Dance A Thon

On Tuesday, October 31st, we are having our Halloween Dance-a-thon.  Your child is welcome to dress up in their costume and come to school.  Please have them wear their costume to school as we will be the first group to dance from 9:30-10:05.  Please join us in the gym at that time if you can!  Please do not send accessory items with their costume (wands, masks, weapons etc) as they may get lost or broken.
Each child will be given a peanut free pumpkin shaped cookie.  These are the same cookies that come with the pizza lunches. 
We will be taking each child's picture, in their costume, so we can make a classroom Halloween book.

Food Drive

We are having a food drive at St. Andrew's!  Starting Monday October 30th and running until Friday November 3rd.  Please see the list for the most needed items.  Help us help those in need!  Thanks for your help.

Halloween Activity

We did this Halloween activity with the kids in order to see how well they listened and followed the step by step instructions (we read the instructions out of course). Part of being an effective communicator, which is an expectation in Kindergarten, is to be able to listen to others.  We were very impressed with how well the kids did with this activity.  We also had the kids cut out their pumpkin, which is a way for us to assess their cutting skills.

Apple Tasting

Yesterday we did some apple tasting in our class.  The kids tried red delicious, golden delicious and Granny Smith.  The votes are in and red delicious was the favourite!  Graphing questions help us to understand the concepts of most and least and encourages the kids to ask questions that can be answered through data collection and then represented using graphs.

Boo! It's Halloween!

Check out our scary monsters and haunted houses that the kids made using different shapes!

Tim Hortons

Double Double

Our drama centre is currently a Tim Hortons,  complete with a "Drive Thru"!  I am trying to post photos but there have been some technological difficulties.  Stay tuned!

Last week events and next week news

Fire Drills
We had two fire drills on Friday and we were so proud of our kids!  They lined up quietly, walked in single file and line up without talking outside.  They were awesome!  We are done our three drills for the fall, we will do three more in the spring.  We still will have to do a lockdown drill and a bomb threat drill this fall.  When we prepare for the lockdown we tell the kids that we do them in the event that an animal gets into the school.  We tell them we have to sit quietly in the class so that we don't scare the animal in the hall until the animal control people come rescue the animal.  We feel this is the best way to handle this type of drill with such young children.

Reading Buddies
Friday was the first time our Reading Buddies came to our class.  Our Reading Buddies are Mr. Hundt's grade 4 students.  Each of our kids is paired with a "big kid" for one on one reading.  The grade 4's love the sense of responsibility and leadership that comes with being a Buddy and our kids really look up to the "big kids".  Our buddies come every Friday in the afternoon for about 30 minutes.

Photos
Our school photo re-take day is October 24th.  If you want your child to have their picture re-taken, please send us a note.

Early Bird Draw for the Dance-a-thon
Friday October 20th is our early bird prize draw for those families that get their donation in by this Friday.  Please use the on-line donation button on the school website.
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Art in Kindergarten

We have an art station in our class where the children love to create.  Art in Kindergarten is not about the final product, it is all about the process of creating.  We want the children to make decisions about the materials they use and how they put them together to represent their artistic vision.  We value all children's work.  The above picture is a collaborative project by two SK girls.  They created a "Friendship Castle" from used cardboard.  So lovely!
Please help keep our art station supplied with any "beautiful junk" that you may have at home.  This includes things like cardboard rolls, yarn, material scraps, buttons, ribbons, anything that you don't know what to do with, but don't want to throw away.  We welcome your "junk".

Pizza and milk

The milk program starts this week if you ordered milk for your child.
The first pizza lunch is this Friday.  Please send in a reusable plate.

Family Tree
Don't forget to send us a family  photo for our tree!

Volunteers
If you would like to volunteer in the classroom, please send us a note letting us know your availability.   You can come every week, every month, once in a while...whatever suits you best!  All help is appreciated.   Just remember you must have a police check on file with the office.

Recent Books

Here are a couple social stories that we read last week.  Mine - o -saur was brought in by a student.  I love when we learn from each other!  This was not a story I was familiar with, so I was very excited to read it.  It was about a dinosaur who did not want to share, and eventually he realizes that no one wants to play with him because he won't share.  In the end he decides that sharing is awesome!

"Don't Squeal unless it is a Big Deal" is a story we read each year to help the children learn the difference between coming to the teachers to get "someone in trouble" and coming to the teachers to get someone "out of trouble".  Peer conflict is a normal part of growing up and we are teaching the children skills to help them problem solve when conflicts arise.  We tell them to use their "I statements", if someone does something they don't like (takes a toy, says something mean) for example, " I don't like it when you always decide to be the mom, you should give someone else a turn".  We talk about what a big deal is, someone is hurting you or won't listen after you have told them to stop.  It is important for children to learn to be assertive and stand up for themselves, and not always look to an adult to solve their problems.  It helps build their confidence and resiliency.

Leaf Animals

Have a look at some of the leaf animals that our kids created with some loose materials.  We love to encourage creativity and experimenting with different materials.

October Reading

 Today in your child's mailbag is a reading log for the month of October.   Please read a book each night and record the title on the log.  The log can be returned November 1, in order for your child to receive a special certificate of participation.  We will be starting the Snuggle Up and Read program with the SK's in November and with the JK's in January.