Just a quick note to let you know that we will continue to practise our A verse this week and will test it on Thursday morning.

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” – Romans 3:23

Starting this week the children in our class will have the opportunity to be Mrs. Morris’s special helper for the day.  The special helper gets to do awesome jobs like handing out supplies, choosing quiet sitters, and leading our lineups down the hallway.  You will know that it’s your child’s turn to be the special helper the next school day when they come home with a black canvas show and tell bag.  Inside the show and tell bag you will find a duotang with instructions for what to bring.  We will begin the year by choosing items that begin with certain letters of the alphabet.  Please help your child write down three clues about their item and we will try to guess what it is.  We will follow in alphabetical order by first name (sorry Zachary!) and each child will get many opportunities throughout the year to have a turn.

Last week the children began working on printing some phonograms (o and c so far) and numbers (1 and 2).  We worked on holding our marker with a proper pencil grip.  We used the words pinch, flip, and pillow to help us.  Here’s a quick video to explain:

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By now your child has gotten quite a collection of great badges at home.  Soon they will be ready to bring them back for a prize!   When they have 10 please help your child put them in a small ziplock bag with your child’s name and locate their envelope in the great badge basket at the front of the class:

Help your child place their bag of great badges inside and place the envelope on my desk.  They will get their prize later on in the day.

I am hoping to make some more great badges in the next month and am looking for some juice lids to do so.  I would love any donations of lids that you might have for us!  Thanks so much!

Wednesday – Knight Day:  Students may wear their red or black “Knights t-shirt” with casual bottoms (eg. Jeans).

Thursday – Toonies for Terry:  We will be learning a little bit about one of our Canadian heroes, Terry Fox, and will be running a lap around the field in memory of his marathon of hope.  You are welcome to send along a toonie donation towards cancer research.

 

 

I am so sorry to have given you wrong information in yesterday’s blog post.  Our Library day is Tuesday,  not Wednesday.  Since I confused everyone and only a couple of children returned their books today we decided to not take out books this week.  Instead, the children will wait until their next library class, next Tuesday, to take home a library book.  Sorry again for the confusion.

Well, the Kindies all survived their first week of full days!  I’m so proud of them all!  It takes a lot of energy in these first weeks to learn all the new rules and routines.  Your child may be coming home tired and/or emotional.   This is pretty common for the beginning of the school year and will get easier as the weeks go on.  We can do this!

So far in Part time Kindergarten we have been exploring the classroom play centres and have been introduced to our collection of Math tubs.  We have been learning about our classroom rules and are learning about our school community.  In the week ahead we will be working on our first phonograms (o, c, and a), learning their sounds and forming them on our whiteboards.  We will also be introducing numbers 1-5 with a variety of games and activities.  In Bible we will learn from the greatest teacher, Jesus, as we look at some of his great parables.

On Tuesday I will be sending home your child’s first memory verse in their home folder (“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” – Romans 3:23).  Please review this verse with your child throughout the week.  They will be tested on it next week.  Having said that, I am looking for a parent who would be willing to volunteer 15 minutes each week to listen to the children say their verses.  Either Wednesday or Thursday mornings would work for us.  Please email me if you are interested.  Thanks!

On Tuesday you will also find a brown bag in your child’s home folder.  Please read the instructions attached to the bag and help your child find 3 items from home that are meaningful to him/her.  I am looking forward to seeing what everyone brings!

The children will be visiting Mrs. Britz in the library again this Wednesday afternoon.  Please be sure to send your child’s library book back to school on Wednesday morning in their Library bag and place it in the black crate outside of our classroom door.

I wanted to make parents aware that we do have a child with a peanut allergy in our Kindie classroom.  At this time we are not asking for the classroom to be peanut free but do require that if you are bringing in any treats for the children (eg. Birthdays, Valentine’s Day etc) that they be peanut free.  Thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Important Dates this Month:

Tuesday, September 13 – Individual School Photos

Please dress your child in their full dress uniforms.  For the boys that is their long pants, button down oxford shirt, and their cardigan.  For the girls it is their button down blouse, tunic, and cardigan.  The Kindergarten classes are always first to get their pictures done (hopefully before they can do too much damage to themselves!) so please be sure to have your child at school on time.

Monday, September 19 (7 pm): Parent Night

Parents are invited to come out to learn about the school, the year ahead, and meet their children’s teachers.  I hope to see you there!

Wednesday, September 28 – Knight Day

All Highroad students are allowed to wear casual bottoms and their Knight t-shirt on this day if they would like instead of their uniform.  Kindie students will be provided with a free Knight t-shirt.  I will be sending those home in the next week or so.  Our school sports teams are called the Knights.  These special days often coincide with important volleyball or basketball games and help the student body show support for our school teams.  Go Knights!

Other Important Details:

Home Folders:

Your child has a home folder.  It will be used to send home some of your child’s work, notices, notes from the teacher, and fieldtrip forms.  This folder will come back and forth between home and school every day.  Some days there will be nothing inside.  It will still go home and needs to come back the next school day.  Please help your child with this routine.  If you need to get some information to me you can write me a note and send it to school in the home folder.  I will check it daily by recess for any notes or returned notices.

Library:

Our class has library once a week, on Tuesday afternoons, with Mrs. Britz.  The children will be allowed to choose a book to sign out and take home.  This book will come home in a special book bag.  I would recommend that you keep the book in this bag (when not reading it) so that it will not get lost at home.  On the following Tuesday please have your child return the book in the book bag to school and put it in the library box that I will have ready outside of our classroom door.

Music:

Our class will be having Music once a week, on Wednesday afternoons, with Mrs. Caswell.

Labels:

Just a reminder to please label your child’s cardigan as well as their jackets and shoes.  These items are often removed and left in random places.  They can be so pricey to replace and a simple name on the tag is so helpful to reunite them with their owners.

Washroom Signal:

Because I am not always able to answer every hand and don’t want to miss a child who is in desperate need of a washroom I have given the children a special signal.  It is the sign for the letter W. If I see this signal I will know that they need to use the washroom and will let them slip out to do so.  To help reduce the number of children leaving the classroom first thing in the morning.  Please make sure your child has gone to the washroom before the day begins.  We will go as a class before recess, lunch, and after outside play.

Great Badges:

Your child has come home with one or two great badges already.  Please make sure that you have a special collecting spot for them.  Once they have 10 great badges they will return them for a special prize!

Pizza Tuesdays:

On Tuesdays a pizza lunch is available here at Highroad.  I will have an order form outside of the classroom door on Tuesday mornings.  If you would like to order your child a slice of pizza please print your child’s name (first and last) on the order form, indicate which type of pizza they would like, and leave $2 in the pocket attached to the clipboard.  Pizza cards can be purchased at the school office for $20 if it’s easier than remembering cash each week.  If you would like to pay with a pizza card then purchase one at the office and indicate on the ordering form that this is your means of payment.  Thanks!

 

Hopefully all this information doesn’t leave you feeling too overwhelmed!  We will all settle into a nice little routine soon enough.  If you have any further questions please feel free to email me at dmorris@highroadacademy.com

 

Bless you,

Diane Morris

 

 

 

I’m sure you are all very proud of your new little Kindie.  I am too!  They all did great at their first two mornings of Kindergarten.  Enjoy a little glimpse of our time together:

Sorry about the sideways photos!