February Newsletter

February is upon us and we will soon wrap up our Ocean theme. We will change our focus this month to the topics of Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day and Friendship. We will also continue to discuss "Healthy Habits" this month.

We have completed our study of letters Jj, Hh, and Kk, and we will move on to learn about the names and sounds of Gg, Ff, and Bb. I encourage you to review all letters studied at home with your child. Ask them often, "What letter is this?", "What sound does it make?". I will soon be testing them in this area for our second report card.

We will continue working with numbers 1-5 during this short month. Children are continuing to count, create sets, show a number in two parts (2 fingers on one hand and 3 fingers on another is a way of making 5, and so is 4 fingers on one hand and 1 finger on the other ... you get the idea!), and recognize at a glance and name arrangements of 1-6 objects or dots (play dice games for practise!). As well, practise counting to 50 with your child. Often children have trouble making the transition to the numbers 20, 30, 40, and 50. We will continue to practise printing numbers 1-5.

Many children are beginning to receive their birthday certificate and telephone number certificate as a reward for memorizing this information. If your child does not soon bring this item home, it will be because he/she does not yet know this information and will need extra practise at home. Knowing this is also a part of our second term report card.

We are continuing to learn to tie shoe laces in our classroom. Each child who learns to tie his/her shoes before the end of June earns a shoe tying certificate and a trip to our classroom treasure box! If you could spend a little time at home practising this skill too, that would be great!!!

VALENTINES PARTY

Our Valentine's party will take place on Friday, February 12th. Students may bring Valentine cards beginning Wednesday, February 10th to exchange with their classmates, if they wish. Party munchies will be provided and served in the morning for snack! I have attached a list of the children's first names in the classroom to the hard copy of our newsletter. This should help you when filling out Valentines!

WINTER BREAK

There will be no school for Kindergarten from Monday, February 15th, to Friday, February 19th, inclusive. Our first day back after the break is Tuesday,
February 23rd.

Have a great break! Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Lippai

Just a quick note to let everyone know that tomorrow (Tuesday, January 26th) there will be a cookie sale. Mrs. Nagy's grade one class has baked cookies to sell in an effort to raise money for Haiti earthquake victims. The cookies will be sold over the noon hour for a dollar each (they are nice BIG cookies!). Be sure to send a loonie to school with your child if he/she would like to purchase a cookie.

As well, I just want to remind everyone that there will be no school on Friday, January 29th, 2010. Kindergarten children will not return to school again until Tuesday, February 2nd (Groundhog Day). The February school newsletter will go home with Kindergarten children tomorrow.

Have a great evening!
Mrs. Lippai

Today was a very exciting day for our Kindergarten classroom! We finally received our long awaited dual-touch, interactive SMARTboard! It was installed first thing this morning and by this afternoon we were taking turns and playing a number of math games on it. The children were very excited! We are all looking forward to using our SMARTboard each Kindergarten day for a variety of learning activities.

We also had a shoe-lace tying lesson this afternoon. I have asked the children to practise tying laces at home with their parents. When your child is able to tie laces he/she will receive a special shoe lace tying certificate, his/her name on the shoe lace tying wall, and he/she can choose a prize from our classroom Treasure Box! I encourage you to work with your child at home on this skill. I work on it with them a bit at school, but with so many students, it is difficult to spend a lot of time with each student working on this skill. It is one of those things that takes a lot of practise to get good at! Good luck!

As well, we are working on reciting our birthdate and telephone number. Take time to review these things too. They will be part of your child's Term 2 report card.

Have a good weekend.
Mrs.Lippai

Kindergarten children having been working with the math vocabulary words "more","fewer", and "as many as". Children have brought home a math sheet with eight dogs on it which can be used to explain these ideas to family members at home. I have encouraged children to use small items such as marshmallows, fruitloops, or some other small object that could be placed next to each dog to demonstrate and explain these math vocabulary concepts. If you have a few spare moments, have your child show and explain to you. This will give you an opportunity to check for your child's understanding. Good Luck!