Week of September 26-30

Dear families,

I hope you are having a nice weekend.

This week we completed our inquiry on Primary Colours and colour mixing. We mixed colours with various media, including paint, water colour pencils and bingo dabbers. The children completed a colour wheel, tracing over the words and colouring appropriately. We watched a video of Peep and the Big Wide World on Colour Mixing, Ms. Santiago made play dough of different colours with the children.

We also completed our Author Study of James Dean and his Pete the Cat books. The children each got 4 "Groovy" buttons like Pete the Cat and we talked about adding and subtracting them. We made a graph about them together, they drew them freehand, and then coloured 4 buttons on a work sheet and wrote about them: "My Groovy Buttons are..."

The Popcorn Words (sight words) of the week were LIKE and MY. Please put them in your child's Bedtime Book Box for practice at home.

It was a week of "firsts" for the Juniors: first photo day, first pizza lunch, first Sharing Assembly, first Reading Buddies! We had fun meeting our Grade 4 Reading Buddies and reading and colouring a Pete the Cat booklet together.

The Grade 8 LIVE program is up and running as well; each morning two students read leveled readers one-on-one with two children in the hall for about 20 minutes.

The homework for this week is to complete the "I Can..." sheet, writing the word "I" in various patterned sentences.

Thank you so much to Hannah who collated and stamped this month's Scholastic order forms. They are due on October 17th. Thank you as well to Alexandra's dad who was our Mystery Reader. Ruby brought in her own copies of Pete the Cat books, too, and read to her friends. Thank you, Ruby!

This week we also did some Cosmic Yoga, which the children really enjoyed. It's a great website for kids, teaching them about Mindfulness, Relaxation and Self-Regulation.

We had fun coming up with "B" words and beginning sounds this week, with a definite Blue Jay theme :) Ball, bunt; bat, batter, blue, baseball, and lots more!

We have reached the end of September and the end of each month the children complete a "This is me in [month]" and they fill in a calendar with numbers. These are used to track progress and a copy is sent home. I keep the original for Parent-Teacher interviews.

Our very first Sharing Assembly of the year went well. The children sang "There's No One Else Like Me," and Alex, Phoebe and Rielle received certificated for Respect. Well done!

The new October word list and October Bingo Calendar was sent home in Friday's mail bag. Please put the word list on the fridge or your child's Bedtime Book box. When they can read a word (alone or using the picture), they colour it in!

We have a few more things to do before the "Pete the Cat Loves Colours" folder goes home in Thursday's mail bag.

On Friday it is a PA day. The Kindergarten Team will be reviewing and discussing the Kindergarten Curriculum document. Monday is Thanksgiving, and this upcoming week we will be focused on this special day when we remind ourselves to be thankful. Look for some Fall-themed and Thanksgiving art and work in this week's mail bag!

That's the news for this week - I hope you enjoy the rest of the weekend. I also hope the Blue Jays win tonight! :)

Mrs. Tyndall