Joyeuses Pâques!

Hello again,
We have continued our pre-Easter activities with a potentially very cool eggsperiment (see what I did there??). We are attempting to grow crystals inside plastic egg shells using alum, a pickling spice that apparently does this. It's the first time for all of us, so it's a true experiment and we all have our fingers crossed that something happens!
We have prepared the experiment by coating our shells in glue and alum and once dry, placing them in a bath of water, food colouring and more alum. Now, we wait. We are documenting each stage of the experiment by drawing what our egg looks like each day until next Tuesday, when we will either have crystals to bring home, or we will learn what not to do!

This morning, we had some fun doing a little Easter egg hunt. Everyone got to find an egg (containing a little bunny friend) and a spring notepad. We've also continued playing our Easter egg letter and math games. In one game, we match the majuscule with the minuscule; in another, we match the number with its picture; and in the last game we match some simple addition questions with the solution.

Despite the drizzle, this afternoon we walked over to the library as planned. Big thanks to our parents for joining us on this wet day before a long weekend! We got to see "The Gunniwolf", which is the English version of "Loupscaroux". When we returned, we reviewed and acted out this story in French. You can find some versions of this story on YouTube.

The April calendar came home a couple days ago, and I included some tips about some days when we may want to dress for the occasion.

Mots de la Semaine

un oeuf

le lapin

une poule

du chocolat

Joyeuses Pâques!

Fire Safety

Happy almost-Easter!

We have some fun stuff planned this week, including an eggsperiment, some Easter-themed letter and math games and today we started it all off with dyeing eggs. Each student got to colour and dye two eggs and bring them home. We got through it with very few cracks, and nobody was upset! Yay!
The eggs are hard-boiled, but students know that the eggs are not safe for eating, as they have been out of the fridge all day. They are purely decorative. Hope you love them!


Last Friday, for show and tell, Ella brought in her dad, who is a firefighter. He showed us all his equipment, and explained how he reacts if he is called to a fire. Each student had the opportunity to try on some equipment and was gifted a fireman hat! I decided to make it a fire safety afternoon, so we read a book about Curious George visiting the fire station, and we read a list of fire safety reminders. I gave each student a colouring book with some fire safety tips, as well as a special paper that you can use at home to make a map of your house, with your exits and meeting place marked. I also had just enough firetruck tattoos left for everyone. So many gifts!! Please take this as an opportunity to check your home fire alarms and discuss your safety plan with your child.

On Friday, Dewson also celebrated Earth Hour by turning off the lights and electronics between 2 and 3pm. Our class discussed this initiative in the morning, and we agreed that we could do even more to help our planet. We turned our lights out for most of the day and enjoyed the sunshine streaming through our nice new windows!

A reminder that there is no school this Friday or next Monday. Enjoy your long weekend!

Talk to you soon.

Reine des Abeilles

Dear families,
Today I'm sending home the fundraising envelopes for our upcoming dance-A-thon. I know the kids are all excited for April 6th. No matter how much money we raise, everyone will get to dance, and we usually get glow bracelets (no need to send money specifically for these).
We do encourage everyone to fundraise as you are able (safely, not door-to-door). Our goal is $50 per student, which would add up to about $23,000 for our school. This money goes directly towards programming, materials and subsidizing for special events. I, personally, arranged for a bunch of new outdoor equipment to be purchased for the kindergartens last year, using money raised by parent council (probably through the dance-a-thon and festival), so I can tell you for sure that this money goes right back to students.
Donations can be made in cash or cheque in the envelope, or online. Song requests can also be made online. It's very simple. You can find the website here.

We have now acted out the story "Reine des abeilles" twice, trying out different roles each time. We used our entire classroom as the different locations for the story, from the ant hill to the duck pond, to the beehive and finally the castle. Here are some pictures, in story order. Maybe your actor can tell you the story (in much much more detail) as you look through them!

 Three brothers go on an adventure. They find an ant hill. 

The older brothers want to squish the ants. The youngest brother says "Arrête!"

They find a pond with ducks.

The older brothers want to throw rocks. The youngest brother says "Arrête!"

 They find a bee hive.

The older brothers want to light a fire and steal the honey. The youngest brother says "Arrête!"

 They find a castle under a magic spell. Everyone is frozen in stone.

 A petite dame who cannot speak, shows them 3 instructions for how to break the spell.

 The first brother does not find all the beads before the sun sets. He turns to stone.

 The second brother tries, but also does not succeed.

The youngest brother, who respects nature, almost gives up. 

The ants help him because he helped them.

 The youngest brother cannot swim, how will he get the key from the bottom of the lake?

 A duck brings it to him, because he saved them.

The final task is to find the princess who ate honey. 

The bees help by landing on the correct princess' lips.

The spell is broken! 

The king and queen are so happy that they decide the three brothers can marry the three princesses.

Mots de la Semaine

We have learned these words through our castle-building and story-acting activities this week!

un château

le roi

la reine

une princesse

un prince

Welcome Back

Hello families,
I hope you had a great week off from school. We had a lovely reunion today, in fact, our entire class started the morning by singing "L'hymne à l'amitié" while they waited for me to join them on the carpet. It was a pretty cute moment!

We were greeted this morning with exciting mail from August. He received our valentines and wrote back! Here is his letter:

Today, we took on the big group project of building a castle in our class. I had saved some very interesting pieces of foam and cardboard that are serving well as walls and a door/drawbridge. We had a group of builders working on the structure, some artists making tapestry-like art for inside the castle, and painters making the bricks to put on the outside. Our castle boasts a bedroom with cushions, a throne room, a painted roof and a flag. We also made some crowns and our students were very excited to play make-believe and crown several princesses and celebrate with a feast!

We are going to try to maintain our castle structure this week, and I've told an oral story (in French, of course) called "Reine des abeilles" which we are beyond excited to act out, using our castle as part of the set. Ask your royal actor what the story is about, and what part they hope to play!

A couple things upcoming:
- Library trip on the 29th - the note came home today
- Dance-a-thon on April 6th - this is one of Dewson's biggest fundraisers. Students will attend an assembly tomorrow where it will all be explained. They will bring home an envelope to collect donations, due by April 6th when we all dance! Donations and song requests can be easily made online. I will share the link to the website soon!

Félicitations!

We are SO proud of our students for their performance last evening. Wow! It's amazing that kindergarten students can remember all those words and do such an amazing job performing for a huge audience. We will be reprising our song at an assembly to celebrate Day of Pink. This will most likely be April 27th, early in the day (~9:15). You are welcome to attend this assembly if you wish. Save the date!

Our gym was also highly decorated with our beautiful hearts and many garlands that we made earlier yesterday. I challenged students to create a pattern in theirs!

This is a nice time to look forward in the year. In the coming months, we will have 4 more library outings, we will host the April assembly, Dewson's junior students will put on the musical 'Clowns', we will attend Dewson's annual Dance-a-thon, students each have one or two more turns to show & tell, we have a very exciting spring field trip in the works, and of course I assume the Dewson Festival will be back! We have lots to look forward to.

Today, we did an amazing clean-up job of our cubbies, lunch cubbies and mailboxes. Lots of stuff came home and I hope you have gotten back most of the mittens, hats, sweaters and socks that may have been left here recently. Hopefully we are just about done with our winter gear!

On behalf of Dominique and myself, have a wonderful March break! See you on the 19th.