November post 1

Hello everyone

Did anyone happen to find a pink costume slipper in their large TDSB bags today? If you did, it belongs to Samantha Gupta and is part of her Hallowe’en costume.

Thank you very much to everyone who helped with the Hallowe’en Party and Parade this morning! The weather cooperated and I think the children had a fun and exciting time. A special thank you to Lisa Rankin, Vicky Giancos, Julia Fuller, and Anouchka Freybe for their help with the party and to all those parents who brought loot bags and food items for our party. Lucky children! Thank you as well to Josie Leal who did the TDSB and snuggle book bags this week.

Next week we will be continuing with our phonics booklets and doing the “a” sound. We will also be carving our pumpkin (the large “Mr. Pumpkinhead” pumpkin in the classroom), weighing it, counting the seeds and ribs, measuring the height and circumference, and charting our results. We will also be continuing our patterning and sequencing practice and continuing with assessment (numbers, letters and sounds) in preparation for report cards (SK only first term). Our songs will be Phonics based as we continue the Jolly Phonics Program (see below). The Kindergarten teachers all do one sound a week. We appreciate that some children are just learning their ABCs and 123s and others are reading at advanced levels and continue to encourage you to read daily with your children have them read to you if possible. The children are almost finished their “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” booklets and will bring those home next week. Next week they will also bring home any Hallowe’en painting/clay crafts that have dried over the weekend.

Have a wonderful and safe Hallowe’en and weekend,

Beverley

JOLLY PHONICS:
In Jolly Phonics the 42 main sounds of English are taught, not just the alphabet. The sounds are in seven groups. Some sounds are written with two letters, such as ee and or. For example, oo and th can each make two different sounds, as in book and moon, that and three. To distinguish between the two sounds, these digraphs are represented in two forms. This is shown below.

Each sound has an action which helps children remember the letter(s) that represent it. As a child progresses you can point to the letters and see how quickly they can do the action and say the sound. As a child becomes more confident, the actions are no longer necessary.
Children learn each letter by its sound, not its name. For instance, the letter a should be called a (as in ant) not ai (as in aim). Similarly, the letter n should be nn (as in net), not en. This will help in blending. The names of each letter can follow later.
The letters have not been introduced in alphabetical order. The first group (s, a, t, i, p, n) has been chosen because they make more simple three-letter words than any other six letters. The letters b and d are introduced in different groups to avoid confusion.
Sounds that have more than one way of being written are initially taught in one form only. For example, the sound ai (rain) is taught first, and then the alternatives a-e (gate) and ay (day) follow later.

I hope this helps you understand the program. B.