January 2015

Classroom News
From Ms. McKinley, Mrs. Bruno, and Mrs. Murrays
Kindergarten Class
We are delighted to be back together again in the Kindergarten class,
starting a new year of learning, growing, and enjoying one anothers
company! The children have returned from the holiday break eager to
re-engage with their peers. We are all joyfully embracing new learning
opportunities! Happy New Year to all!

Our Classroom Website

We encourage you to log on to our classroom website regularly. There
are often new photos posted, as well as our
monthly newsletters,
calendars, and documentation outlining and
illustrating some of the learning expectations from
the Kindergarten Curriculum that we are
addressing through classroom activities. Please
check out or site at
http://stmarkkindergarten2.weebly.com/ .

Our House Centre

We packed up Santas workshop as the holiday ended, and we have
enjoyed our House Center as a house again. Recently, we asked
the children what they wanted the House Center to be become next. We
surveyed and we had many requests to build a castle! So, for the next few
weeks, we will be learning all about castles and medieval times.
We will investigate the people and their roles, transportation, food, light
and power, defence and much more. The children will be busy constructing
the castle, by brainstorming ideas and doing research on what
happened/what was used in the medieval times. If you have any props or
costumes at home that you think would add depth to our study, we would

love to borrow them. Please make sure that they are labeled so that they
can be safely returned to you.

Medieval Feast
th

On Tuesday, March 4 , we will be celebrating Medieval Times with a feast.

We will be asking for your help in providing designated food items to
contribute to the feast. A note will come home closer to the time to let you
know what food item we are hoping that you can send that day.

Gymnastics
We are all enthusiastic about starting our unit in
gymnastics within the next few weeks. Gymnastics is
superior in developing gross motor skills, strength,
flexibility, balance, grace, and to nurture creative use of
their bodies. We will use large equipment such as boxes,
horses, ramps, ladders, mats and beams. The children
love this unit, and there will be lots of opportunities for
demonstrations of newly learned skills, or routines
developed with classmates. Participation in gymnastics requires the
wearing of a short-sleeved t-shirt and shorts. Many of you sent those items
in at the beginning of the year, and they will be tucked away within cubbies
at school. If your child
does not already have gym clothes here at school, please send those as
soon as possible. Children will be required to change into and out of their
gym clothes with minimal assistance, so please avoid having your child
wear belts, button up shirts or other clothing that might limit independence
on gymnastics days. All children will need to have bare feet when
participating in gymnastics. It will be especially important that they follow
the rules to ensure safety. We will teach our expectations carefully and
thoroughly at the beginning of the unit.
Gymnastics will be our focus in gym until the beginning of March.

Cold Weather Clothing

Please continue to dress your children warmly when they come to school
each morning. We spend 45 minutes playing outside each day, and it is so
important that the children have warm boots, snowsuits, hats and
waterproof mittens at school each day.

It would also be great if you could send an extra pair of

mittens and socks to be kept in your childs cubby, so
we can replace wet ones to ensure your childs comfort.
Wherever possible, please label these items of clothing.
really appreciate your efforts in this regard!

that
We

Valentines Activity Afternoon

During the month of February, we will be focusing on love
and friendship. We will celebrate Valentines Day on Friday,
February 13th
with a Valentines Activity Afternoon. It will be organized in
much the same way as our Halloween Activity Afternoon a
variety of activities
organized as centers around the room, which the children will
rotate through as groups. There will be a gross motor, literacy, numeracy,
craft and science center. On this day, children will also be given a chance
to deliver their valentines to their classmates. As said on the Valentine
name list, if you decide to send valentines to school, please ensure there
is one valentine for each student in the class.

Alice in Wonderland
Excitement is building for our school play, and we have been doing our
part by decorating the halls of the school with whimsical Wonderland art.

Literacy and Numeracy

This month we will focused on the letters: u, l, f, b. It is
important to review these and past letters with your child.
Please continue to have your child work on both identifying
these letters, as well as practicing their corresponding
sounds. We have also learned about super vowels and how
each vowel makes two sounds. Ask your child to sing the super vowel
song at home!This month we learned the sight words me, my, like and
on. Sks are encouraged to continue to practice these words on a
regular basis.

Thanks to those parents who are encouraging their children to use the
Raz Kids computer reading program. There is also another really
good early reading program which is available online at the website
www.starfall.com . You might want to check this one out as well!
We have taken a problem solving approach when investigating
measurement, which encourages the children to reason their way to their
own correct solution. While investigating standard and non standard
measurement (using blocks, mittens, etc.), we have made links to
graphing and probability, number sense (making comparisons, counting in
order by 1s, 5s, and 10s, representing whole numbers), and made many
science curricular connections. Going forward, we will be working hard on
representing, and writing single and double digit numbers.
You may have noticed on the February calendar that 100
Day is drawing near! On 100 Day, we will celebrating our
100th day of school. All families are invited to participate in
this special day by preparing a bag of 100 similar items at
home. If you feel comfortable sending the bagged items
with your child to school, we will be sure to share the grand counting
accomplishment with the class!
Finally, we have been using the tablets in the classroom to help us make
scientific and mathematical discoveries. All the great, curricular supportive
games we have played in class can be found at www.tvokids.com, or
www.pbskids.org. If you havent visited either of these sites, check them
out, they are a great teacher/parent resource!

Baby William Update

William came in this week to teach us all about
sleep...
or maybe the lack there of. We learned that babies
need
more sleep than one who is in Kindergarten and
that
adults may need even less. We talked about the
safety
involved in putting a baby into bed. Babies always are put to bed on their
backs. They cannot have any pillows or stuffies in the bed with them due
to suffocation. Mrs. F showed us how she puts her baby to sleep.
We also learned that William is almost crawling! He just started trying this
week. We made some predictions as to how fast we think he will learn. All

babies learn at their own pace and we're going to patiently await his new
milestone.
Weve started talking about safety and how to keep people of all ages
safe. Using previous knowledge of infant development we will talk next
week about the new dangers William faces now that hes mobile.

Report Cards and Parent-Teacher Conferences

All Full-Day Kindergarten students received a written report card on
January 30th. This is the first year that Junior Kindergarten students will
receive a written report card at this time of the year. We will be happy to
discuss your childs progress or to address any concerns at ParentTeacher Conferences, which are being held on Thursday, February 5th from
4 to 7:50 p.m.
A form requesting an appointment for a Parent-Teacher Conference was in
the envelope with the report card. If the set date does not work for your
family, we can arrange an alternate date, or we can discuss your childs
progress within the Kindergarten program over the phone.

Thank you for your continued

willingness to work with us in support
of your childs education. We really
value our partnership. Please do not
hesitate to be in touch with any
comments, questions or concerns that
you may have. You can reach us by phone at 519-6754421, or through our website.
Ms. McKinley, Mrs. Bruno, and Mrs. Murray