March 23 - Important Updates - Please Read!

First and foremost, Mrs. T, Mme Vida and I hope that you and your family are safe and healthy. We miss our students and look forward to being back together again! Please tell your child that we say hello and would love to see pictures of what they are up to (playing outside, helping set the table, making creations, practicing printing etc). Feel free to send me an email with a picture to andrea.rocco@ocsb.ca .

A special thank you to many of you who are or who have someone in your family who is in the healthcare profession, is a public servant, is in the service industry etc. and are putting themselves at risk to care for and help others. We are truly blessed to be part of such a wonderful school community.

For the first few weeks of school closure the Ontario Ministry of Education has created a website to support students and parents. Follow the link for resources:

https://www.ontario.ca/page/learn-at-home


The Ministry of Education will release phase two of Learn at Home if it becomes necessary to keep schools closed beyond April 6.

In the meantime, please visit our classroom blog http://roccokinder.blogspot.com/ as we pass along more ideas for activities you can do with your child during this time.


Although we have reached out with some learning ideas (see below), please remember that the first priority during these stressful times is you, your health and that of your family. We encourage you to take the time to do things that lend to your well-being.

A suggestion of things to work on:

Language:

• Simple rhyming using word families (at, it, op, and, og”) They can sing our rhyming song: Eg: “Cat and bat are rhyming words, are rhyming words, are rhyming words. Cat and bat are rhyming words. Their endings sound the same.”
• Practice letter recognition and letter sounds. You can listen to Jolly Phonics A-Z or the Phonics Song (Kidstv123). You will find these on Youtube as well as many great songs..
• Review the word wall words we have learned so far. (you can go back to the old blog posts and review the words and letters).
• Keep a daily journal where your child writes one thing about their day. Let them sound it out using phonetic spelling.
• Scholastic Learn at Home: https://classroommagazines.scholastic.com/support/learnathome.html
• Raz Kids - https://www.raz-kids.com/ Login information and passwords were sent home in the Fall.
• Abcya.com https://www.abcya.com/
• Storybots.com or watch the videos of each letter of the alphabet on youtube : ie: storybots letter A. The kids love these videos. They are informative and entertaining! https://www.storybots.com/
• ABC Mouse on youtube - their videos on each letter of the alphabet are amazing and the kids love them!
• Storyline Online is a great website where actors read children’s stories online. The kids love watching and listening to them. https://www.storylineonline.net/
• https://www.tumblebooks.com/
• https://www.getepic.com/
• Snuggle up and read together for 10 minutes daily. Enjoy the snuggles! For the sk students, you can follow the same format as our Snuggle Program. Jk students can talk about what was read, their favourite part of the story, etc.
• Encourage the kids to use their creativity and make masterpieces with boxes, toilet paper rolls etc. This is endless fun for them! When they are done, ask them to write one simple sentence about their creation. Let them sound it out independently.

Math:

• Kid Food Nation - https://kidfoodnation.ytv.com/ A website with recipes, games and activities about nutrition.
• Dreambox (90 day free trial)
• Mathletics
• http://www.mathscore.com/
• http://bedtimemath.org/
• https://mashupmath.com/free-math-worksheets
• https://www.worksheetfun.com/
• Make and find simple patterns in the house or outdoors
• Practice composing and decomposing numbers to 10. (3 + 2 = ?) Ask if it can be shared equally (odd or even)
• Listen to the Big Number Song(Kidstv123) on Youtube
• Zorbits.com

Physical Education:

• Go Noodle
• Cosmic Yoga Kids
• Just Dance Kids 
• Get outdoors and do a scavenger hunt or just enjoy a walk and fresh air!
• A great website for calming activities and self regulation activities which will help to keep everyone grounded through these stressful times: https://www.mindfulness-rocks.com/

Science:

• Explore Science through nature. Go on a walk and look for leaves or buds on trees, count birds, look for shapes in nature (are they 2D or 3D?), talk about seasons and the differences between them all, check the temperature outside and write it down. Track it for a few days and see which day was the coldest and warmest.
• Watch live zoo cams (San Diego Zoo, Maryland Zoo, Monterey Aquarium)
• Bill Nye The Science Guy: https://www.billnye.com/
• The Magic School Bus on Youtube
• Mystery Science https://mysteryscience.com/ (when it asks you to “set password”, click “skip for now”.

Religion:

• In keeping with the season of Lent, you can watch child friendly stories on Youtube by searching “The Beginners Bible, The Story of Easter”.
• Youtube : Kids Present The Easter Story 

French:

• https://www.duolingo.com/
• Google Translate - put in the english word and listen to it in French
• Find a favourite show/movie on Netflix and change the language to French
• https://www.thefrenchexperiment.com/
• https://ici.radio-canada.ca/jeunesse
• https://www.telequebec.tv/jeunesse-famille/
• See blog for list of French songs that Mme uses in class

Week of March 9th

Our letters this week are "sh" and the word is "she".  We learned that the letters s-h together make the sound "shhhhhh".

We are excited for St. Patrick's Day in Room 138!  We have been busy colouring shamrocks, reading stories about leprechauns and making rainbows.  It is going to be a fun week ahead! On Friday, we will be making leprechaun traps with our reading buddies.

Next week the school will be closed for March Break.  We hope you all have a wonderful week with your family.

VIP Project - Please send in your simple write up and workplace selfie.  This is a fun project for the kids.  They always love guessing what each parent does at work.

Kleenex- we are running out of kleenex in the classroom.  If you could spare a box for the classroom, it would be much appreciated.

On Friday, March 13th, we will be having a "beach day" where the kinder students are welcome to wear their favourite "beachy" outfits.  No bathing suits please!

Week of March 2nd

It's hard to believe that we have entered the month of March already!  Bring on the warmer weather!!! This week we are dancing our way into March with some fun hip hop dance classes taught by Luv2Groove.  We will be going all week for 30 minutes a day.  Today was our first day dancing and the kids had so much fun!

This year, we will be collecting pasta noodles for our North of 60 Lenten project.  A note is coming home tonight with more details.  Our kindergarten students are asked to donate 454g bags of spaghetti, rotini, small bowtie and elbow macaroni.  Your generosity and support is very much appreciated.

Our letter this week is "y".  We talked about all the sounds this letter makes and how it can trick us when sounding words out.  Our word is "my".  Ask your child to sing the song they learned today.

This afternoon, we read an amazing story called "The Invisible Boy".  The children were captivated by this story and were able to make so many personal connections.  We spoke about how one simple act of kindness can be contagious and can really change someone's day.  It was nice to hear about kind acts that the students have done or received from others.

Just a reminder that the school will be closed on Thursday, March 5th and will re-open on Friday.

Here are some pictures from today:

Week of Feb 24th

Our letter of the week is "d" and our word of the week is "do".  The students loved singing our poem "Do You Like Broccoli" and finding all the 'do's in the poem.  

Today we worked on measurement and counting with animals and cubes.  The kids drew pictures of their animals and added numbers and words to their work.  Their job was to measure and count how big their animal was using cubes and to explain how they measured it (length or height).

In the afternoon, we looked at 4 snowmen and wrote down what was different between them.  It was our version of a "Spot the Difference" activity.  The children were so good at finding everything and they seemed to really enjoy doing it.

Today was a warm and sunny day and as a result, many children came in with wet pants and socks. Please ensure that your child has extra socks and pants at school.  This week is going to have a mixture of weather so I am predicting more soakers to come!  

We are beginning to talk about Lent and the journey toward Easter. On Wednesday, we will be joining the whole school in the gym for our Lenten liturgy. As we continue our Lenten journey, we are deepening our discussions about kindness and friendship.

This week, we will also be participating in the Rocks and Rings curling activity in the gym. It is a busy week for sure. Please note that there is no longer any strike action planned for Tuesday this week and the school will be open.

Week of Feb. 18

We hope that you enjoyed the beautiful weekend with your family!The children had many stories to share about their adventures over the long weekend.
Last week was all about love, friendships and partnerships. There was lots of excitement about Valentine's Day and making our Love Monsters. Hopefully they all made it home in one piece!

Our class has been very fortunate to have a wonderful opportunity to work with a drama production class from All Saints High School. A mother of a student in the other kinder class is the drama teacher at All Saints and she has graciously offered to bring the class to our school once a week to work on drama (aka "pretend") with the children. We are planning our first chance to get together next week on Wednesday.

Due to the short week, we will not have a letter or word of the week. Instead, we will review the words on our word wall and practice letter sounds. The first term Communication of Learning will be coming home today. There is a letter enclosed explaining the effect of the labour disruption. Should you have any questions regarding your child's report or progress, please feel free to reach out. We kindly ask that you save the envelope for the report and return it to school with your child so that it can be used again for the second term in June.


Last Thursday, blankets were sent home to be washed. In case you haven't had a chance to return your child's blanket, please do so as soon as possible. We also appreciate all the extra socks and mittens that have been sent in for each child.

Today we explored numbers by creating tall towers and counting how many cubes we used.  They had a great time and were very creative and inventive with their building strategies. We also read a book about smiling and how being happy makes everything better!  The children had great ideas of what makes them happy and smile.  Their homework is to come home with a smile for their family to see if it is contagious. 

Week of Feb. 10th

Today we celebrated the 100th day of school and had a blast!  The kids used their imagination and made self portraits of themselves at 100 years of age.  They all turned out adorable!  Mrs. T was busy tweeting pictures of this activity so be sure to check out the class twitter for more pictures.

We had the opportunity to make Valentine's Day cards for the veterans.  We talked about how a simple picture or card with a kind message can make a person have a wonderful day.  Many of the children participated in this activity and put lots of effort into their creations.

Our letter of the week is "l" and the word is "love".  Ask your child to sing the Love Song to you tonight!

We are in desperate need of 7 more empty kleenex boxes by Wednesday.  If you have any at home, please send them in with your child.  On Thursday, we will be handing out our Valentine's cards.  Due to severe allergies, we ask you not to send in any treats to pass out.

Last Friday, we completed our egg experiment by cutting into each egg.  The children were both in awe and completely grossed out!!!  Many of them were eager to go and observe and write what they saw.  See pictures below for your own observations!

Reminders:

• Tuesday, February 11th is crazy hair or hat day.
• Wednesday, February 12th is jersey day.  It is also "Double Lunch Day". You are asked to send in an extra bagged lunch that will be taken to the Mission for those in need.
• Thursday, February 13th is pink, red and white day.  Dress in these colours.
• Friday is a PD Day so the school will be closed for the students. 
• Monday is Family Day so there is no school.  Enjoy your day with your family!

Empty Kleenex Boxes

Hello!

We still need quite a few empty kleenex boxes for our special Valentine's Day craft.  We will be starting them next Wednesday.  If you have any empty kleenex boxes at home, we would put them to good use at school!