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!