September update

Chers parents,

Bonjour!  I would like to thank you all, parents and students for a great start to the school year.  I am happy to say that we have all our consent forms in and our kids are always ready and happy to start our day at school.  Thank you also for your understanding with my absence at Meet the Staff and enjoyed touching base with you on the phone and for the messages.  I look forward to working with you all.  I would like to give you some dates to help us with some upcoming events:

EVERY Tuesday we will be exchanging library books.  That is tomorrow.  Please send your child’s library book in the plastic book bag and we will get the books out that day.  I already had some books handed in this morning and that is great.

Thursday, September 29^th it will be Terry Fox Run day.  (It is also red day for our class—la couleur rouge. I will explain that below*)We will be learning a bit about who Terry Fox was and we will be raising funds for cancer research.  In the past few years we have had stickers that say: I am running for_____________.  If you have someone affected by cancer and wish to explain that a bit to your child you can do that prior to that day.  We will run in our field back and forth for a specific time. 

*Because we our learning colours in French will be starting to wear specific colour on colour days as well.  I thought that on that Thursday Sept 29^th we could all wear red to remind us of how Terry sought to run across Canada. We can show our pride in what he accomplished and the amazing fundraising that has continued because of what he did over 35 years ago.

Friday, September 30^th we will be wearing orange and walking to the Oskayak Pow Wow. This is a day of remembrance.  Phyllis Webstad, (also from B.C. like Terry Fox), is the reason for wearing orange.  Phyllis, a First Nations girl, was taken from her family at 6 years old to go to residential school.  She wore a special new shirt—orange for her first day.   That shirt was taken from her and she was given a uniform to wear.  Much more was stripped from First Nations children in our Canadian history and we will remember what they went through and honour their experiences on that day.

Here are some links:

http://www.terryfox.org/

http://www.ictinc.ca/blog/what-is-orange-shirt-day

Please add these dates to your September calendar!

We have been learning many expressions and songs.  We are learning all about me—“C’est moi!” and sharing special days.  We have been learning letters and numbers, directions and body parts in French. 

We are also learning about zones of regulation and being in the green zone and about filling buckets. Here are some links:

http://www.zonesofregulation.com/index.html

http://www.bucketfillers101.com/have-you-filled-a-bucket-today.php

 

Merci!  We look forward to more learning and fun together à la maternelle!

Mme Jennifer Wallace

First newsletter

September 2, 2016

Chers parents,

Bonjour et bienvenue à la maternelle! Welcome to kindergarten! This is an exciting time for kindergarten students and their families. I look forward to getting to know you and your children better. Let me introduce myself.

My name is Jennifer Wallace. I first came to École Victoria at the beginning of January 2009; I previously taught French Immersion Kindergarten, arts education, and grades 7/8 at École Rivers Heights School from 2000-2007. I am very pleased to be working in this community and I have two children who are also attending here.  We have wonderful staff and students at École Victoria and I am glad that I am a part of this school.   I am excited about starting this year.

I hope you will find the following information about classroom procedures helpful:

BELONGINGS: Please label all your child's belongings that come to school including sweaters, hats, mitts, jackets, knapsacks and especially runners and boots.  Please send shoes that have velcro rather than lace-ups.  This makes getting in and out for recess much easier.  Please send a set of extra clothes: shirt, pants, underwear and socks labeled in a bag to be left in your child’s locker. *A couple of items were omitted from our supply list in the welcome booklet: a box of 24 crayons and a box of tissues/Kleenex.  Please forgive the oversight.

 ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE: If you are dropping off or picking up your child, please use the front entrance. If you arrive early for the start of class the expectation is for students to wait outside on the supervised playground until the bell has gone. I cannot supervise your child before school hours as I have to prepare for the day.

If your child takes the bus, please remember to contact your child's bus driver if he or she does not need transportation on a certain day. We will be sure that all bus students are safely on the bus at the end of the kindergarten day. Please let me know in a note as well if there are changes.

ABSENCES: If your child will not be attending school or if there is any change in the normal routine, please call the school to let us know.

BIRTHDAYS: If your child is having a birthday and you wish to send a snack for the class, please let me know in advance. Children with summer birthdays may wish to celebrate their "half birthday" (i.e. July 16th= January 16th). Please send a note in advance so that time can be set aside on that day. *It is very important to let me know if your child has allergies so that others parents and teachers can be made aware of this. Please do not send snacks or treats containing nuts or nut products.*

SNACKS: Your child should bring a small nutritious snack to school. Some suggestions include apple slices (half is usually plenty) or other fruit, a piece of cheese, crackers, carrot sticks, raisins, an oatmeal cookie, granola bar or a small muffin. For drinks, please send water bottles.  If you wish to send juice, please use a reusable Rubbermaid drink box or other similar spill-proof drink box.

 

 

 

COMMUNICATION: Your child’s two-pocket folder or “dossier” which will be used as the primary method of communication between home and school. A plastic pocket folder often works best for this as it lasts longer but a regular folder is fine. Please check your child's dossier each day and remove everything from the pocket. For example, a t-shirt letter will be sent home with this letter to indicate your child's upcoming special day. If you wish to return forms or send a note/letter for our attention, please place them in the pocket. Please return the dossier to your child's backpack each day. I can also be contacted by e-mail: wallacej@spsd.sk.ca  I also have a classroom blog: http://lamagiedelamaternelle2.blogspot.ca

At the beginning of each month your child will receive a class calendar and newsletter. If you have any questions or concerns, please call the school (306-683-7470). If I am not available at the time of your call, you can email me at the address above. Good communication from home and school is an essential part of any successful classroom!

PARENT VOLUNTEERS: I always welcome parent involvement. Volunteers are especially needed on out of school excursions.   Please complete a police record check; forms are available at the front office.  I will inform parents as soon as possible of outings.  If you have a project, cultural experience, a special talent or a story, please feel free to come and share that with our kindergarten class.  I am also looking for a parent to act as room parent for our Home and School Association. Please let me know if you are interested in this position.

LITERACY FOR LIFE: We have received extensive training for our Literacy for Life initiative. This includes a program called PWIM (Picture Word Inductive Model) or MIMI (Méthode Inductive de Mots Illustrés). MIMI and phonics strategies are integrated into our program in learning the alphabet and learning to read. In addition to MIMI, I encourage students to read at home, (or be read to) on a daily basis. In kindergarten, a child reads a book in his or her own way (by memory, inventive storytelling, along with pictures.) I encourage parents to try reading with your child for 20 minutes at home each day.

MEET THE TEACHER NIGHT:  Wednesday September 14^th *is our —Welcome Back—Meet the Staff Evening.  I am truly looking forward to greeting you on this evening.  Please have your son or daughter introduce you if they haven’t already done so! 

 

THIS MONTH the two themes we will focus on are: C’est moi! (All About Me) and Les couleurs (Colours).  On the calendar is your child’s special day—on which he or she can bring a baby photo.  For the colour days children can wear the designated colour on that day.  Thank you and I look forward to the days ahead! We are looking forward to seeing all our kindergarten students again on September the 9^th.  Bonne Rentrée!

Sincèrement,
Votre enseignante de la maternelle,    Mme Jennifer Wallace

May Newsletter

Please remember there is no school tomorrow!  I hope you have a great long weekend. 

Here are some news and notes:

Le 28 avril 2016

Chers parents,

We are looking forward to the month of May as we look back on some wonderful activities we did in April.  We had a great restaurant simulation this week with our care partners.  The kindergarten students did quite well ordering food in French and being customers as our care partner class served and welcomed us to the restaurant.   We also enjoyed an artist workshop that spanned two sessions with local artists and personal friends, Phil Rivard and Marlys Vango Rivard.   We painted still life bowls of fruit and learned about shadows and light, composition, realism, abstract, impressionism, (even a nod to Fauvism).  The finished products are on display in the glass cases in the LRC.  It was a great experience.  This past month we were able to take home some homemade cardboard pizzas and learned about toppings and fractions while doing so.  A big thanks to Little Ceasar’s in Stonebridge for the donation of boxes to make the craft complete!  We enjoyed learning and singing “Je suis une pizza” as part of that.   April 22^nd was Earth Day.  We watched the original video narration of The Lorax and on Earth Day we participated in cleaning up some of the school yard with Mme McCrea’s class.  It was so good to see our class eager to help out and contribute to making our school yard better.

We will be enjoying a few upcoming special events.  Tuesday May 3^rd we will be going to The Roxy Theatre for a film entitled “Le Manoir Magique.”  We will be leaving at 9:00am and returning after 11:00am.  The following day we will be having our Mother’s Day Tea, Wednesday May 4^th at 9am-9:45 in the LRC.  The students have been working very hard on their gifts as well as practicing for the short performance we will be giving.  We will have more field trips and special events in June as well that I will let you know about. 

For your child’s special day this month we will share about an activity we love to do with mom, auntie or grandma.  Please remember that this is not a time to bring toys but rather a chance for our class to get to know each student better through some questions and answers. 

A newsletter went home today about an occurrence of lice; to help prevent the spread we will not be using the dress up clothes in the classroom for the time being.  Hopefully this will help.  I would like to remind parents and students while all the road work is being done to please use the crosswalks when picking up and dropping off students, rather than crossing in the middle of the street.  As I have been on bus supervision I have seen some close calls and it has been quite worrisome.  Hopefully as a kindergarten class, we as students and parents can set an example for the rest of the school.  Thank you for your help in this. 

Merci,

Mme Jennifer Wallace

Chers parents,

We have a wonderful month of activities ahead.  Please check your calendars that were sent home.  For your child's special day he or she can talk about a favourite springtime activity. We are continuing our unit on food and nutrition.  Today we explored the effects of vinegar (which contains acid) on an eggshell.  It was great to see the reactions of the children to what happened with the egg in the course of one day.  We recently worked on a placemat for our restaurant simulation.  We will be working on putting words on the foods the children want to order.  On the 23^rd we will have our restaurant experience.  The kindergarten class will be the customers and our care-partners will be the restaurant workers.  We will be eating a shared snacked of a party mix and have juice boxes for a drink.  Tomorrow we are looking forward to baking cookies.  We will have some as a snack as well. Thank you to our two parent volunteers, Robina Hanif and Dawn Martens-Koop for helping with this endeavour.  We will also be going to Extra Foods for a tour next week Wednesday.  Thank you to Dawn and Robina for volunteering for this as well.  There is room for more if you would like to join us.  Next week we have some guest artists who will help us as we have an artist workshop doing still life paintings of a bowl of fruit.

Every year I have done a Mother’s Day/Spring Tea in honour of Mother’s Day and a Dad’s Day/ Play Day in honour of Father’s Day.  The Mother’s Day tea will take place Friday May 6^th at 9am-10:30 in the LRC.  If you are unable to attend this event and can send another special adult in your stead (a dad, grandparent or that would be great).  It is a special time that we like to share with the children and the adults.  For the play day if you are unable to attend another adult is also welcome to join.  The Dad’s Day/Play Day takes place in the gym in June (also from 9am-10:30am) when the rest of the school is at a swimming pool.  I will let you the date as soon as that is known.

We will have more field trips in May and June as well that I will let you know about.  It is exciting to take part in these activities!

We have been having great sharing times that include experiences that students have had with Solange and Simon.  Thank you for taking this on.  The children have been really enjoying their time with the monkeys.

We are looking forward to more spring fun!

Merci,

Mme Jennifer Wallace

Les pyjamas et Crayons et Croissants~Whole School Pajama Day and Crayons and Croissants

Tomorrow is Pajama day for the entire school and Crayons and Croissants before the start of school at 8:15 in the LRC.  We look forward to some great participation! 

Thank you for the wonderful participation in PINK Day/ Anti-Bullying Day.  We also got to enjoy a great concert from the "Blues in School" program.  The kids were a great audience.

Also thank you for the work and participation that went into our 100 days of school celebration.  We had some wonderful projects that the students shared.  We also enjoyed a very fun snack and worked with our care-partners to make some fruit loop necklaces--that may or may not have made it home!    I greatly appreciated help from Dawn and Robina in this endeavour.

Mille Mercis!

Mme Wallace

Bravo!

Félicitations!  Bravo!  I am so proud of our kindergarten students and their performance today.  They did very well.  Thank you to all those who were able to attend and show support.  It is clear that our students have learned a lot; their voices carried very well and they knew their words well. 

Today we distributed Valentine’s cards in our community with our care-partners.  It was a great day.

Tomorrow is our last day before the Winter Break. We will be doing a Valentine craft with our care-partners and we will exchange Valentine’s cards with classmates.   Please refer to the list I sent in a previous email for names.

Thank you for all your support for this class and the learning we are doing!  I hope you all have a great  holiday!

Joyeuse Saint Valentin et Jour de famille!

 

MERCI!

Mme Jennifer Wallace

Happy Chinese New Year!

Chers parents,

Happy Chinese New Year!  We had a great visit from our class monkey Simon le singe this morning to celebrate the year of the monkey.  He was our special friend.  He shared about his friend the snowy owl and the kids asked some good questions.

I want to send a couple of reminders before the break:

February 11th we are having our Kindergarten Winter Assembly at 9:00am in the gym.  It is also pajama day!  The kids are welcome to wear their pajamas to the assembly to be in the spirit of the day.

February 12th the children can exchange Valentine's Day cards and we will be having a visit with our cali-partnenaires.

Feb. 15-19th Winter Break

Feb. 22 Welcome Back
Feb. 23rd We will be celebrating 100 days of school.  Please remember to send along the 100 days project and a 100 days snack in a baggie.  Ideas for a project can be found on-line if you are needing help with brainstorming.  It can be simple and fun: buttons, ribbons, bottle caps, beads...

MERCI!

Mme Jennifer Wallace