Week of December3-6

Dear families,

What an exciting time of year this is for the children! The children has been busy practising their songs for the upcoming Holiday Concert on December 18 at 9:00 a.m. (in the gym). We hope to see you there!

Alfie, our class Elf on the Shelf, came to our classroom again this year, and is sitting quietly atop our globe, where the North Pole and Santa's Workshop is. We are also counting down the days until December 25 with our classroom beads, just like the children are doing at home.

Here is what we did this week:

Literacy:

The words of the week were HAVE and SAW. The letter sound of the week was Gg. The children continued their unit on pirates, and made a little booklet writing "Pirates are..." with a drawing. The SKs also wrote and drew "If I were a Pirate..." and all the children are completing a speech bubble to go with their telescopes (thank you for the paper towel tubes!): "With my telescope I can see...." This speech bubble will go on their pirate glyphs. With their reading buddies, they wrote a letter to Santa, which we mailed in the North Pole Mailbox in the office. The SKs are also doing a fill-in-the-blank activity with a Santa poem.

Numeracy:

The children counted pirate "gold and silver" (gold and silver painted stones), making piles of 5 and 10, rolling the dice to match the pirate gold with the number on the dice, and sorting the gold and silver.


Dramatic Play:

The children are loving our pirate treasure chest and costumes! They read pirate books while dressed up at the centre and are having a lot of fun playing make-believe. We also have a "Santa Centre" with ornaments and decorations that the kids are enjoying playing with.

Science:


We "turned pirate pennies into gold" in class! First, we hypothesized which of the following solutions would make a brown penny shiny: water, soapy water, vinegar, salt water, hand sanitizer, or salt and vinegar. Most of the children guessed soapy water. Then we did the experiment and learned that vinegar is a mild acid, and salt is mildly corrosive, so that solution quickly removed the tarnish. Salt water and vinegar alone worked a little bit, but much more slowly that the salt and vinegar solution. I will send home the steps to this experiment so the kids can do this at home if you wish! They could turn loonies into "gold" with the solution, too, if you don't have pennies.

In Music:

The children are learning their holiday concert songs. I've sent home a copy of them so your child can practise at home.

Arts and Crafts:

The children made a telescope with their paper towel tube, and will be writing "With my telescope I can see..." They also made pirate eye patches to wear (Mrs. Mosun measured each of their heads to make sure it would fit - we'll do a lot more on MEASUREMENT after the holidays), and, with their Reading Buddies, the children followed the steps to fold a large piece of paper and make a pirate hat. All of these pirate-themed activities and all the children's work will go home in a folder they are making, once we've learned all there is to learn about pirates!

Thank you so much to Hope's mom who was our Mystery Reeader this week!

If you have any old Christmas cards, kindly cut/rip them so that the personal message stays with you, and send in the blank remaining part with the picture. We'll turn our "Home Centre" into Santa's workshop and the kids can write Christmas Cards to each other.

If anyone would like to "fish sit" Bubbles, our class Beta Fish over the holidays, please send me an email. He is very easy to take care of!
Thank you!

To reward LKS for surpassing the Terry Fox fundraising goal, each class in the school is allowed to watch a movie. I was thinking that our little ones would enjoy "The Polar Express" which is a wonderful book and movie, but I can't find my copy. If anyone has a copy, kindly send it in for us to borrow. Otherwise, we can watch the classic "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" 1960s animated film and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

Here is a list of two things the children wished from Santa, according to the letter they mailed to the North Pole:

JUNIORS:
Seth - big toy train, 2 toy robots (one red, one blue)
Arlo - remote control car, batman track
Emerson - Paw Patrol, book
Reina - "Pamsey" and "Poopsie" Surprise
Edward - two trucks
Emma - whale Playmobile, LOL house
Olivia - Barbie doll, toy train
Sophie - "Chimerang" shine dolls, My Little Pony barn
Estella- on holiday
Simone - on holiday
Elise - real kitchen, toy school
Ella - Ana dress and boots (from "Frozen" movie)
Yilin - toy Santa, GAP shirt


SENIORS:
Christopher - Lego set, stuffy
Evelyn - Elf on the Shelf, LOL doll
Dante - Scheherazade card, Pokémon book
Rajan - Lego book, "Fortnite" game
Ayla - stuffy, princess costume
Monty - lock-picking set, Harry Potter Lego
Abigail - toy camera, mini trampoline
Casey - "something that shoots cars out" (Hot Wheels?)
Mila - stroller, crystals
Shayan - stuffy, candy
Anilee - toy, markers
Hope - nerf gun, candy
Diesel - Lego set, toy robot
Everleigh - American doll, water doggy
Kipling - Transformer, pet chameleon


I hope you have a wonderful weekend!