Pigeon's birthday party!!!

Just a quick note from our lovely ECEs that following our rainforest and "Les aventures de Pigeon" inquiries, tomorrow Wednesday April 1st we will be celebrating Pigeon's (a literary character who the room 20 kids have become quite find of) birthday!! Gilda will be preparing snacks including fruits an veggies and mini vegetarian hot dogs (hot dogs are Pigeon's all time favorite food) for the party but this will only be a small snack and students are still asked to bring lunch and snacks as usual. 

Should you have any questions, please direct your emails to Gilda.castiglione@ocdsb.ca :). Thanks! An update and pictures coming soon!

Friday Popcorn Party, Twin Day and Kinderlude!

During the first term, our class won a contest run by parent council for bringing in the most canned goods per division. The prize was a popcorn and movie party. Recently, the class also reached the goal of filling our classroom bucket with popcorn kernels (one of the class bucket filling initiatives- the bucket filler of the day gets to add one spoonful of popcorn to the bucket at the end of the day). We thought that in light of both of these events, a popcorn party is in order! This Friday we will be watching a short movie and enjoying a popcorn treat. If you have any concerns or questions about this, please email us to let us know.

We will also be having a "kinderlude" on Friday where we will be going outside to build multi-coloured snow sculptures, so be sure your child is dressed for the weather.

Friday also marks another spirit day for the school. This month, it is Twin Day. We know it can be hard for this age group to coordinate getting a partner to dress alike, so to make it easier, if you wish you can have your child dress in either black pants or jeans, and a black or white shirt, and they will be assured of having a twin in the class.

Update March 2015

 A little update...

News Items:

March 10- Junior Students Musical performance

March 12- Scientists in the Schools Visit 

March 13- Twin Day and Movie and Popcorn prize in afternoon 

Inquiries:

We are very interested in rainforest animals right now and have started to learn about differet animals and their habitat. We have started to work on a mini research project where students chose an animal to learn about and research. Please ask your child about which animal thy have chosen and what they are learning so far. (Note that they did not have to chose a rainforest animal) As always, we encourage you to ask our child questions at home about what they are learning and what they are wondering about. 

What We're Working On:

Math: 

We have been learning about 3D shapes and how many sides, corners, etc that they have. We will also be reviewing many of the math concepts we have been working on and continuing to work on simple addition. 

Literacy: We will continue to work on recognizing high frequency sight words in French such as 'les', 'le' 'la', 'ma' 'tu' and 'je'. Look for a full list of sound blends and sight words that will be sent home this week for your child to practice.  We will also continue working more on our writing journals in French and English and writing both lists and full sentences. 

Science: We are exploring scientific tools such as magnifying glasses and discussing animal habitats and possibly ecosystems if our inquiries lead in that direction. 

Sensory Play: Coffee beans and rainforest animals for small parts/dramatic play. 

Home Connection:

1) Our home reading program will continue this week as usual. We will also be sending home the script of the play we have started working on called "Les trois petits cochons" that your child can read with you and do the gestures (this is an AIM play which is an approach to teaching language that pairs a hand gesture with spoken words to help visual and kinesthetic learners. 

2) Please remind your child (we have talked to them in class) that we ask that they leave their stuffed animals and toys at home. They can become distractions, cause conflicts or be lost or dirtied in our classroom and are better left at home. Thank you for your help and support with this!

3) Also, check for the 3 petits cochons song in your child's note tote this week!

One more item we're looking for.

We would like to have the students make dioramas from Jan Brett's book Under the Umbrella Tree as part of our learning for rainforest animals. If you have any empty shoeboxes that you could donate to help us with these projects, they would be appreciated!

Looking for...

... Egg cartons and paper towel rolls for an activity this week. If you have any in your recycling box, please send them in!

Thank you!