end of the month we will invite you to visit us at our cabin and watch us sing our songs and celebrate the end of our first year at school. Date to follow soon.

Jars Needed!

We are collecting clean, clear jars with lids with smooth sides for a special craft. (Shhh! It's for an upcoming holiday that honours a parent.) If you have any you can send it they would be most appreciated. Please put your child's name on the lid. If you have extra jars you can send in that would be excellent. Thank you!!

Volunteers for the Farm Field Trip

So many kind and keen parents have offered to come and help on our trip. All volunteers are welcome to come on the field trip. HOWEVER, there is only room on the buses for five volunteers per class. So if some people are willing to car pool or drive there themselves, that would be appreciated. Please email me at sarah.whitehead@ocdsb.ca  if you need to be on the bus and I will do my best to accomodate everyone. I will send home a note with your child tomorrow to let you know if you are riding the bus or driving. Thank you, everyone!

Huh?

There is a slight confusion about the cost of the Great Farm Field Trip. I think the first letter that went out said it would be $10 and then the trip permission form has updated this to $11.50. (As things became clearer to the very kind teacher who is organizing this for all the kindergarten classes, the real cost emerged.) If you read the letter more carefully and sent in $10 and would like to top up your offering, that will be appreciated. Also please note that as always, we never want the cost of trips to keep children from participating, and will cover this fee for anyone who needs this.
Thank you to all of you who have sent in your forms promptly. If you haven't signed them yet, time is now getting short. PLEASE send in your forms tomorrow. Thank you!

Aladdin

The morning class will be going to Nepean High School on Tuesday morning to see a dress rehearsal of their Children's Theatre program's play, Aladdin. The afternoon students are welcome to come to the school with their parents and come along with us. Meet us in the classroom at 9:10. Alternatively there are tickets available for a 7 pm show. The magic of May continues!!

Please Get Quacking!

Trip permission forms came home today. Please sign and return them tomorrow with the money for the trip fee while the idea is still fresh in your minds. Thank you !!

Dental Screening

The Public Health Department will be holding a dental screening for our classes on May 16th. You will receive a notice if they find anything of concern. We will talk a little about teeth before hand to prepare them for their check up.

Trip to Valleyview Farm

Time for a field trip!

On May 24^th we will be going to Valleyview Little Animal farm.  The morning class will be leaving at 9::20 and returning at 11:15 and the afternoon class will be leaving the school at 1:20 and returning by 3:15.  The cost of the trip will be $10.00.  We will see a wide variety of animals and birds up close from alpacas to zebus, goats to geese!  We will ride the Valleyview express train and enjoy the creative farm playground.  Also, we will enjoy a puppet show featuring a presentation on new babies at the farm.  The farm requires us to have one parent to every 4 children so we are asking for your help on this day! There will be a snack time, so please put your child’s snack in a large ziplock labeled with their name, and we will carry it for them on the trip.  The field trip permission form will be coming home in the very near future. May is just packed!

Book Bonanza

The Book Bonanza is a very ancient tradition at Broadview PS and a wonderful celebration of literacy and books. Your child will be visiting the book sale on Thursday, May 12th. Each children's book costs 50 cents during the day. The price goes up to $1 after school hours. Children are allowed to spend up to $5 each at the sale. If you would like your child to participate, please send in some money in a baggie for that day. It's wonderful to see the children choosing and buying their very own books.

There is also a contest between the classes to see who brings in the most used books. Here are the guidelines for that:
Bring in your book donations May 5th and 6th and May 9th to 11th. This is the Book Drop part of the Bonanza. They are also looking for clean boxes large enough to hold 15 books. The boxes should not be flattened. Music cds but NOT computer game cds are also requested. DVDs but NOT VHS are also needed, as are Wii games, PSP games, Nintendo DS and Xbox games. Books earn 1 point each, boxes 2 points, cds  and dvds 5 points and games 10 points. The class with the most points can win some great prizes like an ice cream cake or pizza lunch. The points are averaged out by dividing by the number of students, so even a small class can win.
*PLEASE BRING YOUR DONATIONS IN TO THE INTAKE COUNTER NEAR THE LARGE GYM.*   Precounting the number of books is also very helpful.
The book sale begins for the public after school on Thursday, May 12th. It is open again on Friday evening and on Saturday in the morning. Thank you for your donations and participation and happy reading!!!

Folk Dancing!

The Artist In Residence program at Broadview is bringing us folk dancing from May 9th to 13th. We will have lessons from a dance teacher Monday to Thursday and then there will be a concert to present our dances on Friday, May 13th. Please keep an eye on this blog for all the details and come and see your child dancing!

***We now have the times for the performances. The morning class will perform at 11:10 and the afternoon class at 1:15. The performances will be in the small gym. Parents are invited to come and enjoy the children's performance. ***

Remember to order your carriages!

This Friday is the Royal Ball. The crowns and masks are here, but if your child would like to wear a costume, they are very welcome to dress up as princes, princesses, dragons, knights or anything else they would like. Let the waltzes begin!

Cecilia String Quartet

The strings are coming! The Cecilia String Quartet is coming with two violins, a viola and a bass . They will play and teach the children about classical music on May 5th at 9:45 in the school gym. I will be taking the morning class to hear them, and any afternoon children are very welcome to come with their parents and enjoy the concert too. We will be talking a little about the instruments of the orchestra and listening to lots of great music in class to prepare. It should be a lovely event!

Spring Celebrations

This week we will set aside Fairytales and talk about the celebrations of Easter and Passover. We will be reading stories and painting eggs and tasting matzoh and making spring crafts. Hopefully the weather will warm up and make things extra spring-like for us. If not, please send a sweater with your child as the classroom can be a bit chilly. As ever, please feel free to send in books or objects from your home about spring celebrations for the children to share. Thank you!

Earth Week

The kindergartens can participate in Earth Week at school in two ways. First, they can bring in a loonie (or more) to donate to the World Wildlife Fund to help save endangered animals. For every dollar they donate they receive a ticket to a draw for prizes.

Secondly they can join in our litterless lunch tomorrow by bringing in their snack in re-usable containers and taking home their garbage to be recycled or composted. Thank you for your support of these activities!

The Magic of Change

Dear Parents;

   We are making a special book about changes. There are many things in the world that change and we would like to learn about some of them. We would also like to celebrate the magic of change. Your child is bringing home a page to fill in with his or her idea about something that changes. There are two frames. He or she can draw something in each frame or put in pictures from magazines or other sources. Some examples of things they might choose are an egg in the first frame and a bird in the second, a seed in the first and a plant in the second, or some baking ingredients in the first and a cookie in the second. Then there is a sentence to fill in at the bottom of the page: A ____________________ becomes a ______________!

   Please take some time this week to talk with your child and notice different changes around them. Then help him or her to choose their favourite change for their page. We will put all the pages together into a book with flaps that lift up to reveal the changes. We will also be talking about change in class. Do these things change because of Nature or because people make the change happen? Please return the page to class by next Wednesday, April 20^th. Thank you for your help with this project!

A Royal Ball

The children are most cordially invited to a Royal Masked Ball at the palace, to be held Friday, April 29th. Dress in costumes, princess gowns or formal wear. Masks and crowns will available at the ball. There will be dance classes held in preparation to this glittering event so that the children may brush up on their waltzes.  

Scholastic Book Orders

Scholastic book order forms are coming home and have the due date on them. You can order online or send in your order and cheque to the school and I will pass them on to our volunteers. Thank you to Krista in the morning and Kirsten in the afternoon class for helping to organize this!! We ask that you send your order in within a week of receiving the book order forms. Thanks and happy reading.   : )

Our Norouz Celebration

Many, many thanks to Mali Doroodian for a wonderful Norouz celebration on our first day back to school after March Break. She brought in all the seven elements for the table, seen here, including our glorious lentil sprouts. Who would have thought that some dry tiny lentils would become such a lush green patch? It was magical to see the transformation. Other elements on the table are vinegar, an apple, garlic, eggs, sumac with a coin in it, lotus fruit, candles, a flower and a beautifully illustrated book. The children did a colouring page which shows them the numbers from one to seven and the meaning of each of these symbols.
Mali told us a Norouz story about a princess with a curse upon her which meant the spring could never come. We could all relate to that story as we looked out the window! She also brought in everything to make cards, Persian music to listen to and cookies and potato patties to try. It was a lovely experience and we are so grateful to her for all her preparations. Thank you, Mali!

Here is a link to show the steps from lentils to sprouts in case you would like to try to grow your own: http://mypersiankitchen.com/lentil-sabzeh/

An Afternoon Face

I would like to (belatedly!) introduce Heather Kirk, who is a teacher in our afternoon class for a block once every three weeks. She comes in to Broadview school and works with classes on character education. She teaches lessons on things like how to get along with friends and tolerance for differences. We are always glad to have her teaching in our classroom.

Borrow a Book Begins Today!

The children each have a book in a zip-lock bag to bring home tonight. There is a letter of explanation and a bookworm to colour. The books are easy readers and are chosen by the children themselves. They may change their books as many times as they wish, so please send the bag back any day. I hope they will enjoy reading their special books with you! 

Getting Ready for Spring

Spring will be here, at least on the calendar, this month. We will be doing a unit on it after Fairytales, but we want to acknowledge it when it arrives on the 20th of March. One way we will do this is by learning about the Persian custom of Norouz. This Monday we will begin preparing by sprouting some lentils into lovely green shoots. Mali Doroodian, a parent of a morning student, will be visiting the class to start the sprouting seeds. She will also be talking a little about the holiday. The children will have a chance to care for the sprouts over the next week and watch them grow. If any family would like to plant sit over the March break they are very welcome! Just let me know. Then when we return from holidays we will see the sprouts and the other spring objects together on a special table which Mali will set up. Thank you to Mali who is sharing this tradition with us!!
Here is a link about Norouz for further information:  http://www.kudakon.com/AboutNoRouz.html

What's after Zed?

 We have finished our Letter A Day and now we are putting some letters together to make simple words. We play a singing game from the old days of Sesame Street that goes like this:
You take the C, that's "C"
and the A-T, "AT"
You put it all together and that spells (The children call out the answer) CAT!
That's CAT, C-A-T, CAT, well that's CAT, C-A-T, CAT.

The children really like guessing the word and they win a point every time they guess it correctly. Of course, they always do guess the word.

We are also getting ready for Lantern Festival at the end of Chinese New Year. We are painting spring pictures on the lanterns. When they come home they would look great with a candle in a jar in the middle of them!
On Thursday we will have a Dragon Dance with noisemakers around the school. Maybe it will drive away all the bad luck from the building. We will also try dumplings and spring rolls and the children will receive a gong xi, or lucky red envelope with a lucky candy in it.

February is also Black History Month and we will be celebrating with some stories and crafts.

Then we will begin our next unit, which is Fairytales!

 

We will be reading stories about castles,

 

                                                 enchanted animals,

and all your favourite characters.

So there's a lot that happens after the Zed!    : )

Crazy Hair Day!

Thursday, February 17th is another school spirit day. Come with your silliest hairdo and join in!

Welcome, Shelley!

We have a new co-cop student, Shelley. She is a grade 12 student from Nepean High School and is doing her placement in our morning class. She will be here until June. Shelley is very kind and artistic and loves working with young children. We are so happy to welcome her.

On Monday we will have another co-op student named Emily who will work with us in the afternoon. We are so lucky! 

UPDATE:  Unfortunately, Emily has moved to a new school and won't be coming in the afternoons. We are on the waiting list for another co-op student in her place. Fingers crossed!

Plans for Next Year

A form has been sent home to find out your preference for your child for Senior Kindergarten. Please send it in soon to help us to plan for classes and teachers for next year. Your choices are English or French Immersion, morning or afternoon. Thank you!

Winter Walk to School Day

   Tomorrow morning is Walk to School Day and there will be an outdoor dance party from 8:45 to 9:10 in the schoolyard. Any child who can walk to school is encouraged to do so! They will receive a ticket for a draw for prizes from Bushtukah and of course the feeling of pride in their accomplishment. If you drive to school and can park even one block further away, that still counts! I will also see about getting some draw tickets for the afternoon class as well, so they can join in and walk too.
UPDATE:   Two of the afternoon children won prizes! Congratulations!!!

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is coming! If your child would like to bring in cards for their class they are welcome to do so. Since they are young and they are many, the easiest way to arrange things is for your child to just sign each card with their own name. If they are really keen, they can try writing their friends's names on too, but there is no need to address each card. Also, if everyone does address the cards that's 900 Valentines to sort! Whew!! We will make special bags for their mailboxes and do some lovely heart crafts to celebrate. It will be another great February day.

Pink Day Number Two

There will be another chance to wear pink and support the lesson of No Bullying on February 23rd. We will talk as a class about how to treat people only with kindness. So get out all your pale red clothes and join in!   : )

Happy Chinese New Year, the Year of the Rabbit!

The Chinese zodiac has 12 different animals. This year is the Year of the Rabbit. Since the date for New Year can be in January or February, if your child was born before January 29, he or she is a Rooster. They are known as attractive, sharp, neat, organized and alert. Most of our class were born in the Year of the Dog, which makes them honest, intelligent,  straight-forward and fair-minded. No wonder we have such nice classes!


Here is a sample of a Chinese New Year card that people would send to each other. You can see the lanterns, the fireworks and the lucky red colour everywhere. The children are wearing the new clothes they receive as part of the celebrations. They might also have had a haircut!

These are dumplings which would be part of the big family dinner that everyone would eat together. They come in many shapes. These look a little like purses full of money. One of the wishes for the new year is prosperity.

 Here is a dragon for the Dragon Dance. On New Year's Day there will be many dragon dances for people to see. We are having a little one here, with lots of noise- makers to scare away any bad luck.

Here is another great Chinese dragon, this one on the top of  a beautiful building. Happy New Year!

Happy Groundhog Day!

This little groundhog seems to be taking his work very seriously. We are all glad that he didn't see his shadow, even though it was because a snow storm was hiding the sun. To celebrate Groundhog Day we did the Groundhog Pokey, read a story and learned this song:

(tune: I'm a Little Teapot)    
I'm a little groundhog, furry and brown.
You can see me pop up from the ground.
If I see my shadow, down I'll stay.
Six more weeks of winter on their way!

A Letter a Day

Our study of the Alphabet is going well and the children are doing alphabet puzzles, using stencils to practise their letter shapes and fine motor skills, working on a practice sheet for their names, playing with a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree and letters, writing in a special book with black board spaces on it, reading alphabet books and working together on an alphabet workbook. They are tracing fuzzy letters with their fingers and playing with letter magnets.
Each day we add a new letter to the wall and another verse to one of our songs. Your child has probably sung it to you. It is to the tune of Frere Jacques and we sing it as an echo song where the children echo the leader:
    A starts apple
(echo) A starts apple
Aaaa, Aaaaa, Aaaaa
(echo)  Aaaaa, Aaaaa, Aaaaa,
B starts balloon
(echo) B starts balloon
Bbbbb, Bbbbbb, Bbbbb
(echo) Bbbbbb, Bbbbbb,  Bbbbbb.   

And so on through the letters. You should have received a sheet with all the letters and their sample words. You can post it somewhere visible and use it when you have time to review the sounds and letters. (Please let me know if you need a copy of this sheet and I will send it again.) The children are great at using the alphabet posted on the wall to help them sing the song and think about the alphabet. They enjoy coming in to the classroom every day and predicting what the letter of the day will be. We will be continuing to have a new letter each day until we have covered them all. There will be a few pauses in early February to celebrate Chinese New Year and Valentine's day and we should be done the unit by the middle of the month. Soon we will also begin putting the letters together and reading some easy rhyming words like cat and mat. As you know, each child learns to read at his or her own speed and there is no pressure on them at this age, but whatever step they are at in the hundreds of steps to reading they can enjoy this unit and continue to progress.

Twin Day

Twin Day is coming up on Friday, January 28th. Your child can choose a friend to be twins with and dress alike. You can even try matching hairstyles. The more similiarities the better. It should be a fun day!