Category: Social and Emotional

Dazzling December

Dear Families,

We enjoyed the amazing performances at last week’s Winter Concert! It was wonderful to see so many families join us for this event. The kindergartners did a fabulous job singing and dancing with instruments! And thanks to Ms. Vaesen for coordinating everything.

We had a fun few weeks of Christmas events, songs, stories, and art projects. From Twin Day to PJ Day, door decorating, ornament-making, and Santa visiting our classroom after pancake breakfast, we have not had a dull moment! We hope you enjoyed your Christmas presents from the children.

Happy Holidays to you and your family! Wishing you and your family a restful and joyous season. We will see you in the New Year on January 8th!

Happy Diwali

 

Diwali is also known as the Festival of Lights! We learned Diwali is India’s biggest holiday of the year! Diwali is a 5 day celebration.  People decorate their homes and meals are shared with families and friends.  They also celebrate with fireworks and gifts are given to children.

 

Diyas are small type of lamp or candle holders lit on Diwali.

A Fa-BOO-lous Halloween

Division 12 had an eventful Halloween!  We had princesses, superheroes, video game characters, scary witches, vampires, black cats, a giraffe and even a Starbucks mocha frappuccino, enter our classroom!

 

We created some fabulous art, including these friendly zooming ghosts!

 

Every year, we look forward to the creative and humorous jack-o-lanterns that are created by students and their families. They were on display outside the front entrance of the school.  During our afternoon parade, we had a chance to walk by and view them.

 

We read a funny book called, Room on the Broom.  We then watched the Knowledge Kids’ movie with Ms. Gourlay’s class. We noticed and compared the similarities and differences between the book and the movie, and noticed many interesting elements that were added to the film-version.

The school-wide parade was fun and exciting! We ended in the gym for a dance and sing-a-long.  It was a fa-BOO-lous and spooky day with many treats!

 

Making connections; ask your child:

What was a favorite costume that you saw and liked?

What is your favorite thing about Halloween?

Orange Shirt Day

 

On Orange Shirt Day, we learned it is a day to honour children that have survived residential schools, and to remember the lives that were lost. Our class read a story called “I Hope”, which captures the adults’ hope for children.  After the story, we brainstormed “words of hope” that will make all children feel safe and respected in our school community.  We then created stitched hearts to honour the hearts of all children, especially the Indigenous children and families.

Welcome to Division 12!

We had a wonderful start to the school year!  September was full of school events. In our classroom, we read stories and played games. We are learning how to write our names “the kindergarten way,” starting with an upper case letter followed by lower case letters.  We are learning routines and school procedures, and most importantly, we are having fun!

Rainbows

In response to the book Ms. Lai read to the class, Share Your Rainbow, we created our own rainbows with crepe paper and used cotton for the clouds. The future is looking bright with these rainbows!

 

Be You!

Inspired by Peter Reynolds’ book, Be You!, we celebrated the importance of being unique and true to yourself. In our class discussion, there were some statements that stood out more than others. Many students liked, “Be your own thinker!” “Be okay reaching out for help,” is one that many of us adults have a hard time with. We also really liked, “Be connected,” and “Be kind,” and some students thought they were good statements in a pandemic.

We shared the connections we made to some of these statements.

“I felt brave when I jumped off a diving board into a pool.”

“I was being curious when I went for a nature walk.”

“My mom was patient when she was waiting a looooong time for me.”

hallway bulletin board
Our hallway bulletin board

Please login to your child’s blogfolio to view their response to this book. Students were asked to choose a statement that stood out for them.