Sunday, January 27, 2013

Thank you as always to our parent volunteers this week!

A new community outreach initiative has been launched by two of our senior students who will be collecting old jeans as donations to teen shelters. The corporate sponsor is Aeropostale and you can send in unused jeans from January 21 - February 4 for the program known as "Teens for Jeans". www.dosomething.org If LKS collects 500 pairs the school becomes eligible for a $10 000 prize!

Reports will come home February 11 for Junior Kindergarten children only. Teachers usually dedicate interviews this term to students with challenges, requesting interviews in these cases, so your Kindergarten team will hold Open Houses that you may attend - look around, ask questions and informally discuss your child. These will be Wednesday, February 20 from 7:45-8:45 AM and Thursday, February 21 from 3:45-4:45 PM. You may choose to attend either one regardless of your child's class designation AM or PM and would not need to attend both!

Information/Permission forms for our field trip will be sent home next week. The kindergarten classes will all be going to see a live performance of "The Cat Came Back". Monday, March 4 for the AM and Tuesday, March 5 for the PM. In order to accommodate the show time and travel time the morning class will come TO school at the regular time but will return OVER THE LUNCH HOUR, LATER than usual, meaning pick up time will be delayed and no school bus transportation home at lunch will be available. On Tuesday the PM class will be asked to ARRIVE EARLIER, OVER THE LUNCH HOUR, in order to board the field trip bus to make the afternoon performance. This means drop off by school bus will not be available on this day. Please make note of this for yourself and any childcare professionals involved in transporting your child to and from school. Plase contact the Grade Parents if you would like to volunteer - we need 4 volunteers per class. If you have previously volunteered for a theatre day or classroom party/special event please consider letting a new parent volunteer. Thank you.

We have been working with dictionaries this week and the children enjoy reading them because it really makes them feels like Readers. If you do not have a picture dictionary Usborne publishes an excellent one that includes a clear picture and a sentence for each word. The IDBN is 43981507X and it available through Scholastic. In class we also use the Harcourt Brace First Dictionary, ISBN 774714492.

This week the children learned and practiced the high frequency word "see." We call high frequency words "Popcorn Words" in class because they keep popping up in sentences. They are also known as sight words. The children are working towards building a Sight Word vocabulary. The SKs made a book called "I see..." and the JKs made a little book in which they practiced writing the words "see" and "me." Please encourage your child to keep these books in their Bedtime Book Box and to read them to you.

Please take a moment to look in our Lost and Found bag in the cubby room. I have gone through the lost items with the children but sometimes they are not sure if items belong to them or not.

The children continue to receive bear puzzle pieces for each book they read to our Grade 8 readers, and they are becoming "Beary Good Readers." When they have all the puzzle pieces they will bring them home.

100th Day is coming soon! We will be celebrating this special day on February 8th and I am planning some creative and numeracy-based activities for this day. Thank you to the parent volunteers who will be helping that day. Activities will run from 10-11:15 and 1:45-3:00

We will be wecoming back artist Janeen for Artist in the Classroom the week of May 6-10. I will need 4 parent volunteers for the entire morning (9-11:20)and 4 volunteers for the entire afternoon class (12:30-3:05). More information to follow when the exact date is set.

A special thank you to Sienna's parents Bruno and Sheila for providing all the juice lid tops. I am in the process of making a Sight Word Activitiy with them. Thank you also to Dana's mom Deanne who is assisting me with making Sight Word Cards.

We are going to be making a book with our Reading Buddies this week. Please send in a small wallet-sized photo of your child for this book. Thank you.

The January Scholastic order is due January 31.

Have a wonderful week!