Bonnes Vacances!

Dear families,
I just want to say a very heartfelt thank you for all your support this year. I have really enjoyed working with your children and they have taught be what SK is all about. I'm truly looking forward to their visits next year!
My job is made easier and is even more enjoyable when I get to work with parents who want to be involved and want to support both their child and myself, and this has been the case this year. I truly appreciate your involvement, contributions and interest in our daily life at school.

Dominique, Janice and I also thank you also for the many many thoughtful cards and gifts. It is very touching.

This week, we had a great day at the park, the kids helped me do some packing and, after spending the last few weeks reading the book, we watched a musical theatre version of "Le Petit Prince". The kids enjoyed seeing how the different characters were represented in the musical version.

This afternoon, all the kids graduated from SK by shaking our hands and receiving a certificate. I also hope you enjoy looking at their book of self-portraits, which shows clearly how their fine-motor skills have improved throughout the year.

I hope you have a wonderful summer break. See you in September!

Tamara

Correction...

Oops - see correction in my last post. Password is just amies.

"Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3"

Amazing Film Souvenir

Dear families,

It has been another busy week filled with workshops and activities. I have shared some highlights below. Here are some details about next week:

On Tuesday we are going to Dufferin Grove Park to celebrate the end of the year. 

- We will leave shortly after 10:20 and will meet at that time in the kindergarten yard. Parents that are coming for the am or full day can meet us then.

- If you are coming for the afternoon only, please meet us at the park by the play area. We will walk back to school around 2:15.

- I have heard from several parents who intend to come, but weren't 100% on the times. You are welcome to just show up on the day, but if you already know when you can commit to being with us, it would be helpful to know in advance. Thanks!

- Other classes may do different things, but for Salle 202, we are not doing a potluck. This is a BYOL (bring your own lunch) situation. Please make sure your student has a substantial lunch, snacks and water bottle to keep them going all day.

- Please also ensure that your child is pre-sunscreened and dressed for the weather (hats are recommended).

- As the note explains, children are welcome to bring play equipment, so long as they can carry it on their own.

Tuesday afternoon, report cards will come home. If you'd like to meet with me once more before the end of the year, please let me know soon. I haven't made a secret of how important I think it is for students to be comfortable with the French alphabet before beginning grade 1. If you would like some summer materials to continue the great work you've been doing this year, I am happy to help. I can lend out some of our books, letter place mats or even little manipulatives for working with letters. Please let me know by Tuesday if you'd like me to send home a summer package.

Thank you for all the books you've been returning. Please keep looking around for any lingering school books. Thank you also for your contributions to yesterday's teacher appreciation lunch (I was stressed out over all the delicious food options) and the donations and promised donations to my future classroom. It is very greatly appreciated. We sent home a little gift to all the parents who volunteered with our class this year. I hope I didn't miss anyone. It is always a pleasure to work with such involved and supportive parents. 

This week...

Thanks to some stocking donations, interested students were able to make their own cochon, as described in the book "Lili Tire-Bouchon". Ask your student to sing you the song about Lili and her pigs!

We participated in 2 workshops with X movement. I'm told this involved getting excited and then learning strategies for how to calm our bodies back down. Very useful learning.

 I had SO much fun misting the kids with the hose!

Thanks to more donations of recycled materials, we finally built our structures using boxes, rolls and cones. We used glue and some helping tape to hold everything together and the builders got very creative. I didn't realize how amazing their creations were until they each presented what they had made, and what they described perfectly matched what they had constructed. I asked them to leave it at school for one more night so that we could write in their journals about what it is that they built. Today they have brought it home.

We wrote letters to our next teacher! Each student worked with me to write a letter to their grade 1 teacher. They wrote their name and age, their favourite colour, something they really like and something they'd like to do in grade 1. Each writer completed their letter independently. They used the morning message to fill in the date, our colour posters to spell their favourite colour, and I wrote their other ideas on the blackboard for them to copy. It's the most writing in one go that we have done all year, and not only did no one struggle, but nobody even complained. We are ready for grade 1.

Elodie's mom came back to share the presentation she created using our radio interviews and drawings that we did back in May. Most of the drawings represent poems that we have learned this year (we brought these home after viewing the presentation on Tuesday). Recently, we have learned a few more poems that are longer and more challenging, but also a lot of fun. Please ask to hear "Kati Katère", "Bonjour, je m'appelle Joe" and  "La maison de Jacques". 

This is a fantastic presentation and an amazing souvenir from this year. You can view it using the password amies. Merci Kalli et Zack!

"Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3"

Merci Merci Merci

We owe a massive thank you to the many parents from all the kinder classes who came last week to help with our fish project. On Thursday, parents helped manage paint and allowed themselves to get completely covered in sparkles. The finished fish glow in the sun and are just stunning. On Friday, many parents showed up to cut wire, secure fish to the fence and give them a coat of sealer. I didn't expect that we would even come close to getting the project done on Friday, but it was a true example of "many hands make light work" and we got well over 100 fish mounted and sprayed in under an hour. Please admire our collaborative art project next time you're in the kindergarten yard and see if your artist can find the fish they painted!

Speaking of volunteers, SO many of you have contributed to our class this year. We've had parents help with activities in class, volunteer to give presentations, come on our many excursions and I know many of you have helped in other ways at school that I may not even be aware of. We could not provide rich learning opportunities to the kids, especially when it involves leaving the school, without your support. Dewson would like to recognize all our amazing volunteers at an appreciation breakfast before school THIS Wednesday. Please join us from 8-9am in the library. 

Oh, and did I mention we're looking for volunteers to come to the park with us next Tuesday?? Haha! A note will come home this week about our plan to celebrate the end of the year with a park day. Please let us know if you can come. Little siblings welcome.

Bonne fête des pères! More presents from our garden. We've gifted you a tomato plant. But this is not just any tomato plant. This is one of the plants from our "Space Tomato" experiment. Remember, we planted two groups of tomato seeds. One group of seeds were normal "Earth tomatoes". The other group of seeds had been to the International Space Station for 6 weeks. We kept track of how many plants germinated from both groups and we made predictions before and during the growing as to which group was which and why. We finally reported our results and got the answer to the lingering question about which group were the "Space tomatoes". Please ask your student about the details of this experiment... How did they predict the space tomatoes would grow? Which group (J or K) had more plants grow? Which group grew a little taller? Which group did they think were the space tomatoes? Which group ended up being from space?
Finally, please ask them which kind of tomato plant they chose to give to you!

These last few weeks are jam packed with activities, as you surely noticed on the calendar. In addition to Run, Jump & Throw, last week we had 3 presentations - 2 in one day! One presentation was to let us know about all the fun programs the public library is running over the summer. Hope you can check it out. We also listened to a cool type of Japanese story called Kamishibai. This is when the story cards are presented in a theatre-like box. It is definitely captivating! We listened to 3 stories and the kids would have listened to more!

The other two presentations were in support of National Indigenous History Month. Both presentations featured representatives from the Indigenous community sharing their stories, songs, teachings, dances and traditional dress with us. We got to take part in some music making, and even got to watch our very own Chase participate in a dance!

This coming week promises to be just as busy with a library outing and two workshops with X Movement. Stay tuned! Also, since it has been so hot, Mr. Lee has been setting up a sprinkler in the yard. On hot days until the end of the year, we encourage all kids to wear their bathing suits under their clothes so that they can cool down under the sprinkler.

A quick word about end of year gifts. We know that students often like to give a little something to their teachers, and while this is absolutely not expected or required, we are always touched by the thought. I just want to make sure that everyone knows that we do have Mme Dominique back in our class with us now, but Mme Janice is also staying until the end of the year. Lucky us! If you do plan to get something for the teachers, please don't leave either one of those amazing ladies out!

For myself, as you may have heard, I am setting up a new kindergarten class from scratch next year, and what I need more than anything else are small building materials, toys, costumes and art supplies to take to room 101 with me. It doesn't even have to be something that you purchase new - I am very happy to give a good home to any play things your kids are no longer using. This would be a gift that would not only save me some shopping, but also benefit all our future kindergarteners. Merci!

Run, Jump & Throw

Hi parents,
Run, Jump & Throw was a success! Junior students led us through 4 activities: hula hoop jump, short distance sprint, bean bag toss and long distance run. We all did a a great job participating. Pictures are below!

Later, I was very impressed with a big group of students who played circle games with me, and continued playing after I left the game. We played "The Farmer in the Dell" and "Duck, Duck, Goose".

Below is a show about the tooth fairy that I was invited to last week during centre time. Notice, the performers even set up chairs for the audience and numbered them from 1-10.

This week we have several presentations to go to, our kindergarten art project and of course Father's day to get ready for. We will be busy! Friday is also our final opportunity to exchange books this year. Overdue book lists are coming home tomorrow. It is a very small slip of paper. Please do your best to locate any school books and return them this week and next. Merci!

If you are able to help us manage the fish painting activity, we hope to begin Wednesday afternoon (12:45-1:45) unless it rains. We will resume Thursday at the same time, finish up at the same time Friday if needed, and then we could really use some volunteers to spray glaze the fish and wire them to the fence. We have all the material, but could use hands. Please let me know if you can help (or just show up any of those days at 12:45 in our yard). Thank you!!

Hula Hoop Jump

60m Sprint

Bean Bag Toss