It has been a busy week in Room 159!  The children used scissors, glue, stickers and magic markers to create buses and people.  The brightly coloured people were inspired by reading, ""It's OK to be Different" by Todd Parr.  Todd Parr books always have brightly coloured people and animals in their illustrations.  To help practise scissor skills have your child cut up the flyers included in your newspapers.  They can cut out pictures of their favourite foods, toys and anything they are interested in.  A reminder when using scissors the children should always point their thumbs to the sky.  The students also completed their September calendars.  Each month the students will make a calendar with an art project to take home.  It is amazing to watch the development in numeral formation skills, printing, colouring and labelling that occurs.  Save a space to prominent displays your child's wonderful work.  The children were very excited to take home their calendar and busses on Friday.  Please return your child's empty mailbag on Monday.  We will be sending home mailbags on Fridays until we start Snuggle Up books in October, when we will move to twice a week.
    We accomplished many "firsts" this week.  We had our first Fire Drill and the children did a wonderful job, walking quietly and staying in line. Our Lockdown drill was postponed to later in the month.  Both library groups also borrowed books from the library.  Please keep the library books in the "green Bee bag" for travelling to and from school.  We have a box in the classroom for the children to place their returned books.  They will not be able to borrow a new book unless the prior book is returned.  Library dates are on the monthly class calendar, the blog and the groups are on the back of the calendar.  The children also had their first music class with Ms. McGee.  They played drums and sang songs by Raffi.  On Tuesday, we attended the Terry Fox Assembly.  The children listened carefully during this school wide assembly and enjoyed the Terry Fox movie.  We will be discussing Terry Fox in anticipation of our walk on Thursday, September 28.  We will try to keep the classroom discussion age appropriate for our Kindergarten students, but classroom activities may lead to some questions at home involving cancer or illness.  We focus on the fact that Terry ran to collect money to help the doctors, nurses and scientists to make new medicines.  We also discuss that Terry is a hero.  You may send in Terry Fox pledge sheets and donations any time.  You may also make your donations on-line. Please see the pledge sheets for more information.  Thanks in advance for your generosity.
     Friday was International Dot Day, a day to create and celebrate all that creativity inspires and invites.  Dot Day was inspired by the book, "the dot" by Peter H. Reynolds.  Children are encouraged to make their mark and see where it takes them.  Miss Santiago and I set up a variety of activities which the children completed to create with dots.  The children used bingo dappers to make a design and they also used watercolour crayons dipped in water to make a dot collage.  The dot collages are displayed on our classroom door.  The SK students also used black dots to create their own picture based on the book, "Ten Black Dots" by Donald Crews.  Please see some examples to the right.  It was a day of dots!
     Miss Santiago and I are excited to be hosting Miss Paska in our classroom.  Miss Paska is a 4th year Early Childhood Studies student at Ryerson and she will be in our classroom Thursdays and Fridays until December.  
     A reminder that our classroom is quite warm, so please dress your child in layers.  No one wants to be warm and uncomfortable while learning.  If there will be a change of plans in our child's routine, please write a note or call the school if it is a last minute change.  The office staff will call the classroom and let us know.  
     Thanks again for all your support, patience and assistance as we begin the school year.  We appreciate all your smiles and understanding at the end (and beginning) of the day.

Have a wonderful weekend!  Enjoy this perfect weather!

This Week:

Monday-Music
              10th day of school, Zero the Hero visits
Tuesday-Library (A) Return your books 
               Computers (B)
Wednesday-Happy Wednesday!
Thursday-Library (B) Return your books   
                 Computers (A)
Friday-1st Day of Fall!