April blizzards bring May flowers?

Hi Parents!

No, that doesn't sound right. We really shouldn't be getting all this snow but I do see some green grass peeking underneath! There is light at the end of this tunnel!

Because of the weather last week, the Walk and Run was cancelled and moved to THIS WEEK! I will be out at the track handing out popsicle sticks and would LOVE to see some Kindergarten kids out running/walking the track :)

Raymond Elementary School

2013 Walk & Run

Why?

·      To encourage kids to be active outside of school!

·      Encourage families and our community to be active together.

·      Build school spirit by providing a school-wide activity that everyone can participate in.

When?

·      Monday, April 22nd to Thursday, April 25th

·      Start time will be 8:00 and end time 8:15 (both sharp)

Who?

·      Parents are encouraged to accompany their own children to get them involved.

·      EVERYONE can earn Popsicle sticks to put towards the school goal!

Prizes:

·      Our goal, as a school, is to run 2000 laps! That’s over 2000 kilometers (like running from Raymond to Red Deer and BACK)! If we achieve our goal, each class will get a Popsicle party!

"My dog is nocturnal. He is always asleep in the day!"

Hi Parents,

This was a hard comment to rebuttal - I have two dogs of my own and they seem to always be sleeping! But, this week we will be talking about nocturnal animals and hopefully together (as a class) we will learn why a dog is not considered a nocturnal animal and a wolf is! Other animals that were brought up in today's discussion were: meercats, raccoons, owls, and koala bears. Later this week will will be making a chart and compare animals that are considered nocturnal and animals that are not.

Previous to the Easter break we were talking about tame animals and quite a few students were asking if they could bring their pets to the school to show the class. I told them today that, on a nice day, they can have their pet brought to school (but the pet must be left outside due to allergies)! This needs to be arranged with me a day before the visit so I can plan for it in our schedule :)

This week is bringing a new theme and also bringing a new subject! Since we have gone through the entire alphabet, we are going to start applying what we learned by writing in journals.  I really want to establish a safe environment were the kiddos can grow in confidence in their ability to write words/stories. I will not be correcting them much on what or how they write (especially at this point). When you see the work that gets brought home, it may be helpful to know my expectations for their writing: I am encouraging the kids to explore sounds and write the sounds that they hear in the words of their story. So, the students will be writing phonetically in their journals (for example, writing cat could be written k-a-t, or turtle could be written t-r-t-l) and this is totally correct! I am excited to start this journey with them :)

I hope that you had a great week off of school - I've heard a lot of exciting stories of things that happened over the break... now you have a week to recover!

-- Mrs. B

"I just had a BIG idea!"

Hi Parents,

First I must sincerely apologize for not writing in my blog since the beginning of JANUARY! We've been doing SO MUCH in class, so to cover the last month I am simply going to post a bunch of pictures (with captions) so you can have a glimpse of all the things we've done in the past few weeks :)

Back in January...

Travelling on our road maps!

We made helicopters - watch them fly!

Project based on the story "Papa, Please get the moon for me", by Eric Carle

We love our time with our book buddies!

This month!

We have had a lot of fun talking about dinosaurs this month. We found a book that had pictures of things in their actual size! We decided to see how many teeth would fit in a T-Rex mouth (cut to actual size, of course!). After we made the teeth, we fit them all in the mouth and made counting easier by grouping the teeth into groups of ten! We had between 120 and 150 teeth! 

Whew! There we go... a quick travel through January and some of February. My apologies again for not getting these done! Enjoy!

-- Christine B 

Ways to get there...

Hi Parents,

There are many ways that people get to places: cars, vans, trucks, jets (a class favourite), boats, etc. This week (and for a week or so to come) we are going to talk about different modes of transportation! We are still carrying on the theme of "Saving the Earth", so how can we get to school and, at the same time, help keep the earth clean?

To start off the new theme, we had a class project and created our very own car mats - so much fun and the classroom smelled delicious (we always enjoy using the smelly markers!)

We also talked about the details you see when you are driving on a road - things such as trees, houses, dogs in doghouses and wheat fields. Such creative minds!!

To have even more fun with this project, we would like to play on the car mats with cars! Please bring a car (or two to share) on Wednesday so we can play on the car mats and drive through our own town.

It was a wonderful day - the kiddos fell back into the kindergarten routine with ease and were all eager to learn! What a great start to 2013 :)

-- Christine B

Merry Christmas!

Hi Parents,

Time seemed to speed up even more this week... it is now Friday and the beginning of the Christmas Holidays!


On Wednesday we had our Christmas party. After a trip on the Snowflake Express (Lori the Conductor sure took us on a crazy ride to the North Pole!) we were excited to find some bells hidden under our chairs! Like Mrs. Demas said last week when she told us the magical story of the Polar Express, if we can hear the bell ring it means we believe in the magic of Christmas! A little boy during the excitement kept shaking his bell exclaiming: "I believe in Christmas! I can hear the bell!"

The kiddos did such an AMAZING job at the Christmas concert yesterday! If you happened to get a couple pictures of the whole group, would you mind sending them to me? I would love to post some on my bulletin board.

Today we ended our week by making some Christmas wreaths with our book buddies. The whole project took about an hour and we had a blast! We always have a great time with our book buddies :)

I hope that you have a wonderful Christmas holiday. Thank you for all the thoughtful cards+gifts - I am truly spoiled! It has been an excellent 2012 :)

- Christine B

Daily 5 Update :)

Hello Parents,

A couple months ago I talked to you all about Daily 5, a new centres-based literacy program.
The Daily 5 is a structured language arts program that helps students develop the daily habits of reading, writing, and working with peers that will lead to a lifetime of independent literacy.  Students will participate in one of the five activities every day:  Read to Self, Read with Someone (teacher, peer, parent, Grade 4 book buddy, etc.), Listen to Reading, Word Work and Work on Writing.

Here are some pictures to give you a glimpse of all the activities we've been doing during Daily 5:

Daily 5 not only gives the kiddos a chance to explore literacy (in terms of letters, sight words, and reading books) but it also gives the teachers a chance to work with smaller groups for interventions and more phonographics work! It has been going so well - thank you for your support and help with this new program!

(And a big thank you to Mrs. Peek for such a wonderful description of Daily 5 for kindergarten!)

-- Christine B

Jack and Jill went up the hill to...

"... slide back down!"
"... go to the wishing well."
"... run around. That's what I sometimes do."

Hello Parents!

The theme that we are talking with the kiddos about is... you guessed it! Nursery Rhymes :)  We've been having a lot of fun exploring different Nursery Rhymes and making our own rhymes.

Last week, we estimated how many cups would fill a pail. We had estimations ranging from 6 to 127! We also recorded our results by tallying up the cups on the white board. The results ranged from 20 to 22 cups to fill up the pails of water... that would have been 20 to 22 trips up and down the hill for Jack and Jill!







We are having a lot of fun talking about rhymes... try playing a rhyming game with your child this week!

-- Christine B.