Welcome to our Classroom!

Dear Parents,

I hope you had a wonderful summer! Welcome to Kindergarten at Lambton Kingsway Junior Middle School! I am delighted to have your child in our class! We are going to be learning a lot this year and it is my goal to do everything I can to make sure our classroom is a welcoming place full of learning, fun and friends. Please join me in welcoming back our wonderful Early Childhood Educator Ms. Mosun to our classroom! A big thank you to Dante's mom and Evelyn's mom who have volunteered to be our Grade Parents this year! We have lots of opportunities each year for parents to volunteer in the classroom, including weekly Mystery Readers (every Day 3)! Please contact our Grade Parents for further information regarding volunteering in the classroom. Thank you!

Kindergarten is a two-year program and our classroom has both Juniors and Seniors. I encourage you to have conversations with your child about what we are doing in school. Parental involvement is very important. Your participation and support will help instill a positive attitude about learning. When we all work together, students are successful! Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns during the school year. Please check my blog each weekend for updates and important classroom information.


Kindergarten Schedule (NEW!)

8:40-8:45 Entry
8:45-11:15 Morning Program
11:15-12:28 Lunch
12:28-12:33 Entry
12:33-3:03 Afternoon Program

Your child will need a regular-sized backpack for Kindergarten. This backpack should be large enough to carry snacks, lunch (if your child is not going home for lunch), a library book, small reading books, as well as a clear TDSB plastic "mailbag" (provided by me) that will go home at the end of each week. This bag will include notes from school, classwork, art projects, etc. Please return this bag to school each Monday, and remind your child to hand put it in the bin provided when s/he enters the classroom. Please give your child opportunities to practice opening, putting things in, taking objects out of the backpack and then zipping the backpack closed.

As your child enters school, independence (and attempting to be independent) is very important. Saying a cheerful goodbye at the outside door will ensure your child has a smooth transition to classroom routines and independence.

The beginning of the day, end of the day, and lunch time are busy times, with children coming and going to before and after school programs, taking the bus, daycare, etc. My first priority is ensuring that each of my children is dismissed safely to parents and caregivers, bus attendants. etc. If you wish to speak with me about your child's progress, please send a note and I’ll be happy to make an appointment to speak to you at a time convenient to all.


Please note that the Kindergarten Playground/Yard is CLOSED after school each day as it is reserved for the After School Program. Thank you.


Important Numbers:

School Office: 416-394-7890
Please leave a message with the office if your child will be absent from school. Messages can be left 24 hours/day. Please give your child’s name, teacher name, and reason for absence.

The Kindergarten Program:

In keeping with the Ministry of Education’s Full Day Kindergarten Curriculum, the Kindergarten Program is Inquiry-Based. I will also be doing many educational and interesting theme-based literacy and numeracy activities with the children, adapted to their level and interests, which also helps prepare them for the SK/Grade One Curriculum. The children will bring these themed units home in folders when they are completed, so that you can see all the hard work they have been doing in class!

Each child is unique. Young children grow and develop at their own rate. When provided with opportunities to play and interact with their peers and guided by adults, children have the opportunity to expand their knowledge and solve problems through everyday activities. While there will be large group discussions, much of the interaction between your child and myself and Mrs. Mosun will be in small groups or one on one. As a result, children will be able to receive as much individualized attention that is geared to their interests as well as their development and abilities.

Centres:

The Kindergarten classroom is set up as a number of centres. Independence is key to the program and, as such, the learning materials are housed in storage shelves and containers that allow children to find and reach them on their own. The children are expected to help keep our classroom clean and organized by cleaning up their activity when finished with it and returning it to the proper place.

While centres will change through the year (according to which theme we are working on), some remain, with the materials changing to meet our learning expectations. Some of the centres in our classroom are:

- Sand and/or Water
- Math (Numeracy)
- Writing
- Reading/Books/Mini Library
- Creative (Art)
- Sensory
- Building
- Science/Discovery
- Computers (2)
- Dramatic Play

Students will also be encouraged to rotate through all the different centres. Each child has a designated seat at a table, and a designated spot during Circle Time and Smartboard Work Time. Otherwise, as a rule, children will play in small groups of 2-4 children.

Additional Activities:

Library and Computer Lab – We are fortunate to have Teacher Librarian Ms. McGee, who maintains a wonderful primary resource centre. Each week we will have an opportunity to visit the library for a read aloud or learning activity, as well as a book exchange. The library is also next to our Computer Lab where the children will have an opportunity each week to explore a variety of programs and learn how to use the computers with Mrs. Mosun.

Physical Education – Our gymnasium and outdoor kindergarten playground are large open spaces where children will be able to participate in activities to promote healthy living. Co-operative games and moving safely are the major components of the kindergarten gym program. Please ensure your child has proper footwear for participating in these activities.

Volunteers:

There are many opportunities for parents to volunteer in the classroom, such as Mystery Reader (every Day 3 at 9 a.m.) and Holiday Craft Parties. Any person wishing to volunteer at the school requires a recent, valid police check from the Toronto Police Department. Annual Declarations are required for any current volunteers. Please contact your Grade Parent if you wish to volunteer for classroom activities.


Safety:

Ensuring the safety of the students, staff and visitors at Lambton Kingsway is a priority. Students in Kindergarten enter and leave through their classroom doors to the kindergarten yard. Should you need to enter the school, please use the front doors and sign in at the office each time you visit us.

A note from home is required for changes to regular routines (i.e. a child who normally stays at school for lunch will be going home, or a child who normally takes the bus will be picked up by a caregiver, or a child is going on a play date after school and will be picked up by another caregiver). For the safety and security of your child, we cannot change your child’s routine if a note is not provided. Please do not assume that if a note is left in your child’s backpack your child will remember to give it to his/her teacher. Please hand the note personally to me first thing in the morning and/or call the office with the change to routine. Please do not email me last-minute changes since I only check my email at lunch and after school.

If your child is going to be absent from school for a planned activity (i.e. doctor, dentist, early or extended holiday) please send a note in advance so that it can be forwarded to the office. For unexpected absences, please call the safe arrival system (416-394-7890) and leave a message with your child’s full name, teacher, and reason for absence.

Classroom Rules and Routines:

One of the main goals in Kindergarten is to develop self-regulation. I work with the children to help them maintain control of their actions and behaviours. Our classroom expectations are to:

- Listen to others
- Use a quiet voice
- Keep hands to yourself
- Sit while in a group
- Walk while inside the school


Home Communication:

Communication between home and school is essential. Every Friday after school, I update my blog (www.mrstyndallslksblog.blogspot.com). Please make a habit of checking it regularly for important dates, information about what we are doing in class, and other updates. Each day items such as notes, newsletters, permission forms, etc. may be sent home. Children in our Kindergarten class use a communication bag (a clear plastic TDSB bag with their name on it) to carry items between home and school. Please place notes from home, or any money for pizza, Scholastic Book Orders, field trips, etc. in the bag. Please do not lose this bag as I only have a few extras. Thank you.

To help keep orders safe and contained, please seal any required money inside an envelope or zip-lock baggie, and put your child’s name on it, along with the purpose for the money being sent.


Calendar:

A classroom calendar will be sent home during the last week of each month (or earlier) for the next month. Please post in a special place so that you and your child are prepared for all designated activities. Please make note of special dates such as your child’s Special Leader Day, due dates for pizza and Sholastic book orders, etc.

Reading Skills:

Reading is an essential skill that lasts a lifetime. It is your and my responsibility to ensure that your child develops early reading skills. An at home reading program will be provided, beginning in the first term. A folder with a reading log, as well as early reading “snuggle up” books will be provided. Your Snuggle Book needs to travel to and from school in your child’s TDSB bag. More information will be provided once we begin the program in October.

Spare Clothing:

Children occasionally don’t make it to the washroom on time. They also like to “find” puddles or go down slides that aren’t quite dry. To make such instances easier for everyone, please send a change of underwear, pants and socks to keep at school. Wet clothes will be placed in a plastic bag and sent home. Please be sure to replace used items the next school day.

Library:

We will have a scheduled library period for a visit and book exchange each week. Children are responsible for the books that they sign out. They will be provided with a library bag to bring their book to and from school. Please return you Library books each Monday.

Snacks and Lunches:

Your child should bring two healthy, nut-free snacks each day. Children will have an opportunity to eat in each of the morning and afternoon nutrition breaks. The purpose of these breaks is to provide energy and nourishment for your child. Please choose healthy items that your child enjoys. Due to food allergies, children must not share their food with others. We continue to strive towards being a nut-free school for the safety of the children with nut-based allergies. Children will NOT be allowed to open or consume any items known to contain nuts.

Please do not send cans of pop/juice for your child. Cans are difficult for students to handle and they rarely finish the entire drink. Keeping the can throughout the day is troublesome as cans spill and attract ants. Please use juice boxes or water bottles instead. There is also a water fountain in our classroom, so water bottles are not necessary.

Birthdays:

Birthdays are very special days for your children and we celebrate them in school, too! On the day (or as close as possible) of your child's birthday, s/he will be the Special Person of the Day. If you would like to send in treats for the class (such as small cupcakes) please ensure they are nut-free. Thank you!

Scholastic Book Orders:

This is a voluntary book club for children. Each month a book flyer will be sent home. Please choose the books you would like on the order form, and return the order form and a cheque (payable to Scholastic Books). Orders are placed the day after the due date (found on the order form or on the class calendar), and orders are usually received within a week. Your child will bring home their books in their backpacks, to be opened at home. If you wish to purchase an item as a gift, please send me a note with your order.

Personal Items:

PLEASE LABEL ALL CLOTHING, SHOES, AND OTHER ITEMS BROUGHT TO SCHOOL.
Toys should be left at home.

Please feel free to contact me should you have any questions that have not been covered! Please keep this newsletter for future reference.
I’m looking forward to a wonderful year!

Kind regards,


Mrs. Beverley Tyndall

Beverley.Tyndall@tdsb.on.ca

Week of June 25-29

Dear families,

Today is the last day of school and what a wonderful year it has been! I’ve so much enjoyed coming to school each day and working with Mrs. Mosun and your children. Thank you so much for the lovely teacher gifts! You are so kind!

These last few days we had two Mystery Readers (thank you to Lily’s dad and Anhali’s Dad!), we finished our Memory Books (SKs) and Summer books (JKs), we watched the LKS Talent Show, learned more facts about Canada from the CBC “Canadooday” series, had our SK Graduation, attended the year-end LKS Assembly, had pizza lunch on the lawn, and had a whole play day on the last day! Pretty exciting!!

I would like to say “Thank You“ again to our wonderful Grade Parents Tara and Tiffany, and to all the parents who volunteered in the classroom and on field trips this year. The kids love sharing their school day with you and we really appreciate your time and energy!

I know that the new Seniors will do an amazing job welcoming our new little ones in September!

I hope you have a fun Canada Day weekend, and a WONDERFUL summer!

Mrs. Tyndall

Week of June 18-22

Dear families,

Here is this week's news from Room 166!

The children read and drew accompanying pictures to 24 summer words. I think their drawing has really improved! The children are learned three new end-of-year songs: ABC You Later, Zippadeedoodah, and This Fabulous Year. Great singing! The Juniors read and coloured in a pattern book called "Summer, Summer, What Do You See?" and the Seniors are working on a Memory Book. The children also helped make a tally chart of all the activities they are going to do (or think they are going to do!) this summer! They also spelled out CAMP words.

Canada Day is approaching and the kids watched trwo CBC "Canadooday" video songs about The Maple Leaf and The RCMP. They also coloured a picture of a beaver and Canadian Flag, traced the words, "Happy Canada Day" and made a picture of fireworks with black paint, glue and glitter. They circled all the words of "Oh Canada" that they know and practised singing "O Canada" in French. They learned why July 1st is Canada's birthday and we reviewed our Canadian coins and their values.

The children made Thank You cards for their Reading Buddies, and coloured in a map of Canada together. We had a great year with our Readingt Buddies and look forward to working with them again next year!

The Seniors have also been rehearsing for their Graduation Ceremony which takes place on Wednesday, June 27 at 1:45 p.m. Families of the SKs are invited to attend. The kids are excited about going to Grade One! They've enjoyed playing in the "Big Kid Playground" this week to get ready for September.

Thank you so much to Mila's mom and Anjali's dad who were Mystery Readers this week!

We've been washing the toys and getting them ready for next year. The kids have enjoyed "giving them a bubble bath."

The homework for this week is to do the mini TO and FROM books.

On Friday the children watched the awesome Grades 1-3 perform in a Talent Show. A lot of their siblings and friends were performers! On Friday morning the children sang "ABC You Later" at the last Sharing Assembly of the year. We congratulated Dante and Lily for earning certificates for Perseverance!

That's the news for this week. Next week is the last week of school! Where did the time go? Thursday is the last day of school and the children's mailbags will be going home on Wednesday. If your child will be absent please let us and the office know. Thank you!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Week of June 11-15

Dear families,

I hope you are having a wonderful Father's Day weekend! The children have taken great care in making gifts for their dads for this special day.

This week we continued our learning about frogs and also read several fictional books about frogs. The kids enjoyed learning how to draw "Froggy" and also labelled a picture of a frog. They learned more about metamorphosis and made a Frog Life Cycle wheel. They learned how frogs and toads are different watching a video on the Smartboard, completed a lower case alphabet activity on a picture of a toad, we read some classic "Frog and Toad" tales (thank you, Hudson!), and learned that frogs come in many colours and sizes. Thank you Alex and Hudson for sharing your frog toys! They look so real! We also did a Fact vs. Opinion activity together: the children had to decide if statements were a fact ("frogs are amphibians") or an opinion ("frogs are cute"). We read "Froggy Builds a Treehouse," Froggy's Worst Playdate" and "Froggy's Birthday" and the children did a good job re-telling the stories from beginning to end. We also listened to a CD of "The Frog Prince."

We finished our Cinderella story study this week. The kids read and coloured a Cinderella booklet, played an alphabet game with Cinderella cards ("I have A, who has B?" etc.) and completed three tricky alphabet and number mazes. We also read a Cinderella Sight Word Book and the children completed their own, copying many sight words in lower case letters. Good job!

The children also completed their June calendar and wrote and drew a picture of "This is me in June." They also wrote and drew adorable pictures with their Reading Buddies about what they want to be when they grow up!

Our Mystery Reader this week was Hope's mom. Thank you! The words of the week were EAT and STOP. The homework for this week is to do the mini "WE" booklet. Next week's words will be VERY and X-RAY. Elea, Hudson, Lily, Ethan and Evelyn were very proud of the "Piggy Pies" they made at home and shared photos of them. I love it when the children continue their learning outside the classroom! Mia made Piggy Pie in the sandbox :)

It's a very exciting time of the year as summer approaches (we've started our ice cream scoop countdown!) and we've been doing Cosmic Kids Yoga for about 15 minutes each day to help with self-regulation and also to keep cool in this warm weather.

Hope also found a special surprise in her morning snack and had to share it - her peas in the pod had germinated! We talked about this and compared the peas in another pod she had, and explained what happens in nature when peas are not harvested (they are seeds so they germinate and make new plants when they fall to the ground naturally).

That's the news for this week! Next week we will read and draw pictures to go with summer words, will learn songs and poems for the last Sharing Assembly, and the Seniors will start rehearsing for their graduation on the 27th. They'll also start Memory books and the Juniors will make a summer pattern book.

Enjoy this beautiful weather and Happy Father's Day!

Week of June 4-8

Dear families,

This week we did a Springfest Tally, acted out "The Three Billy Goats Gruff," continued our learning about Fairy Tales (Cinderella this week!) and started learning all about frogs.

We are learning Cinderella sight words, vocabulary, how to make Cinderella sentences, re-telling the story (different versions), and we did a count/trace/write the number word activity. Thank you Maya for bringing in a glass slipper, and thank you Rielle for sharing her Fairy Tales book! We'll do more literacy and numeracy Cinderella activities next week. We will also read The Frog Prince to tie in with our learning about frogs!

In our Frog inquiry, the children watched an excellent video called "Life Cycle of a Frog" two times and we talked about amphibians, metamorphosis, where frogs live on the Earth and the frog's life cycle. The children completed several activities following the video. They coloured in a map of the world and glued frogs wherever they live (everywhere except Antarctica just like owls!; they completed a frog life cycle reading comprehension activity; we learned a song called "Metamorphosis" and they children coloured a matching booklet; and they looked at a photo that Kate brought in of a tadpole with legs! Thank you Kate!

We also had fun reading Froggy books, starting with "Froggy Goes to School." They re-told the story and drew pictures with words to retell parts of the story. Then they made a "peek-a-boo" frog on top! Their work is on display in our classroom.

We also talked about the classic "Frog and Toad" stories (thank you, Hudson, for sharing your book!) and we watched a Frog and Toad episode. We'll read more stories next week and will also compare real frogs and real toads.

The homework for this week is to complete the "WANT" booklet and the "Chewy Addition" page. If necessary, the children can use small manipulatives such as pebbles or Smarties (!) to help them add.

With our Grade 3 Reading Buddies, the children made a beautiful Kandinsky-inspired tree.

Our words of the week were KITE and KITTEN.

We also read "Author's Family Vacation" and did a "Summer Bucket List" activity that is on display in the hall.

Thank you so much for the lovely Teacher Appreciation Lunch - it was wonderful!

Bubbles the classroom Beta Fish needs a home for the summer! He is very easy to take care of! If you would like to take care of Bubbles for the summer, please send me an email. Thank you!

Please return any outstanding Snuggle Up and Read Books. Today is the last day they are being handed out so that we can do inventory.

That's the news from Room 166! The PA Day is a Report Card writing day. Enjoy the long weekend!